Chicago Tuesday AM 1 February 2011
Editors, The Wall Street Journal
Gentlepeople:
The Wall Street Journal closes its Saturday 22 January editorial “Amber Waves of Ethanol” with the fine point that “it makes no sense to devote scarce farmland to make a fuel that exists only because of taxpayer subsidies and mandates.” Just how scarce can be demmonstrated by noting that corn cannot be grown on the 70% of the earth's surface covered by seawater (unlike oil, which just getting started seems to be found anywhere anyone wants to make a 15,000 foot try.) And corn is quite finnicky on just where on the 30% of the surface it will grow: not too much corn grown in the world's largest desert, nor the polar regions. Even where it can be grown, it can't be done continuously – it must be regularly rotated with other crops that do not demand so much of the soil.
After such a fine description of an important point, you could be excused for taking a rest, but you come back just 9 days later with your “Professor Cornpone” editorial of Monday 31 January. Maybe not such a hard job after all, needing only to quote the History PhD Newt Gingrich foolishly describing your “long-held anti-ethanol views as 'just plain flat intellectually wrong.'”
Mr. Gingrich should quite trying to out-Perlosi the minority house leader and return to what he does better than anyone: Maintaining and increasing Republican control of the National legislature.
Arnold H Nelson
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