Bush’s Biofuels Beat Castro’s Cautions

The feud between biofuel booster George Bush and naysayer Fidel Castro is reviewed by Slate’s William Saletan—who says in the end Bush's position is the more progressive one. In fact he calls the erstwhile compassionate conservative a “revolutionary.” Castro argues that biofuel will take food out of mouths in poor countries to run cars in rich countries; Saletan says no.

An ethanol-as-energy revolution will actually drive up incomes in the Southern Hemisphere by inflating the value of open arable land, he argues. While not sold on the environmental messianism of the ethanol movement, he’s certain that Castro’s got it wrong—that a cellulose economy will give poor countries more, not less, to chew on. (More biofuel stories.)