- the biofuel backlash goes mainstream

That seems to be the message from two stories published today, one on each side of the Atlantic.
In a news analysis, the New York Times notes that:
a reaction is building against policies in the United States and Europe to promote ethanol and similar fuels, with political leaders from poor countries contending that these fuels are [...]

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- corn prices soar. Hurray!

It’s a slightly perverse argument but we’re not the only ones to be making the connection between the recent rise in US corn prices and the good that might do us all.
As followers of Michael Pollan know well, major subsidies to US corn producers have made processed foods containing high fructose corn syrup much cheaper [...]

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- we’re unpaving paradise (but to farm ethanol)

Since long before Joni Mitchell lamented how we’d paved over our paradises with parking lots, critics have regretted the degree to which human development comes at the expense of the natural landscape.
But we live in interesting times and one aspect of them is the renewed power that agriculture has in the economic balance of things. [...]

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