Biofuels Scam in the Global Warming Movement

Listen to the news these days and there is a lot of talk about biofuel. On the one hand you've got those saying that biofuels can help limit carbon emissions, thus slowing down global warming. On the other hand you've got those saying that biofuels can help us decrease our dependence on foreign oil. Really it does neither.

Biofuels have been around for a long time. Biodiesel, for example, was the original diesel fuel. Back at the turn of the 20^th century most fuels for personal vehicles was either biomass diesel fuel or ethanol. This began to change in the 20's when it was discovered that petroleum fuels were much cheaper to produce than biofuels. Despite everything that has happened in the past century, petroleum based fuels remain cheaper to produce than biofuels.

Supporters on the left of biofuels claim that ethanol can reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Well, according to pretty much every study done out there, ethanol currently presents a miniscule net gain on the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. Some studies have gone so far as to say that the production of ethanol is more polluting that gasoline!

As for reducing our dependence on foreign oil, well, we only get about a quarter of our oil from the Middle East in the first place, and making people use more expensive gasoline isn't going to make us less dependent on foreign oil. We've already been using ethanol for quite some time, and current gasoline can't be more than 10% ethanol, so really there isn't that much more ethanol we can add to our gasoline. Even if all gas in this country were 10% ethanol, we'd still be buying oil from the Saudis, Americans would just be paying more at the gas pump every time we wanted to fill up.

So who benefits from all of this talk about biofuels? The fact of the matter is that biofuels are just the current justification for subsidizing farmers, specifically corn farmers. Now, I like farmers, but should I really have to pay more at the gas pump so that they can make some more money off of their corn?

That's not even to mention the largest human cost of this biofuels subsidy: the poor people of the third world. For many of these people corn is their staple food. When the United States starts subsidizing corn farmers by putting in mandatory requirements for ethanol and biofuels, what happens? The price of corn goes up. Dramatically. And all of a sudden you've got poor families around the world who can't even afford the most basic of foods. Of course, if your President Bush, Al Gore, Willie Nelson or any of the other supporters of biofuels, you say "Let them eat cake!"

Biofuels has no benefit for the environment, it has no benefit for the American people, so why are we paying good taxpayer money to subsidize it and hurt the ability of impoverished peoples around the world to eat? It is a scam to score politicians some points with as if they are really doing something to help while all they are really doing is lining their pockets with donations from Big Agriculture (who are the only people really benefiting from all this).

Biofuels are a scam, and its about time that we let government know that we aren't interested in bogus schemes to line the pockets of Big Agriculture. We need real solutions to the problems that we face.