   
Pouring food into the gas tank not such a good idea
By CHEYENNE GERDES
STUDENT CORRESPONDENT
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 Bio-fuel or fuel made from veggies like corn or soybeans was a bad idea.
When the notion first came up and someone said, "Eureka, I have found an alternative," I was pretty excited. It sounded like a great idea. We could slow down our senseless drilling and lower our output of noxious gases. Better watch out, global warming here comes the United States into a new, green, eco-friendly era, all made possible by science.
And I wasn't the only one who was excited. Environmentalists all over the country were thrilled. Companies started making converters for cars, so gas cars could switch to bio-fuel. People began to actually use the stuff. And now I realize that "going green" was a bad idea.
To understand most things about politics, one has to understand the basic laws of supply and demand. When people need something, and there is not much of it, prices go up. When people don't want something, and supply is plentiful, prices go down. It's a pretty simple concept.
With that in mind, think of corn. Corn is the magic substance that makes this bio-fuel, this magic liquid. Lots of corn is required to make all this gas. That isn't really a problem, right? Well, all the corn is going to research and powering cars now. What is the effect?
Cows need corn to eat. Chickens need corn to eat. People need corn to eat. So now it's more expensive to buy food for animals because demand for corn has risen. Because it is more expensive to feed the animals, bacon, eggs, beef, milk and poultry prices have skyrocketed. Not to mention corn-based foods like cornmeal and cereals have been getting pricier. A regular breakfast is getting expensive. Bacon, eggs, milk and cereal are becoming harder to get because the corn is going into the gas tank instead of on the table.
That is a small price to pay for environmental health though, right? We eat too much anyway here in America.
However, there are some other problems. If you were a poor farmer desperately needing money, what crop would you grow these days? Corn, right? The demand is up. Supply is low, so it's lucrative. That's what a lot of people in South America are doing. Since all of these South American farmers need land on which to grow corn, they clear rain forests. Now you see the dilemma. First of all, we shouldn't drive food prices up any higher. There is a lack of food all around the world right now, there are food riots going on in places like Haiti and the Ivory Coast because people are unable to afford food, especially from the United States. To add the environmentally destructive icing on the top of the bio-fuel cake, the forests are disappearing even more rapidly.
Let's put the corn back into the stores, ranches and tables of America. Let's get it out of the gas tank. Instead of focusing on "alternative fuels" we should focus on using less fuel in general, because no fuel is going to come without a cost. The world has to decide, food or fuel, and it's obvious which is the more essential.
(Cheyenne Gerdes is a junior at Conway High School and a staff writer for the Wampus Cat newspaper.)
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