A new energy source at the expense of food?
There has been recent controversy over the idea of producing ethanol from corn as a possible alternative to petroleum. President Bush has called for more production of ethanol, up to 35 billion gallons by 2017. But ethanol production has caused food prices to increase. Prices for corn in the US have risen from 2 to 3 dollars and this is affecting other areas of the world as well. Mexicans protested in Jauary because of the increase in the price of tortillas. Since Mexico buys alot of its corn from the US, the increase in prices has had a great effect on the Mexican economy. There is a suggestion that Mexico needs a policy to look at transferring food to energy. Not only has Mexico responded negatively to the increase in ethanol prodution, but Chavez also denouced the idea saying that the production of ethanol was the same as “starving the poor to feed automobiles”. He said he was not directly against the production of ethanol, but that he was against the idea of using corn to produce it. If ethanol production begins to increase dramatically in the years to come, there may be more outcries from countries around the world as food prices rise. It becomes a question of fuel vs. food and a debate about whether the rich countries should develop an alternative energy source at the expense of feeding the people in the poorer countries. The rich countries and especially the United States use the most energy out of all the countries in the world, and as new energy sources are needed to replace petroleum, questions will arise as to the costs and benefits and debates will continue regarding fuel vs. food. From a realists perspective, there are winners and there are losers. If the United States and the rest of the industrialized world develop an alternative source of energy that will decrease their dependence on oil, then they have gained something even if it is at the expense of other countries and their people. This is the idea of relative gains, how much a state can gain in relation to another. Realists are also concerned with how issues such as this relate to power and security. Who will be the United States enemy because of rising food prices and the inability to feed the populations of poorer countries? For realists, the benefits outweigh the costs: some win and some lose and that is just the way it is.
