Monday, April 23, 2012

Corn Prices New York Times

"The growing use of biofuels, particularly those derived from corn, has already distorted agricultural markets by encouraging farmers to plant corn instead of other crops, thus increasing the price of things like soybeans, which are being produced in lesser quantities.

The study found that federal mandates for biofuel production could amplify the effect of climate change on corn price volatility by hampering the market’s ability to adjust to changes in crop yields. "

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Best Wishes to Mr. Levinson with his new film “The Bay”. Drawing attention to the Chesapeake Bay is great! When I spoke with Barry Levinson at the Maryland Film Festival Benefit at MICA in Nov. 2009 regarding the Chesapeake Bay environmental screenplay, Enchanting Ethanol, and in subsequent correspondence with his agent Mr. Burnham's assistant Jenny, I got the impression he was not interested in an eco-feature film set at the Chesapeake Bay. Now that I hear he is made just such a film, I would like to let him know that Enchanting Ethanol is still available.
Enchanting Ethanol is all about a community finding out that green is not always green. Veronica and Nick buy a dilapidated cottage in an enchanting Chesapeake Bay community. They imagine spending their weekends hanging on the beach with their two little kids, watching wildlife and drinking beer. But their dream is interrupted when a phony green investor, in cahoots with the local trash mafia, sees the community as an easy target for an ethanol plant.

The phony environmentalists envision collecting green government subsidies when the local bumpkins greet the ethanol plant with open arms, but they are surprised. In a comedic series of town hall meetings, the proud local stewards of the environmentally fragile Chesapeake Bay area are tough and resourceful. This is not some preachy documentary. This is kid-centered adventure that features Veronica and Nick’s young family. Things become dangerous when their boy, enthralled with a bottle picturing a one-eyed man he believes to be a pirate, takes a beer bottle that contains stolen cellulose-eating beetles. The gun-totting trash mafia who own the stolen beetles, they hope to use to produce ethanol, hunt down the family while they are hiking. As the family runs the tension builds each time the bottle which is in the boys backpack is bumped, for if the beetles escape all the Bay woodlands and marshes could be eaten by the bugs. The quirky locals rescue the family and, to protect the Chesapeake Bay, expose the ethanol scam.