*Off Topic* Sad Reality...Make a Difference

[DJ_Asia]

It seems that the world has gone mad for this newly marketed super food/fuel called Palm Oil. Obviously its been around forever and a day,but lately its proponents have touted it as a biodegradeable super fuel alternative to fossil fuels.
Palm Oil can also be found in everyday products such as milk,chocolate,butter and countless other food items.

What you arent being told is this:

This "biodegradeable super fuel/wonder food" requires massive plantations to harvest the oils.To make way for these plantations,primarily located in Malaysia and Indonesia ( next door neighbors to me) ranforest decimation is going on at an alarming rate.The result of this massacre of pristine rainfoest is this:

" Unfortunately, what has actually resulted is that virgin rainforests and peat swamps being destroyed to make way for palm oil plantations. 600 million tons of carbon escapes into the air each year from the drained peat bogs. Add in soil erosion and sedimentation of rivers, herbicide and pesticide contamination, air pollution from the fires set to clear the land and you have an ecological disaster in the making. And that doesn’t take into account the effluent from the processing mills that spill into rivers causing the loss of fish and other aquatic life".

However what really got me motivated to post this topic was a photo ran in one of Bangkoks newspapers today of an adult Orangutan butchered by a plantation worker w/ a machette for simply eating some palm seeds....
These people are killing 5000 Orangutans per year,(which is a highly endangered species),about 15 per day,everyday,365 days per year...15 per day!!! Machette seems to be the weapon of choice for this slaughter,but bullets to the forehead comes in a close second.

Anyone that has spent time in a zoo watching Orangutans can see that we arent talking about a non feeling creature.These animals are so close in behaviour to us its frightening,and in the name of Palm Oil these fuckwads are hellbent on sending them to the history books alongside the DoDo and Thylacine.

Im not even going to talk about the Sumatran tiger or asiatic elephants or rhinos that are so close to extinction that you can spend a year in the forest and never even see a single animal.

So next time yall buy some products containing palm oil just remember you just personally killed an endangered species.

[justatransgirl]

From what I know (which isn't much) the only oil that's good for you is Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

I know coconuts are full of cholesterol, so I'd imagine palm oil is too?

IMHO,
TS Jamie

[tsntx]

well if this super fuel is that great that we can no longer be depedant on reg. oil then im all for plantations... however killing off a rainforest and its inhabitants that are endangered isnt right either... there should be some kind of protection for the rainforest as well as for the fuel.

[LG]

Good topic, DJ and one that I find very interesting as a scientist...


So next time yall buy some products containing palm oil just remember you just personally killed an endangered species.

Sadly, i's pretty unavoidable. Many products claim on the label that they contain "vegetable oil" or "vegetable fat". This means that they may contain one or more oils extracted from vegetables. so the chances are that you've consumed palm oil today, whether it was in your margarine, potato chips, ramen noodles, chocolate or other food. In addition palm oil and its derivatives are found in cosmetics and detergents. Friends of the Earth estimate that it's found in one out of ten supermarket products.

Now palm oil is also being promoted as a biodiesel. What most people don't know is that the environmental impacts of such fuels and the full costs to the consumers are even higher than those of many other fuels. But Asian governments are subsiding the destruction of peat bogs and rainforests and their replacement by oil plantations. And governments in Africa and elsewhere are keen to learn more.

Two things are necessary here. One is to finally realise that biodiesel is not a longterm solution unless it can be produced from waste material- cultivating crops in order to produce fuel is little bitter than mowing down a forest to make firewood. What we need is more research into and promotion of truly renewable energy sources, like sun and wind energy.

The second thing that's required is better labeling on the products we buy. Often products are badly labeled (in the US, proper labeling is not even required for food products containing genetically modified organisms). If the ingredients list stated that palm oil was contained in the product then you could easily avoid it. As it is, one simply can't make an informed decision.

All this requires better legislation. You could say it's up to the politicians, but we're the ones who vote them in and therefore should take action to convince them to make the legislative changes necessary. It'll be a long process but I hope we can do it before we lose beautiful species like the Orangutan for ever.


Interesting weblinks (though I haven't read all the way through what's there):

Friends of the Earth-The rainforest in your shopping
http://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/biodiversity/case_studies/palm_oil/

From the website of the Roundtable on Sustainable Pam Oil:
http://www.rspo.org/
http://www.rspo.org/Sustainable_Palm_Oil$$_Good_Agricultural_Practice_ Guidelines_(2003).aspx
http://www.rspo.org/Golden_Hope_Sustainable_Palm_Oil_Practices_(March_ 2004).aspx

WWF- Oil palm companies urged to solve orangutan problem
http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/species/problems/human_animal_conflict/index.cfm?uNewsID=103180

Article: Palm oil workers accused of deliberately killing endangered orangutans
http://www.bruneitimes.com.bn/details.php?shape_ID=37753

An environmentalist's perspective
http://palmoilandtheenvironment.blogspot.com/2007/02/deforestation-and-palm-oil-documentary.html

[ILuvGurls]

sort of related but i found very interesting......ever watch MythBusters on discovery channel. well those 2 guys took several gallons of cooking oil that was drained from a restaurants deep fryer, strained all the impurities from it, put it in a diesel and got about 35MPG.