From the CBC's Rex Murphy:"The ethanol craze grew out of alarmism and the deep desire of governments, especially here in North America and Europe, to be seen as green. Now, it's clear that growing corn to make ethanol not only takes more energy to produce than it saves on the other end, but the subsidies, particularly in the States and Europe, for such production is one of the factors driving an international food crisis that, as always, is hardest on the poorest people of the world.
Did you know that the clearance of grassland for biofuel releases 93 times the amount of greenhouse gas that would be saved by the fuel made annually on that land? That's from "Science" magazine. The European Environmental Agency has warned that the commitment to biofuels will lead to, I'm quoting here, "the accelerated devastation of rain forests." The commitment to those noble Kyoto targets is leading to some strange results. World food crisis, great destruction of rain forests... who would have ever guessed that saving the planet could contribute to such unenvironmental ends?"
