Sliiightly misleading headline, although not incorrect in some ways.<p>For about a quarter of the year there are virtually no fires, another quarter (we're there now), there are a lot. Further, in most years the fires are much fewer than they are now, and we're now in a record year.<p>So the headline is true, but only for the worst part of a record breaking year. You can't extrapolate it. In general, say per year or per decade, the headline is false, and CO2 emissions are a topic that is spoken about in the context of such timeframes, not 'who emitted the most in a 30 day period in one particular year'.<p>Further, the comparison itself is misleading as the CO2 figures for the US (and all other countries, for that matter), only count burning fossil fuel (and producing cement). Not capturing emissions when fracking? Not counted. Millions of cows farting all over the place? Not counted. Agriculture? Not counted etc. That's why if you compare Indonesia to the US, Indonesians emit about 6 times less CO2 per capita. That's why it's a bit of a weird comparison. You're comparing one country's emissions within limited parameters, to another country's emissions from phenomena that fall outside of those parameters.<p>Anyway obviously it's a big concern nonetheless and a better comparison would probably be that this single industry approximately doubles Indonesia's fossil fuel burning CO2 output on average every year. That's quite excessive for just one industry (last I checked ~8% of exports, with exports at $200b on a GDP of $870b) and it doesn't have to be that way, palm oil can be grown (slightly more expensively) by simply clearing a forest rather than burning it and all the peat underneath. (the peat is really the issue, forest burning itself is often in large part compensated by regrowth)
So interesting to follow the chain unintended consequences.<p>Trans fats make great muffins. But, oops, they happen to kill humans. So we ban them. Turns out palm oil also makes great muffins and doesn't kill humans. So, we burn down the ecosystem in Indonesia to make more of those delicious muffins and contribute to global warming.<p>Maybe we can just go back to using butter?
The article title is misleading though. It was for 1 day that they emitted more. So overall about 1% of us emissions if you average for the year or 100 times less.
My SO is in Singapore, and she complains almost everyday about the smog.<p>While we in the US and other 1st worlders could do much to stem our pollution especially given our ability, the fight against climate change has to be a global fight, and not just the acts of a few willing nations.
I was just in Singapore for the past few days, after living there for several years. It really is awful this year.<p>The haze did make the laser show from the top of the Marina Sands really spectacular. ;-)
palm oil is a terrible, terrible thing. If you have travelled at all to central america or asia, you know what i mean. (ok yes, you got me... traveling to asia isn't so hot for the environment either)<p>Wherever you think a jungle should be, you see palm trees. As far as the eye can see.<p>If you care about this. And you probably should. Then have a look at the ingredient list & don't buy products with palm oil.
And, though environmental groups are loathe to discuss it[1], animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, more than the combined exhaust from ALL transportation[2].<p>[1] <a href="http://www.cowspiracy.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.cowspiracy.com/</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM" rel="nofollow">http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM</a>
Basically all vegetable oils are the same; palm oil is actually more efficient than any other crop that grows in Indonesia. It would be clearer, in my opinion, to say that Indonesia's vegetable oil fires emit [...], which prevents the interpretation some people apparently take where they buy coconut oil instead. Coconut is only better because it's expensive but if everyone used coconut oil it would be way, way worse than palm oil, because it takes three times the land area of coconuts to produce the same amount of oil as oil palms! If they used soybeans, it would take <i>six times</i> as much land to produce the same amount of oil.<p>In other words, the only way to lower demand for palm oil is to lower the demand for <i>all</i> oil. In my opinion, the best way to do that is to kill the perception of biofuel as sustainable. Eating food is bad enough -- all agriculture is bad for the environment -- but burning it is ridiculous. With the exception of biofuel avgas (which is a tiny proportion of the market) electricity is superior in every way.
I was just looking at <a href="http://epic.gsfc.nasa.gov/epic-archive/png/epic_1b_20151021041711_00.png" rel="nofollow">http://epic.gsfc.nasa.gov/epic-archive/png/epic_1b_201510210...</a> and wondering what all that smoke was.
I find that hard to believe given that the way US farmers harvest sugar cane is to burn the entire field off.<p><a href="https://google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=sugar+cane+burn+field" rel="nofollow">https://google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=sugar+cane+burn+field</a>
Burning trees doesn't actually change the atmospheric balance at all. Every tree releases its carbon, either by being burned or when it dies by rotting. It's effectively a non-trapped part of the atmospheres circulatory system. Remember trees breath the stuff in and eventually they exhale. The problems only crop up when you extract trapped hydrocarbons from underground and burn those. Oil and Coal bad, Tree's not so much.
This is why I don't buy into cap and trade and other expensive systems for the US to reduce its emissions. Compared to emerging economies, our emissions are already dramatically lower. It's the 2nd and 3rd world that needs to get in line (China most of all).