A Corny Start To The Day

Its not something one sees every day, a dozen people dressed up as ears of corn, chanting in the street.

They are protesting about the use of food in the production of biofuels. With hundreds of millions of starving people in the world, for whom a corn on the cob would be a rare luxury, they have a good point.

Another consquence of a shift towards biofuels is deforestation.

We thought we had that problem under control, but the vast subsidies that accompany biofuel production make it attractive to the developing nations to tear down the rainforests and grow corn, etc.

Now I am a great believer in a move towards renewable energy sources, and I understand that this involves subsidies. Goodness knows, we pour enough subsidies into nuclear power, even now.

But the price for the production of biofuels and the development of the technologies seems to come at a high price. As is generally the case, these costs are borne by those at the lowest end of the economic ladder, which means those in the developing nations, especially the women and children. They will bear the brunt of the environmental degradation, and it is they who will go hungry.

Nothing changes, only the victims.