Biofuels v Food

The logical connective “or” doesn’t translate well in English. You can have an inclusive disjunction or an inclusive injunction. The previous sentence is an example of an exclusive disjunction. The debate over biofuels is a case where policymakers are trying to figure out whether it is an inclusive or exclusive disjunction: is it possible to have biofuels and affordable food (inclusive) or is it one or the other (exclusive). Unfortunately, the debate – like virtually every other arena of environmental policy – is dogged by information asymmetries. How nice it would be to have a “view from nowhere” and get through these riddles.

Biofuels are any fuels derived from natural sources. Obviously oil is actually a biofuel, but the “biofuels” under consideration typically come from grains, soya or sugar cane (and others). Lord Stern has argued that the use of grain-based biofuels are “very worrying” because they compete with food. Many have been talking about this for years - not, interestingly, many environmental groups who as recently as 2004 were championing biofuel. Lo and behold, this year has seen a troubling correlation between rocketing food prices (see graph from The Economist) and the rise of biofuels.

If we are good critical thinkers, then we should be careful here: correlation doesn’t demonstrate a causal connection. Bad harvests and export restrictions as well as increasing demand (the global population continues to increase) are likely to have boosted food prices. But the obvious promotion, through subsidies and tax incentives, of land-use towards biofuel production – as well as the intensive use of limited water resources – has clearly had some impact upon the supply of food, particularly crops that are staple diets for developing countries. Britain and Japan have been the most vocal, whereas others have either denied any strong link or blamed others.

One depressing response has been for the US to champion second generation biofuels that would come from waste products like wood or straw to produce cellulosic ethanol, which wouldn’t compete with food. The same paradigm of thinking was behind that Pacific alliance, aimed at fostering new technologies to combat climate change rather than the more fundamental task of pricing carbon.

If there is a partial link between the aggressive promotion of biofuels by developed countries and the soaring food prices, it demonstrates something significant: the West is still happy to maintain its current style of living at the expense of others. The biggest champion of biofuels has been the USA, which has opted to promote biofuels rather than, say, restructuring transport habits and infrastructure.

Let’s just apply a crude Kantian approach to this situation: what if everyone did that? There are several websites that aptly demonstrate this neat thought experiment.

http://sustainability.publicradio.org/consumerconsequences/
http://www.google.co.uk/carbonfootprint/

I recall reading a report published by the New Economics Foundation (if anyone can find me the reference – please email!), which suggested that for everyone in the world to enjoy an equal standard of living, we would have to be constrained to the standard of living in the early 1960s. In 1961, only three out of ten UK households had the use of a car but by 1998 seven out of ten households had the use of a car. Only 2 per cent of households had the use of two or more cars – by 1998 the figure was 28 per cent. The average size of a UK household in 2001 was 2.36 – down from 3.7 in 1961.

Regardless of one’s own self-interest, there is a compelling moral imperative to change how we live our lives. It shouldn’t matter with “biofuels or food” is an inclusive or exclusive disjunctive. Our current lifestyle treats others merely as a means to an end and not ends in themselves. Many debates surrounding policy choices and the environment seem to be built upon the assumption that the developed world should experience be no utility loses when finding a solution. This approach, however, is profoundly immoral.

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