Keeping warm in an ethical way - Is it acceptable to use food crops as fuel?

TY - CHAP

T1 - Keeping warm in an ethical way - Is it acceptable to use food crops as fuel?

AU - Gamborg, C.

AU - Madsen, K. H.

AU - Sandøe, P.

PY - 2009/12/1

Y1 - 2009/12/1

N2 - Since 1990 crop based products which may be used as food are not allowed in the Danish heating supply system-for 'ethical' reasons. This ethically founded resistance seems to flourish in other parts of the world as well: you cannot burn food when there is hunger in the world. At the same time, setting agricultural land aside or growing non-food crops on a minor part of the fields has been seen by many as a fairly uncontroversial solution to periodical surplus production of food within the European Union (EU). This is despite the fact that the net result is the same: less food is produced, i.e. a smaller part of the production area is used for producing crops for food. The main issue to be addressed in this paper is to understand what lies behind this difference in acceptance. In the paper the background and arguments used in the debate are described and discussed to see whether ethically relevant differences between the two ways of reducing surplus agricultural production can be discerned. The paper argues that one obvious way of explaining the difference is by means of the so-called act-and omission-doctrine found in discussions on medical ethics.

AB - Since 1990 crop based products which may be used as food are not allowed in the Danish heating supply system-for 'ethical' reasons. This ethically founded resistance seems to flourish in other parts of the world as well: you cannot burn food when there is hunger in the world. At the same time, setting agricultural land aside or growing non-food crops on a minor part of the fields has been seen by many as a fairly uncontroversial solution to periodical surplus production of food within the European Union (EU). This is despite the fact that the net result is the same: less food is produced, i.e. a smaller part of the production area is used for producing crops for food. The main issue to be addressed in this paper is to understand what lies behind this difference in acceptance. In the paper the background and arguments used in the debate are described and discussed to see whether ethically relevant differences between the two ways of reducing surplus agricultural production can be discerned. The paper argues that one obvious way of explaining the difference is by means of the so-called act-and omission-doctrine found in discussions on medical ethics.

KW - Act

KW - Agriculture

KW - Bioethanol

KW - Biofuels

KW - Omission

U2 - 10.3920/978-90-8686-673-1

DO - 10.3920/978-90-8686-673-1

M3 - Book chapter

AN - SCOPUS:84869087428

SN - 9789086861156

SP - 106

EP - 110

BT - Ethical Futures

PB - Wageningen Academic Publishers

ER -