Conservation is necessary
The Federal and Provincial governments in Canada require from 5% to 7.5% ethanol to be blended with gasoline. However, there are no credible programs in place to reduce overall gasoline consumption. Statistics Canada showed an increase of 3.4% in fossil fuel consumption from June 2006 to June 2007. As long as overall consumption is going up, ethanol blending is simply another discredited energy "intensity" measure.
There are many simple and immediate energy conservation measures that could be taken which would have a real impact on climate change—measures which would not take farmland out of food production, or require increased intensive livestock production. In the absence of serious energy conservation efforts, there is no credibility to the "green" claims that ethanol is a climate change measure.