The choice between feeding our SUVs and feeding children in the Third World?

While I am all for low or non-polluting renewable energy, the recent hype with biofuels should give us pause. Regarding corn ethanol in particular, we should realize that anything having to do with corn is more about federal boondoggles than it is about producing food or anything else useful. Some believe that the fossil fuel inputs to corn (fertilizer, tractors, transport cost) actually mean it takes more gasoline to produce corn ethanol than the ethanol can replace. Rolling Stone often publishes great articles on non-music subjects, and The Ethanol Scam is one of them. Another such article is the one on Pork's Dirty Little Secret.

The recent rise in the price of oil has resulted in a significant rise in the cost of food for those in extreme poverty (by Jeffrey Sachs' definition, those living on less than about US$1 a day), as discussed in The Economist and The New York Times. Did you know, by the way, that NYT has a permalinking function aimed primarily for bloggers but open to everyone (just go to the share menu next to each article)? Many of the articles in NYT are archived after a week, after which access must be paid for, unless the article is permalinked by an outsider. The permalinking function shows that NYT is ambivalent about charging for content. Are they wrestling with The Pirate's Dilemma?