The Problem with Palm Oil

I really feel like the solution here has nothing to do with Palm oil, or any other specific commodity. The solution is for rich countries to pay people in poor countries to take care of their forests. If the market value of a healthy forest is greater then that of palm oil, the forest will survive. If the inverse is true, the forest will be destroyed. If we want people in less developed countries to not exploit their natural resources, we're going to have to pay them more then they could get otherwise, or the resources will be extracted and sold.

As a soapmaker, I used beef tallow as a primary ingredient for a long time. More recently, trying not to use animal-derived products led me to try palm oil, as it&#x27;s a nearly perfect substitute for tallow. The properties of palm oil are ideal for soapmaking, as well as many other products.<p>Palm oil is one of those wonder ingredients that are useful in so many ways, and I truly hope we can find a way to make its cultivation more sustainable. For now, it&#x27;s most important to know where your ingredients are sourced and the local impacts of harvesting them.

Here in Europe, we destroyed our forests more than a millennium ago. Since then, we are profiting economically from all the agricultural land that destruction created. It made us rich.<p>But we really don&#x27;t like it when other people want to do the same!<p>Solution?<p>We should fill Europe again with thick forests. Not the groomed artificial woods we have now, that really only exist because we can sell the wood after 20 years. We should destroy all our agricultural land and convert it back to dark natural forests, full of large and dangerous animals. Why do we expect the Third World to have all the the economically useless forests?

I&#x27;ve said this before, and I&#x27;ll say it again: Palm oil is the most efficient oil to extract by practically a factor of 2 [1]. So in the long term, if global supply increases or stays stable, if we replace palm oil crops with another crop, eventually we&#x27;ll make the problem worse and face more deforestation.<p>[1] according to this <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;journeytoforever.org&#x2F;biodiesel_yield.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;journeytoforever.org&#x2F;biodiesel_yield.html</a><p>I wish the article would go more in depth into what it would take:<p>&gt;Because when done right, oil palms can yield the highest amount of oil per acre of land, and if Western countries drastically decrease their demand for palm oil, that could bring a harsh disaster for many now reliant on a Western thirst for the oil.

Are problems like this an inevitability of international trade among economically unequal parties? If one party offers N dollars per ounce of palm oil, and the other party desperately needs money more than anything else, how could you expect anything less than the most desperate of measures taken to produce as much palm oil as possible?<p>What are our options? No trade among economically disadvantaged countries at all? Devalue our currency? Paternalistic oversight?

&gt; The Guardian interviewed 66-year-old oil palm farmer, Hussein Mohammad, who decried the EU’s choice to draw down their consumption of palm oil biofuels. He says, “I have spent all my money on the palm oil farm; I’ve recently planted new trees that will last for the next 25 years and my whole family relies on this. It’s how my kids afford to study.”<p>I see the modern environmental movement as a continuation of western imperialism. The developed Western world especially Europe intensively developed their land and eradicated much of their wildlife, in the process of developing the richest civilization in the world. As a result, now the majority of undeveloped land and species lies in the developing world. The modern environmental movement seeks to limit how these countries can develop and what they can do with the natural resources of their countries by using Western social, diplomatic, and economic pressure on these developing countries.

To put a face on the problem, this video of an orangutan fighting to remain in its home while the forest is logged out from under it is powerful.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=ihPfB30YT_c" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=ihPfB30YT_c</a>

It&#x27;s disappointing that such an article doesn&#x27;t even mention the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil [1] that is set up to address exactly these problems. It&#x27;s early days but you can look out for their logo on packaging.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rspo.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rspo.org&#x2F;</a>

This is one of the most useless comparisons I have ever seen:<p>&quot;That’s an increase of the equivalent of roughly 36,000 Olympic sized swimming pools of carbon dioxide more per year.&quot;<p>Why are we measuring gas inside of a pool? Is that a lot? or a little? I don&#x27;t think I&#x27;ve ever even seen an Olympic sized swimming pool in person!

The problem with palm oil is that it&#x27;s an amazing product with amazing properties and is very efficient to produce but unfortunately is best produced in countries that have no qualms about razing their environment to produce it.<p>We used to clear-cut entire forests in Canada (and still do some of that). We destroy eco-systems for oil production. Brazil razes the Amazon to produce beef and soy. Lots of countries engage in environmental destruction for the sake of the economy. Palm oil isn&#x27;t particularly bad, it&#x27;s just choices people make.

This hits well on my biggest problem with a lot of liberal solutions to climate change: not enough systems thinking. In Europe and elsewhere, politicians got to celebrate the adoption of biofuel, and now they also get to be righteous about banning it. Given how terrible almond production is for the environment as well, I could see a similar move being made there. Who is responsible for evaluating risk in these situations? Who is modeling effects on our ecosystem when they promote $SOLUTION as panacea?

