Jaguars, blue macaws and giant armadillos roam the fickle landscape of Brazil's Cerrado, a vast plateau where temperatures range from freezing to steaming hot and bushes and grasslands alternate with forests and the richest variety of flora of all the world's savannas. That could soon come to an end. In the past four decades, more than half of the Cerrado has been transformed by the encroachment of cattle ranchers and soybean farmers. And now another demand is quickly eating into the landscape: sugarcane, the raw material for Brazilian ethanol…. The roots of this transformation lie in the worldwide demand for ethanol, recently boosted by a U.S. Senate bill that would mandate the use of 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022, more than six times the capacity of the United States' 115 ethanol refineries…. U.S. companies and investors — including George Soros and agribusiness giants Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill — are staking out territory in Brazil, expecting even greater growth in biofuels. (Washington Post, Tuesday)
Another government action that will reinforce the bad image of capitalism.
FEE Timely Classic
Human Ignorance and Social Engineering by Wendy McElroy