FOOD part 2

In the chapter “The Ethanol Scam”, I found a pretty funny yet powerful quote regarding ethanol and the politics that surround it.“and that forces even supposed change agents such as John McCain and Barack Obama, to genuflect before the alter of corn ethanol(p92)”. Another shocking quote I found was “even if all the corn in the us were turned into ethanol it would supply less than six percent of the US' total oil needs. These points about ethanol are making me think a little differently about biofuels made from corn based plants. Even after seeing the film and seeing how almost our of our food is made from some form or bi-products of corn, I begin to realize how “Corn is King”., when it come to homegrown crops. The author goes on to describe the environmental problems that burning ethanol based gasoline cause in the US such as water pollution and smog. Another problem that was discussed was the irrigation problem that corn causes since is is a very water dependent crop. There is at least some hope when the organic farms were discussed when the author writes “we are just beginning to see the results from long-term studies showing how organic farms create healthy soil, which has a greater capacity to store carbon, creating “carbon sinks”. I enjoy reading about the possible solutions to these problems since much of this reading is very negative and pessimistic.
In the chapter “Why Bother?” a humorous quote I found was talking about AL Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth, “The really dark moment came during the closing credits, when we are asked to change our lite bulbs”. This sounds very familiar to the theme of “green washing” that was discussed previously in the class. Another interesting point that was brought up was when the author writes “ The Big Problem is nothing more nor less than the sum of countless everyday choices, most of them made by us, and most of the rest of them made in the name of our needs and desires and preferences”. This theme was also explained in the film Food Inc. when the workers for Walmart started to carry the organic yogurt because “ that what the consumers demanded”.