NYT’s Cohen: Forget Ethanol. Rising Food Prices Caused by Poor Eating Twice a Day
I know what you’re thinking: he grabbed the New York Times’ columnist’s most ridiculous assertion and repeated it out of context. If so, you need to read “Bring on the Right Biofuels,” ’cause this Roger Cohen guy is the MR. Context Manipulation. After listing the charges against bio-fuels, Cohen says “hogwash and bilge”– and then admits he was somewhat wrong about ethanol’s critics being somewhat wrong. “I’ll grant that the fashion for bio-fuels led to excess, and that some farm-to-fuel-plant conversion, particularly in subsidized U.S. and European markets, makes no economic or environmental sense. But bio-fuels remain very much part of the solution. It just depends which bio-fuels.” So, on to [theoretical] production of ethanol from switchgrass, wood chips and garbage, right? Wrong. Cohen is too busy pinning the blame for rising food prices on oil prices and rising standards of living in third world developing nations. “They’re eating twice a day, instead of once, and propelling rapid urbanization. Their demand for food staples and once unthinkable luxuries like meat is pushing up prices.” Perhaps. Anyway, what’s to be done about ethanol? Remove the tariff against Brazilian ethanol! And? And that’s it.