I submit the following conspiracy theory as food for thought, take it or leave it.
The BioFuel Conspiracy
As mentioned on the Peak Oil topic, if all the grains harvested in the United States where converted to ethanol it would provide 16% of all automobile fuel needs. It is clear that biofuels are not the answer to peak oil. Presently, ethanol production requires more energy input that it produces when burned in a car and ethanol may actually release more CO2 than gasoline. This means that it is also not the answer for global warming.
So, this begs the question why are the political and economic elites so supportive of biofuel initiatives?
What effects do biofuels actually have on the world? The following: increased deforestation of the rainforest and the theft of indigenous land and the land of subsistence farmers. As the demand for biofuels increases more and more companies are looking to produce it, this means clearing rainforest land to plant palm oil plantations and stealing land from those who are not sufficiently able to protect it: the unarmed rural poor. So the one reason for the recent push for biofuels is that it makes a small number of powerful people wealthy.
This brings us to the most profound impact which biofuels have on our world: biofuels increase the price of food and the effects are disproportionately felt by the third world. This brings us to the conspiracy portion of today's article. Biofuels are supported by the powerful because it increases the price of food, which will eventually result in food shortages -already there have been food riots- and mass starvation especially when coupled with famines and droughts in some rapidly approaching bad year. There is a word for this intentional killing of millions, it is: genocide.
Why would the elites wish to kill off millions in the third world? Because in a world which has rapidly dwindling resources this sort of depopulation is the fastest way to ensure the first world's access to those resources by killing off those people and governments which control them.
Perhaps this idea is way off and all these effects are unintentional. Regardless, they are real.