The current corn ethanol meltdown -- a dual economic and environmental problem -- is history repeating itself.
The parallels between the events leading up to the Great Dust Bowl and today's ethanol mess are unnerving. Each is revealing on what can go wrong when long-term sustainability measures are not taken Into account and how poorly-conceived government subsidies can thwart the best of good intentions.
The origins of the Great Dust Bowl began nearly a century ago when the government exhorted settlers to take their dreams west to the Great Plains. Backed by zero interest loans, free train rides and price guarantees, hundreds of thousands flocked to Texas and Oklahoma to cast their lot as wheat farmers. In less than 10 years, millions of acres of native grassland were plowed under and transformed into vast carpets of gold-tinted wheat. And gold it was: farmers were guaranteed $2 for every bushel they produced. The slogan at that time -- "Health, Wealth and Opportunity" -- was as accurate as it was optimistic.
Of course, nobody remembered then that the Great Plains had once been listed on U.S. maps as the Great American Desert, or that American explorer Stephen Long once described the dry, windswept region as "almost wholly uninhabitable by a people depending upon agriculture for their subsistence."
We all know what happened in the end. A double whammy of exhausted soil and a prolonged drought triggered the Great Dust Bowl of the 1930's, perhaps the biggest environmental catastrophe in the nation's history. Entire communities were literally swept under by the uprooted black dust that blew as far away as Boston and New York and halfway across the Atlantic Ocean. So great was the devastation that New York City in 1934 had to turn on its streetlights midday due to the dark clouds.
The corn ethanol boom is creating its own dark clouds over New York -- this time over Wall Street and companies that have invested billions to take advantage of generous government subsidies to expand ethanol's use in the U.S.
But painful truths about corn-based ethanol are now emerging. Rather than being an oil-reducing environmental panacea, corn ethanol provides little or no environmental benefit, is not reducing our dependence on oil and has caused corn prices -- translate, food prices -- to soar through the roof.
Unfortunately, this outcome was all too predictable to many in the environmental community, who recognized the limitations of the misguided subsidies when they were announced.
Don't get me wrong: I'm all in favor of boosting bio-fuel production that reduces oil dependence and greenhouse gas emissions at the same time. But corn-based ethanol likely isn't the answer. Cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass and other non-edible plant materials seems to hold greater promise for achieving these goals, but the jury is still out. Let's hope the government gets it right so that subsidies and incentives create long-term sustainability instead of more long-term problems.
Mindy S. Lubber is president of Ceres, a coalition of investors, environmental groups and other public interest organizations working with companies to address sustainability challenges such as global climate change.
