I was reading the Internet version of the April 7 2008 issue of Time Magazine, the article titled “The Clean Energy Myth” about how the big rush to grow corn to use for biofuel is actually worsening the global warming problem and raising the cost of food. Apparently the demand for corn for producing biofuel is so high that the farmers are selling their corn to the companies that will be turning it into fuel instead of selling it to the companies that will be using it to make food. So much of the world depends on corn as a staple; this is causing hardships for them. And the profit for growing corn for fuel is so high that the Amazon jungle, which has already been in jeopardy from deforestation for years now, is being destroyed even faster than ever so that it can be used to grow corn.
I think that this is a shame on so many levels. There are other, better and cheaper plants that could be used for creating fuel than corn. So many farmers are paid subsidies to NOT grow crops, I think that those subsidies should be stopped so that the farmers will actually farm their land, or lease it to someone who will farm it. The Amazon forest needs to be protected, I don’t understand how the ownership of that works, who actually owns that property and why is he/she allowing it to be destroyed? Can’t the government of the country it is in buy it with some kind of eminent domain power and protect it from destruction?
Lots of things on my mind….