Which statistic makes for a brilliant headline but I'm not sure what it means exactly. If you don't think too hard about it, a headline of 330 million people goes a long way for effect but does one person eat one third of a ton of corn in a year? Beats me. Beyond the headline which makes it easy for reporters to write the story, the fact remains that the world's largest producer of corn poured way too much of it into producing fuel. I'm not going to suggest that ethanol corn would make great quesadillas but you know that the energy that goes into producing one kind of corn (ethanol) could easily go into another (edible). But it isn't and the US government wants to keep it that way to keep mid Western cultivators happy.
Ethanol is going into our tanks and reducing our gas mileage by ten percent and it costs almost the equivalent amount of energy to produce a gallon of burnable fuel. But there is a Federal subsidy involved to promote this madness, so ethanol is now a political fuel and if a few people in very poor parts of the world well, Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill and Monsanto thank them. In the same way we produce sugar in South Florida with enough of a federal subsidy to put five cents of your tax dollars into each candy bar you eat. And to do that they import Jamaican cane cutters to do the work Americans don't have the stamina to get done. They could just let the Caribbean islands grow the sugar and harvest it but federal subsidies skew the market. And so it goes.
Now I read that Bill Gates, still I believe the Richest Man In The World is calling on scientists to work on producing clean energy. Perhaps he will have the clarity of vision and purity of purpose to do what our political leaders can't possibly do; which is to accomplish the obvious.
Veterans Park enjoys quite a lot of visitors of course in winter but also in summer when the shallow coastal waters are warm enough to wade in. There are plenty of waterside tables and barbecue grills making it a fine destination for a picnic.
Your dog might like it too. Cheyenne did but she isn't very discriminating at all... she likes rooting around everywhere I take her. 
The dark colored stripes on the beach are successive waves of sea grass washed up and left to rot in the sun. It is not an appealing mixture to people who want long sandy beaches, such as those found on the mainland of Florida. However I am not that fond of beach vacations so these modest efforts do well enough for me. Then let us not forget that Highway One is never far from sight:
That car headed north was about to enter the famous Seven Mile (11 km) bridge to Marathon. Veterans Park is not much more than a dip at the side of the roadway:
However even though the sound of traffic is never very far away the waterfront Tikis offer a pleasant view to the south: 
Veterans Park is very civilized with splendid clean bathrooms and a special cement Tiki:
The straw Tikis aren't entirely accessible seeing as how they built on sand: 
