Today, British newspaper's The Guardian revealed that the World Bank had ( since April) an internal secret report pointing at biofuel as the major cause for the global food crisis.

According to the World Bank secret report, biofuels ( specially corn) have made  global food prices rise by 75 %. The figure contradicts ( what a surprise!) the Bush Administration's claims that biofuel contribute for less than 3 % of food price increases.

Today, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon is heading an international conference, in Switzerland, to address the global food crisis. The World Food Programme ( WFP) says an extra 100 million people ( world wide) cannot afford food anymore.

The World Bank President ( Robert Zoellick) is attending, so is Pascal Lamy from the World Trade Organization. UN Secretary Ban says that if not handle right away " The food crisis will escalate and pose real threats to economic groth, social progress and even political security "

One of the quirks of living in a college town is that you have a higher-than-average number of old hippies who kept clinging to their ideals long after their buddies cut their hair, put on ties and went out to make their fortunes. We had a neighbor across the alleyway, for example, who lived entirely off-grid until his death a few months ago: No electricity. You never saw lights after dark in his house. He spent his days in his back yard, growing spinach -- good spinach -- for a local restaurant and his weekends at the Saturday anti-war protest.

The New York Times has an article about a "little-known but promising" form of solar power that uses sunlight to create steam power.

And it appears that "solar thermal" power offers some real advantages:

Scientific American offers up a 40-year, $420 billion plan to wean America off of fossil fuels.