Flying Off in the Wrong Direction

Richard Branson's stunt of flying a Boeing 747 from London to Amsterdam using 20% bioethanol seems to me to be heading in the wrong direction. For a start, why take such a huge, heavy, gas-guzzling plane on such a short hop? Unless of course it was fully laden.

Then there is the collateral effect of large scale bioethanol production - grain prices have gone through the roof. So the (roughly) 100% of the world's population that needs to eat, is being screwed by the eco-friendly posturing of the 2% (my guess) of the population that "needs" to fly. If flight were to be made significantly more expensive, its carbon footprint would be reduced by having fewer planes in the air.

Given that the fliers are generally well off people, shouldn't we be thinking of a fuel surcharge whereby they subsidise the people that the World Food Program doesn't have funds to feed, increasingly the middle classes in developing countries, due to the huge rises in basic food prices? Along the same lines of reasoning, we could extend that charge to the hedge funds and commodity traders that are reaping huge profits buying stakes in foodstuffs when they have no intention of taking delivery. I'm not usually in favour of intervention in markets, but something needs to be done.