Political Cartoon by Michael Ramirez

http://www.copleynews.com/CopleyNews/Searches/ImageSearch.asp?searchsubmit=ON&VIEW=&THUMBNAILS=&ADVANCED=&PreviousQueries=PREVIOUSQUERIES&SEARCHPHRASE=ethanol&I2.x=0&I2.y=0&USING=ALLWORDS&SEARCH=CONTENTS&PRODUCTS=%2Fcontent%2Feditorialcartoons%2F&CISORT=RDATE


Once you click on the link the second cartoon listed is the one I chose. This cartoon is portraying the side effects of the new push for more ethanol in fuels. Although a seemingly great idea and another method of cutting back our dependance on foreign countries for our oil the larger problems that it causes go largely unreported in much of the media. The most troubling of them is the worldwide pressures it is putting on poor people to even cover the costs of feeding themselves. I want to go into this topic and show how the supposed benefits of ethanol are far outweighed by the unseen costs. Its not only corn prices that are being affected by this higher demand but farmers are switching to corn and abandoning other crops to make more money. This has caused shortages in the other crops and thus prices are rising across the board.