Wednesday-Night

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Haiti, among the countries hit hardest by the global food crisis, should return to more homegrown food staples such as corn, experts say. But in this analysis of why the Caribbean country’s food crisis runs so deep, the Los Angeles Times reports that local farmers see such a path […]

May 3 2008
Biofuel salvation or perdition?
As debate heats up on the wisdom of turning plants into energy, Ottawa embraces the idea
A growing global food crisis has not curbed the appetite of Canada’s newest biofuel plant, which is busy stockpiling a mountain of wheat near this town west of Regina.
Billed as the largest wheat-fed ethanol plant […]

P Please consider the environment before printing

See also The Biofuel Backlash and
Toxic chemicals and Environment on wednesday-night.com
We also recommend Andrew Coyne’s column If not Kyoto, what? of May 24, 2006. We haven’t advanced a whole lot since then.

3 May 2008
Burning money
By Henry Aubin
The hope that some new oil-free technology will rescue […]

Before doing our usual tour d’horizon of news and events around the globe, we would like to call to your attention much pleasanter local happenings: the Octet Plus (with Holly Jonas and David Oliver) concert on Saturday, 26 April; the Infinitheatre fundraiser (John Mavridis) on Tuesday 29 April - featuring […]

Trucks are loaded with sugar cane, which will be used to produce biofuels, in Brazil. Photograph: Paulo Whitaker/Reuters
More on Biofuels
April 17
Brazil Lula Defends Biofuels From Growing Criticism
(Reuters Planet Ark) BRASILIA - President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva defended Brazil’s production of biofuels on Wednesday, rejecting criticism that they are furthering a surge in global food […]

More on Biofuels
April 05, 2008
Scammers see green dollars
Scam artists can smell a fad. They feed on naive enthusiasm. In the green movement, they’ve found enough naive enthusiasm to sustain them for years.
(The Ottawa Citizen) Many consumers are learning, slowly, not to be dupes. They’re figuring out how to detect the same old polluting products […]

We had promised that Beryl would be with us last week to talk about the new publication, The MetropolitaIn, that he will launch next month. He was unavoidably detained, but assures us that he will be present tomorrow night.
As always, we have the U.S. presidential campaign on the Agenda and certainly this week we cannot […]

Jatropha curcus
Flickr/jurvetson
[BEIJING] Using China’s forests and ‘idle land’ to produce biofuels could pose a threat to biodiversity, warned experts at an international meeting.
Spike Millington, chief technical advisor to the European Union-China Biodiversity Programme, raised the problem earlier this month (7 March) at the International Workshop on Biodiversity and […]

March 12
While we scarcely agree with the all of the thoughts voiced in this article - not all biofuel production is bad - , the point is that the impact of the biofuel craze on world hunger could become devastating.
(The Ottawa Citizen) The poor pay the price
David Warren
A few weeks ago I wrote in […]

We welcome two new faces this week, guest experts, who bring knowledge of at least three extremely pertinent topics to the table.
Danny van Gelder will introduce his cousin, Mark Kruger, an economist by training, who serves as Minister Counselor/Head of Section (Economics and Finance) of the Canadian Embassy in Beijing and key link between the […]