Tuesday 2 October 2007

The Economics of Screwing Over The Poor To Keep Your SUV Running

The summary of this article, How Biofuels Could Starve The Poor, says it all. The rest is detail:
Thanks to high oil prices and hefty subsidies, corn-based ethanol is now all the rage in the United States. But it takes so much supply to keep ethanol production going that the price of corn -- and those of other food staples -- is shooting up around the world.

Via TMN, again.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The whole ethanol subsidy thing in America is a sop to the Iowa farmers to get their votes. The environmental benefits are small and can even be worse in relation to affects on the ozone layer. Something to do with ethanol burning at a higher temperature.
As part of an overall environmental program ethanol production might play a small part.

Anonymous said...

The whole ethanol subsidy thing in America is a sop to the Iowa farmers to get their votes. The environmental benefits are small and can even be worse in relation to affects on the ozone layer. Something to do with ethanol burning at a higher temperature.
As part of an overall environmental program ethanol production might play a small part.

Paul said...

There's all sorts of things with this that are just plain wrong.

Surely the most effective way of protecting the environment from the effects of car usage is to change the way we use our cars, or, at the very least, buy cars with smaller more efficient engines.

The US-Goverment and the Oil companies just can't seem to bring themselves to suggest this, so instead we have a plan that gestures toward the problem while creating further problems for people they don't particularly care about (poor non-americans who don't drive).

The rich staying oblivious and the poor getting shit upon yet again.