[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Dear Chris, Neil and friends, many thanks for setting this thread up on the naked scientists forum.

I am sure everyone has something to say about the environment, so let the debates begin and stem the tides of destruction while the politicians worry only about what lies they have to tell in order to stay in their lucrative positions.

One good place to start is the true cost of Palm Oil.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/mid/sites/mystory/pages/abigail_dymond.shtml

 
ITEMS TO AVOID
Palm Oil-Based Products
Palm oil plantations are a huge problem for orangutans in Indonesia and Malaysia as entire forest habitats are destroyed to make way for plantations. Indonesia is the world's second largest producer of palm oil (behind Malaysia). In 1998 Indonesia had almost 8 million acres of oil palm plantations, mainly located in Sumatra. Every year more than 800,000 acres of forest is targeted for conversion into new plantations.

The oil palm has been used for hundreds of years in the production of food items, medicines, woven materials and wine. Increasing consumer demand has spurred a dramatic growth in palm oil plantations, which now threaten to destroy forest habitat in areas such as Indonesian Borneo. Traditional slash and burn farming to establish new palm oil plantations has destroyed not only native peat forest, but the animals (gibbons, sunbears, and orangutans) and plants that used to live there.
http://www.orangutan.com/orangutans_avoid_palmoil.html


http://www.orangutans-sos.org/docs/palm_oil_report_complete.pdf



"The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely to be correct."
K.I.S. "Keep it simple!"

[neilep]

Thanks Andrew.

Great Post

[neilep]

Andrew, are your email accounts working ?

[a.vasquez]

There are similar problems with the plantation of soy and sugar cane in the Amazon forest. However, it is very difficult to avoid buying products with these ingredients because they are everywhere, the best think is to look for sustainable palm oil and soy.

[Hadrian]

When are human beings going to stop repeating the same mistakes over and over? When will enough be an enough? We run out of one resource and hey presto we set about striping another. Can't we see that we are on a life raft? With a finite amount of rations that can sustain us only if we manage them. We have to think in a new way that puts quality of life and happiness over generating wealth and power. I don’t except that we can't feed the world or give people all the means to live happy and productive lives. Humans have the power to be in harmony with the planet if we want to. In the end if we don’t than we will end up one more of the 90% of life that have been on the planet that is now extinct.  

What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.

[another_someone]

quote:Originally posted by Hadrian

When are human beings going to stop repeating the same mistakes over and over?

Are they mistakes?

They are imperfect solutions to an imperfect world, but they are solutions that have allowed us to survive and prosper, and thus it is difficult to wholly regard them as mistakes.

quote:
We run out of one resource and hey presto we set about striping another.

Ofcourse – it is not possible to survive without utilising resources.

quote:
With a finite amount of rations that can sustain us only if we manage them.

No matter how we manage them, we will run out of them – the universe in its entirety is but a finite resource, as we are a finite species, as life itself is finite.

quote:
We have to think in a new way that puts quality of life and happiness over generating wealth and power.

The management of wealth is an attempt to assign value to resources, and thus to manage those resources.  The allocation of that value is inevitably imperfect, as is all else in an imperfect world, but it is the only means by which we can even begin to manage resources.

None of this precludes to strive for happiness, but striving for happiness is nothing to do with resource management.

quote:
In the end if we don’t than we will end up one more of the 90% of life that have been on the planet that is now extinct.

All things that are born must ultimately die, be it an individual or a species; and that death is a prerequisite to allow that which is to follow the space to be born.  Ultimately, this must even be true for the inevitable death of the human species itself.

George

[Hadrian]

I believe that we can design things so the what time we have on this planet in infinitely better of all our species and rest of life too.  

What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.

[another_someone]

quote:Originally posted by Hadrian
I believe that we can design things so the what time we have on this planet in infinitely better of all our species and rest of life too.

Design is one thing, implementation is another.

George

[Hadrian]

If we were under threat from an alien invader we pull together we fight then with our last breath and all our will. The planet is under such a threat from us we need to see that we have it in our power to change, to become the protectors of life and turn away from being the destroyers that we have become. We are exactly were we are meant to be as a result of all the choices we have made. If we want a different result we have to change what we do.    

