james ozzie, while your sentiment is admirable..and I'm sure plenty of fluffy thinkers would dip their cups of nettle tea in agreement, your observations are demonstrably wrong as it has been precisely thanks to the little men in white coats who have offered most important advances in technology over the last 100 years or so..then throw in a few wars for good measure..and you have the bulk of human kinds advancement.
GlueBall, either you cant read, or cant be bothered to do any research......
Presently there exists enough swampland in the southern US i.e(Florida, the missi delta, plus various parts of Alabama & Louisiana) to produce enough jet fuel from the production of naturally occurring algae..without ever even considering food producing land! Moreover, a by product of this production may well be stock-feed in vast quantities which will free up even more pastoral land currently dedicated to producing stock-feed.
The bigger question with algae is whether the technology is mature and cost effective enough to impliment.....and for that, we need to rely upon a few fellows with beards and white coats.
As for Jatropa, it can grow on very very arid land...it is in some-ways very similar to the olive in the sense of the environment it thrives in, albeit that it is far more hardy and will therefore have no need to compete with olive oil as a cash crop (Olive oil is at around $2000 per barrel!)
So Glueball, Jatropa could be produced in the vast tracks of western and sub saharan Africa, the interior of Oz, various parts of Central Asia plus half a hundred other non-producing areas too boot.
Did I mention it could also help increase rainfall in arid areas? and therefore help improve food production on the periphery?