Pigs Fly And Paul Krugman Gets Something Right

Wow, even the uber-liberal Krugman gets the pipe dream that is ethanol and the folly of food to fuel, writing in today's NYT.

Where the effects of bad policy are clearest, however, is in the rise of demon ethanol and other biofuels.

The subsidized conversion of crops into fuel was supposed to promote energy independence and help limit global warming. But this promise was, as Time magazine bluntly put it, a “scam.”

This is especially true of corn ethanol: even on optimistic estimates, producing a gallon of ethanol from corn uses most of the energy the gallon contains. But it turns out that even seemingly “good” biofuel policies, like Brazil’s use of ethanol from sugar cane, accelerate the pace of climate change by promoting deforestation.

And meanwhile, land used to grow biofuel feedstock is land not available to grow food, so subsidies to biofuels are a major factor in the food crisis. You might put it this way: people are starving in Africa so that American politicians can court votes in farm states.

Christian Science Monitor also looks at rising food costs and the peril bio-fuels cause.
And don't miss this great article in Financial Times by Nigel Lawson on Europe's over reaching on global warming legislation and the enormous costs for relatively negligable returns.