What is Digg?30 Comments
- inactive, on 11/10/2008, -0/+14From the article: "Can the likes of Unilever and Sainsbury's (palm oil producers) get all their palm oil from "sustainable sources" by 2015 as they promise? In one sense, maybe. Cynics point out that rainforest scientists expect both Borneo and Sumatra to be virtually treeless by then. There will be no more to chop down, so palm oil plantations will no longer be accused for deforestation.
- BoneheadFarker, on 11/10/2008, -1/+11Not only is palm oil bad for the environment, it's bad for the people who eat it. Seriously, palm oil is really bad for your health...
- CaptainPlanet, on 11/10/2008, -0/+8totally, palm oil plantations are a huge problem causing deforestation. And at least in the USA, it is almost ubiquitous in packaged foods.
- Coffeedemon, on 11/10/2008, -0/+6Maybe they don't have the vigor of your endless trolling. Endlessly buried but the ***** keeps floating back up to the surface.
- dcmjzero, on 11/10/2008, -1/+5Oftentimes, no- they do not grow back. Once robbed of cover, the topsoil is subject to severe erosion. Also, old growth forest, which take hundreds of years to grow, have the highest biological diversity.
And you suck at trolling. - muldoonaz, on 11/10/2008, -1/+4do some research... dont expect to be fed everything from a single article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_oil - FairDinkumMate, on 11/10/2008, -0/+3This is a legitimate problem. I take issue however with the developed world simply putting the onus on developing nations to fix it!
Why is the rainforest so important? About from bio-diversity, it's now vitally important to help offset the huge amount of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere. These are produced mostly by - DEVELOPED NATIONS. But is there any effort by developed nations to provide a financial incentive to the countries involved to protect the rainforest? NO.
If the developed world is so concerned about palm oil, etc, why don't they set up a body to certify environmentally friendly plantations & make it illegal to use any other palm oil? Oh, because that would mean price increases for THEIR people. It's so easy to sit in your centrally heated apartment enjoying the benefits of this practise whilst complaining about what people in a 3rd world country are doing to feed their families and putting the onus on THEM to change it! - ProfessorBooty, on 11/10/2008, -0/+2Also the life that was living in that forest no longer has a place to live and most likely will not return even if the forest does. Look up studies on sustainable pine forests in North America. Many of these are planted like crops and harvested but contain very little life in them because the original wildlife is long gone and a homogeneous forest cannot sustain a diverse wildlife.
The ecologies that are living in these forests have been evolving over very long time spans (longer than intelligent human life has been around) and do not recover very quickly. - socialrebel, on 11/10/2008, -0/+2Hemp Oil FTW
- evillawngnome, on 11/10/2008, -0/+2http://www.instantrimshot.com/
- 9umber9ine, on 11/10/2008, -0/+2while uncontrolled palm plantation could be harmful if it brings deforestation, the negative effect of consuming palm oil is exaggerated by some kind of commercial wars.
it is now used as an alternative to the dangerous trans fat.
with that, it probably makes trans fat producers feel uneasy. - reaper527, on 11/10/2008, -1/+2thanks for the transfat ban all you democrats out there. haven't read the article yet, so i don't know if this mentions it, but palm oil became THE replacement for transfats after new york started a movement to ban it.
- travelina, on 11/10/2008, -0/+1@evillawngnome: National Geographic just published an article about Borneo's rain forest being converted to oil palm plantations, and why that's bad: the rain forest of Borneo is one of the most biologically diverse places on Earth, with "more than 15,000 known species of plants, including more than 2,500 species of orchids. Southeast Asia's lowland forests, including Borneo's, are the tallest tropical rain forests in the world, and may have as many as 240 species of trees on a single four-acre site. Borneo is home to the world's largest flower, the world's largest orchid, the world's largest carnivorous plants, and the world's largest moth. In the multilevel structure of Borneo's rain forest lives the world's largest collection of gliding animals: Apart from several species of flying squirrels there are flying lizards, flying colugos, flying frogs, and—the stuff of nightmares for some—flying snakes." Besides that, Borneo is the only place on Earth to find orangutans, and they can't survive when their rain forests habitats are burnt to the ground to make way for oil palm plantations.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/11/borneo/w ... - Susanamanda, on 11/11/2008, -0/+1In August the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) initiated a great campaign-- applying stickers on those products for sale in grocery stores, which are made with palm oil. I found Keebler products and microwave popcorn were big "culprits"
Check out the RAN website if actions like this are of interest to you-- they may start another campaign. - b0wl0fud0n, on 11/10/2008, -0/+1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpXM9bj-WPU
Go Planet! - FairDinkumMate, on 11/10/2008, -0/+1I think you may have misunderstood what they are doing. They are clearing rainforest to plant palm trees to produce oil. Once they run out of forest they won't run out of money, they just will have used up all of the land & be unable to expand further.
But, putting that aside, for the 'developed' world that has cleared much more of its forests than the 'developing' world and now uses that cleared land for agriculture to continually complain about these countries developing in virtually exactly the same way they did is hypocritical to say the least. Add in that the 'developed' nations are also the ones producing disproportionate amounts of greenhouse gases per capita but are unwilling to change because of the 'economic consequences' then preach to others who are trying to drag their people above the poverty line is just unbelievably self-centred & arrogant!
Environmental improvements can only come from the developed world changing their lifestyle. Their choices are things like "Should I drive, take the bus or walk?" - reasonable alternatives. The developing world's choices are a little more stark like "Should I feed my family or let them starve?" - dcmjzero, on 11/10/2008, -0/+1The onus is on them to change it because it is their country and their way of life. Now before you think I am a troll, let me explain: simply destroying forest is not a sustainable agricultural method. They will eventually run out of forest to destroy (by some accounts, very soon) and thus destroy their livelihood. It is their problem, and we are concerned about it FOR them. Part of me just says, "Let them shoot themselves in the foot." The caring part of me wants to tell them where the gun is aimed.
The "financial incentive" you speak of is their own future profits. If you were in the apple business, you wouldn't cut down the tree and sell the wood for short term profit. The money for them to do it should come from the palm industry. - MsArtGeek, on 11/10/2008, -1/+2google is your friend.
- dcmjzero, on 11/10/2008, -1/+1Was the title "How to Make Palm Oil"?
- ainda, on 02/11/2009, -0/+0You're right that it was the democrats, but it goes way back before trans-fats hit the headlines. George McGovern's Congressional Committee was responsible back in the 1970's for making everyone scared of eating butter , animal fat and coconut fat. Everybody got scared and started eating those "healthy" vegetable oils, like soybean oil and corn oil. Why? Farmers in South Dakota raise corn and soybeans'; they don't raise coconuts. And George knew at the time that the "healthy" oils weren't healthy. Bottom line: switch back to butter. Demand that food processors switch back to coconut oil.
- gusoffin, on 11/10/2008, -0/+0stop eating the mess like this
- dekadent30, on 02/05/2009, -0/+0gry planszowe karciane http://gry-planszowe.c0.pl planszówki strategie puzzle logiczne
- danj484, on 11/10/2008, -0/+0See: "reply"
- evillawngnome, on 11/10/2008, -3/+2Half way into the article and 10 comments into the digg thread, no one can tell me HOW EXACTLY palm oil is made, and why it's bad for the environment. I was genuinely curious, and ready to learn, but you lost me when you couldn't wait five seconds before handing out guilt trips for everybody.
TL;DR. - aletoledo, on 11/10/2008, -5/+3Why should I be concerned with this? Obama will fix everything, which means I don't have to worry about issues like this.
- WiretapStudios, on 11/10/2008, -4/+2Have they consulted a palm reader yet?
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