it would seem a lot cheaper and easier to just grow algae and turn it into liquid fuel. Added benefit: it takes carbon out of the air. And it doesn’t compete with poor people for food crops as corn ethanol does.

In a new book, “The View From Lazy Point; A Natural Year in an Unnatural World” ( http://bit.ly/gATt4E ), I show that some algae yields up to 30 times more fuel than other energy crops. Airlines are already testing algae-based jet fuels. “The airplane performed perfectly,” one test-pilot said. “It was textbook.”

These aren’t even all the options. Other non-edible plants also produce oil. The seeds of Jatropha curcas are about one-third oil.

As I say in the book, “Compared to the possible oceans of improvements, humanity is still dog-paddling in the shallow end of the kiddie pool. Sometimes we seem determined to drown there just because we won’t stand up.”