starving children, reconsidered

The other day we wrote about the abuse of starving African children by editorial cartoonists. Adding to what we discussed then, here we present an “ethanol is starving African children” wrap-up:

What political cartoonists consider daring and controversial is often sanctimonious, heavy-handed and obvious — the Vultures Over Darfur school.

Katy Roberts, New York Times editor

We can agree that starving African children is bad policy. We can also agree that corn ethanol is bad policy. But cartoons like those above manage to conflate the two without making any sort of substantive critique. “We shouldn’t use ethanol because children are starving.” Does that sentence even make any sense at all?

Considering the far bigger problems of which corn ethanol is symptomatic — U.S. subsidization of corn, the resulting obesity epidemic, our country’s overreliance on cheap gas, our government’s complicity in the supression of sustainable energy R&D — one would think that cartoonists would come up with something better. But a girl can dream.