Filmmaker Josh Tickell: Fueling the Ethanol Debate

Ask an environmentally aware friend of yours what they think about ethanol and the response will probably be negative. Critics of this long-established biofuel will say that it’s not a viable long-term replacement for petroleum-based fuels, that it competes with food production by diverting corn, that it’s hard to store, doesn’t travel well, or doesn’t go to the more underlying problem of over-consumption. But how did most of us reach this conclusion? Who made these drawbacks to ethanol part of conventional wisdom?   This week’s guest on Sea Change Radio, filmmaker, Josh Tickell, offers a different perspective. Tickell recently completed a documentary film titled Freedom that presents ethanol as a solution to this country’s reliance on fossil fuels. Host Alex Wise asks him how his thinking on this subject changed so dramatically since his last highly-acclaimed documentary, Fuel, and find out more about why he believes in ethanol’s potential as a clean alternative.