Biofools

What's interesting about biofuels is how we're marching towards the financial, human and environmental disaster they represent with our wallets and our eyes open. We know that the rush to biofuels is accelerating the destruction of Amazon rainforest. We know they are a nonsense in that they offer little, if any net reduction in fossil fuel use or greenhouse gas emissions. We suspect that they are helping drive up the price of food. And we can see very clearly that we are transferring taxpayer funds to subsidise the stuff:

[M]uch of the biodiesel produced in the United States from soybeans and corn (and subsidised by American taxpayers to the tune of $1 a gallon) winds up in Europe, where it benefits from still further subsidies. That’s great for farmers in the Midwest, but offers little consolation to motorists across America. Source

I used to think that the corrupt, deranged agricultural policies of the US and Europe could only be implemented because they were devised behind closed doors and the real beneficiaries - wealthy landowners, large agricultural corporates and the legions of bureaucratic policy administrators - concealed their true purpose from a naive, distracted public. But now I'm not so sure. We cannot plead lack of information any more. Perhaps it's the opposite: too much information?