My Letter to the NY Times: Earth Friendly and People Hostile

Re: Rush to Use Crops as Fuel Raises Food Prices and Hunger Fears Dear Sirs: There should be a special place in Purgatory for the environmentalists and the politicians who pander to them. Both camps oppose the extraction of oil from Mother Earth on Alaska's North Slope (just one example) and provide tax breaks, subsidies, and mandates for using food in its place, with the result that millions will starve. This is just one example of the blindness and callousness of the environmental activists to the consequences of their actions. Every economic intervention means that people are prevented from using their own resources to meet those needs most urgently desired. The free market with money prices is the road to prosperity, which includes both food and fuel. Any and all interventions which disrupt the free market will result in lower prosperity and, as this article so aptly illustrates, occasionally disaster. Patrick Barron