The article (as many others) fails to address the single most important question in the palm oil debate.<p>What alternatives are there if we are to avoid palm oil? How are they more environmentally friendly?

It might be tokenism or spitting into the wind, but I&#x27;ve avoid palm oil as much as possible for going on 8 years. I read ingredients before purchasing and resist the urge to shop unthinkingly.<p>Another thing is to research corporations who own particular brands such as this free sample of just some of the villains on supermarket shelves:<p>- ConAgra (which owns Angie&#x27;s)<p>- KraftHeinz (one of the worst companies to work for)<p>- Sabra (supports occupation of Palestine)<p>- MillerCoors (including Blue Moon)<p>Buy local from independent shops where and when you can.<p>The diffuse, Tragedy of the Commons of demand leads to circumstances in other parts of the world, be it cash crops for food or for drugs (and sometimes food is the drug).

&gt;The (not so) sustainable biofuels<p>I remember reading some time ago about palm oil converted to biodiesel and immediately became suspicious of the final product as anything but a chance to push the sale of palm oil.<p>soft oils like canola&#x2F;linseed, and corn are suited best for biodiesel as their final product is at a much lower gel point than coconut or palm. To run a diesel safely at anything but sub-tropic temperatures with a minimum of waxing or smoking, you&#x27;d need gallons of stabilizers and modifiers in the mix.<p>the place I remember hearing this being used was Indonesia, and only at around 50% for a passenger rail line. This makes sense as its partially using petrochemical diesel as a cheap additive for gel and flow stability.<p>the UK and EU could improve their biodiesel uptake with better recycling practices. most of east europe is awash in high quality sunflower oil for frying and cooking, and could easily see this waste oil converted.

It&#x27;s refreshing to see an article actually pointing biofuels policy being the dominant driver of palm oil related deforestation. If I remember right another problem is that India was expected to become a big palm oil producer where they are historically one of the biggest palm oil importers. This unfortunately didn&#x27;t happen, somehow the upfront cost and time to production was something that was somehow difficult in India where Malaysia and Indonesia could do this. Something else I&#x27;m curious about is what effects we will see from the recent change in policy in Europe, which is busy increasing the local production of canola&#x2F;rapeseed crops significantly and I suspect that will have some unintended consequences.

The world does not have to run this way. We can make other choices.<p>Part of the solution could be:<p>Walkable &quot;first world&quot; cities.<p>Better public transit.<p>Passive solar design.<p>A <i>less is more</i> ethos in developed countries.<p>Actively valuing and protecting small businesses rather than crushing them under our boot in our rush to cater to big business.

A lot of brands in Sweden started advertising &quot;no palm oil&quot; a couple years ago. Now it seems they replaced it with shea oil in some cases. Is that any better?<p>I feel like the food industry is always in a race with ethics to find the cheapest process.

In terms of climate change, palm oil seems to be a really really bad substitute for other oils. I&#x27;d support increased tariffs on palm oil, and moneys to subsidize keeping rain forest.

I&#x27;ve been to Malaysia and seen this. It&#x27;s interesting -- just row after row after row of palm trees. Otherwise it would all be jungle, but are jungles useful for local Malaysians? They&#x27;re full of mosquitos and too dense to even really walk through.

Why is it on me, the consumer, to worry about unethical palm oil sourcing?

I realized a few years when I started habitually reading ingredients lists that palm oil was showing up in more and more foods, but it wasn&#x27;t till I correlated it with an upset stomach that I purposefully stopped buying food products with it. I&#x27;ve been trying to cut my sugar intake, so I don&#x27;t get these anymore, but one major place you might notice a difference is if you use coffee creamer. Most of the cheaper ones have palm oil. The good ones don&#x27;t, and the differences on the body are noticeable to me at least.<p>Sometimes pragmatic choices can lead to ethical results.

Palm oil is a convenient scape goat.

Or oil on your palm.

he World Wildlife Fund writes &quot;The (palm oil) industry is linked to major issues such as deforestation, habitat degradation, climate change, animal cruelty, and indigenous rights abuses in the countries where it is produced.

I

&gt; 92 to 184 teragrams of carbon dioxide<p>Usually emissions of CO2 are measured in tons... This is a sneaky measurement change. wtf is a teragram? Okay, turns out it&#x27;s a million tons, or as we used to call it, a megatonne. WHYYY

&gt; environmental health and the well-being of poor and marginalized communities in pursuit of profits<p>Heh. Isn&#x27;t that too dramatic. So SEA countries are suppose to sit down and not able to sell anything? How bad is this too bad of a situation? The article failed to highlight this.<p>To me it feels like someone just doesn&#x27;t like someone else getting too much money at selling palm oil for some reason. I wonder which other industry that benefits from boycotting palm oil.