Is Ethanol crossing an Ethical line? – UPDATED

Just last month I wrote at Pajamas Media:

…proponents of ethanol, despite growing evidence that food energies are causing some unexpected environmental problems of their own, press on with the idea of using fiber and food to create energy, even though the UN reports that world food supplies are quickly dwindling

Our food bill is certainly feeling the effects, too – and now we see food vendors limiting the amount of rice that may be purchased.

So…thanks to the noble environmentalists, we’re not allowed to drill for the huge beds of oil we own; because we’re not allowed to drill and refine our own resources, our heating and fuel bills are skyrocketing, our grocery bills are rising and – most troublingly – we may be facing food shortages…and still mucking up Gaia, to boot.

Doesn’t sound so noble to me. And so much for our “oilman” president freeing us from dependence on other countries. He did that about as well as Bill Clinton before him.

Now, Professor Bainbridge is writing:

I do not see this as some Malthusian crisis portending the end of the world. In short order, markets will adjust. The rising prices of food will incentivize farmers to put more land in the production and to make greater use of a higher yield crop strains. There will probably also be a shift towards greater use of genetically modified grains that have higher yields and longer shelf lives.
[…]
[But having said that]…The US government policy on subsidizing ethanol is bad economics, bad for the environment, and bad for hungry people everywhere. If biofuels are to be part of American energy policy, economics, environmental concerns, and ethics, all argue for the use of non-food sources (such as switch grass) farmed on land too marginal for use for food production.

Yeah, it’s bad policy. But I’m wondering if it is also immoral?

I’m sure that sounds extreme, and I don’t mean to. It also sounds very Roman Catholic, but I can’t help that; it seems to me that there is a morality question here – is it ever right to burn food for energy when people are hungry?

Taking a line through the idea of things being used for the purposes intended, one might call burning for food both “disordered” and (when doing so threatens humanity) “intrinsically evil.”

I just know it makes me uncomfortable as hell to consider burning fuel to zip down to Walt Disney World, if it means people somewhere else are struggling to get fed.

UPDATED: Mr. Gore was unavailable for an interview on this subject. Of course he was. He always is when the questions are substantive and hard, and the press wants to do more than burnish his ego.