Expaning on your starting premise that taking food to make bio-fuel poses an ethical dilemma: In the UAE there is a golf course in a desert. In fact all around the world, even in countries with high malnutrition and poverty, we have beautifully kept, irrigate sporting complexes where food can be grown. All over the world we have agricultural land used for other purposes instead of growing food. 20% of all grain is already fed to livestock, which in turn produce only 6& of the world's food. What your arguement really implies is that bio-fuels should be classified differently than all other actibities that undermine food production. People who want to make money, or just survive, from selling their crop for biofuel instead as food are unethical. To put it bluntly: it is a bullsh#t arguement. The prolem is total food production and affordability: the fuel price, whether fossil or renewable affects everything in the supply chain, no farmer will grow food at a loss which affects the suppply, and there are too many poor people, which affects the deman. If production costs are at a level that it affects profitability, production drops. Even if you up the price, the market will buy less, or buy only basic grains. Furthermore: ever third world country dependent on a World Bank or IMF loan were forced to drop all agricultural protection policies, whereas the more powerful countries like China, US, and also the EU still have protection tariffs effectively killing food production in poorer countries due to cheaper subsidised imports. Idiots in power, like Mugabe, does not help either. The point is; it is not as simple as swopping food foor biofuel. It is also important to remind people how the margarine industry funded "research" and published finding on how dangerous butter was supposed to by. The oil companies have even bigger PR machines behind them.

The validity or not of the claim that converting food to biofuel is wasteful was never the point of my arguement. There are two issues: firstly total food production from current arrable land use an secondly, freedom to apply your capital as you see fit. 1: if you are concerned that people do not have food, then look at the total food supply, in fact, total land use in the world, production, distribution, waste, protection tarriffs, cartels etc that affect the availability of food and the price of food. 2: the right to apply your capital in whichever way you see fit and selling that product or service to the highest bidder is the basis of our economy, the merit of which can be debated, but if you want to be consistent, then restriction on production, i.e. forcing people to produce more food, and controlling what it can be used for, food only, must apply to everyone. Do you now that farmers deliberately leave land fallow if the market price of a particular procuct is too low to be economically viable or that grains are kept in storage, off the market, to push the price up before it is delivered? Back to my original list: golf courses, big gardens, sport fields must then produce food, for instance. Furthermore, farmers produce more expensive crops and products, that feed fewer people at a higher price (meat, diary) because they have to be economically viable. Or do we nationalise food production (like the de facto nationalisation of the the financial industry that has just taken place) so that the state can decide what products you get on the supermarket shelves?

I agree there are ethical issue with biofuel, but it is not really an issue of biofuels per se. Total food production that allows farmers to be profitable, with enough food for the population at a price they can afford is the issue. Another arguement used against bio-fuels is the deforestation in places like brazil for people to grow other crops for fuel. A valid point, but if you want to tell that brazilian he is not allowed a living because you want to protect the environment then just apply that consitantly: You'll need to shut down every mine in the world.

And butter is worse for you than margarine? It depends on the type of margarine and the diet of the cows. It is never as simple as one better than the other. The margarine industry would like you to believe that, though. And calling me cynical is an ad hominem arguement; saying that most scientists are ethical is not only relative, it is also subjective. I've never claimed that all scientists who study CO2 during the next 8 years are just shills.I also did not imply implying that all cultural and moral ethical issues are fought or determined by PR machines. People are ill informed; my knowledge is incomplete. But opinion is formed by your posts and the study you quoted. Bio fuels are just the next thing that affects food production, malnutrition and affordability of food. Bio fuels can not be singled out for an ethical judgement when the problem has so much more to do with other issues. That is the point. And your post, the PR machines and the study you quoted fail to point that out. It is not that the academics were pai off by the oil companies, but do you also know that you can pay people to make sure a certain number of articles will be flighted in newspapers and on television that puts your company or industry in a good light? That is not being cynical. That is just a fact.