MB Civic

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/09/20/opinion/20friedman.html?pagewanted=print

Still in Brazil researching sugar ethanol, Friedman notes that “Development and environmental experts have long searched for environmentally sustainable ways to alleviate rural poverty,” and suggests that the growing of sugar cane to provide sugar ethanol could be such a way. However, he notes that “We tax sugar ethanol, which could finance our poor friends, but we don’t tax crude oil, which defnitely finances our rich enemies. We’d rather power anti-Americans with our energy purchases than promote anti-poverty.”

He notes that the imposition of a tariff is due to “pressure from Midwest farmers and agribusinesses who want to protect the U.S. corn ethanol industry from competition.” This, despite the fact that, “Sugar ethanol provides eight times the energy of the fossil fuel used to make it, while…corn ethanol provides only 1.3 times [that] energy…sugar ethanol reduces greenhouse gases more than corn ethanol…[and] sugar ethanol can easily be grown in poor tropical countries in Africa or the Caribbean, and could actually help alleviate their poverty.”