What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.

[another_someone]

quote:Originally posted by Hadrian
If we were under threat from an alien invader we pull together we fight then with our last breath and all our will. The planet is under such a threat from us we need to see that we have it in our power to change, to become the protectors of life and turn away from being the destroyers that we have become. We are exactly were we are meant to be as a result of all the choices we have made. If we want a different result we have to change what we do.

Firstly, if we were under threat from alien invaders, we would become destroyers – destroyers of aliens; and we would sacrifice whatever resources we would need to to achieve that end.  In war, out usage of resources increases rather that reduces.

Nor is it inevitably true that we would pull together in the face of foreign invasion – it all depends upon whether we all see the same threat in the same way.

If one looks at the way European Christendom reacted to what it saw as the invasion of Islam; although it would at times join together to fight what it saw as the common foe, but in fact the animosity between the Catholic Western Europe and the Eastern Orthodox Christian Europe often proved a greater force than the common animosity against the Muslim invaders, and ultimately caused the destruction of the oldest contemporary European culture, that of Byzantium, the last vestige of the ancient Roman Empire, and this collapse of the Eastern Roman empire allowed the Ottomans to invade the Balkans and the Danube basin, all the way to the gates of Vienna.

Or, in a different time in history, if one looks at the European colonisation of the Americas, we may see it as a simple war between the Europeans and the native Americans, where the Americans pulled out all the stops to keep the Europeans out of America, but in vain.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Neither the Europeans, nor the native Americans put up a unified front, but each used the other to further their own aims.  The Europeans were just as interested in warring amongst themselves (particularly the English and French), and each enlisted the help of various American tribes to attack the other European colonies; while the American tribes used their alliances with the respective European invaders to supply themselves with arms to further their own inter-tribal rivalries.

During WWII, it is true that the British Government pulled out all the stops to win the war, including mortgaging Britain's future prosperity, and her empire, in order to pay to the necessities (like arms) that was required to win the immediate war; but even while this was still going on, the IRA were still continuing operations against the British Government.

George

[Hadrian]

No one can say with any certain knowledge what will happen your view is a good as any other George. I choose to believe that things can change for the better and this is my choice. I choose not to think thoughts that create a vision of a bad future but rather one where it all works out for the best for all humanity as well as the planet in general. I also choose to believe that humans will transcend their addiction to crating pain and suffering in their lives in the long run. I have no need to be able prove of any of this nor do I whish to disprove any other view on the matter. You either see it or you don’t.  I got to a stage in my life were I am free of ternary of unsolicited thought.  

What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

HI Vasquez

I read also about the Brazilian Beef for forest exchange, where soy is grown instead of trees to feed a growing beef industry, and indeed have seen the Brazilian beef in the supermarkets of the U.K. offered well below the price of British Beef.

But as you point out, there is an invisible cost to the purchaser, a cost of pain and suffering to the animal kingdom, a loss of many species of plants and animals and the inevitable loss of rain forest habitat, which will further accelerate the demise of all of us in the long term when this destruction turns around and bites back by changing the World's weather patterns.

quote:Originally posted by a.vasquez

There are similar problems with the plantation of soy and sugar cane in the Amazon forest. However, it is very difficult to avoid buying products with these ingredients because they are everywhere, the best think is to look for sustainable palm oil and soy.

"The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely to be correct."
K.I.S. "Keep it simple!"

[EcoDan]

One big concern at the moment is palm oil being using in biodiesel - turning a supposedly green fuel into an environmental menace as virgin rainforest is cut down to grow oil crops!

Many biodiesel enthusiasts and manufacturers are aware of this issue and clearly state the origins of the oil they use.  Bear this in mind if you want to use biodiesel!

By the way - if you live around Cambridge, there is a new supplier of the golden go-juice:

newbielink:http://www.cambridgebiodiesel.co.uk [nonactive]

[time-cop]

you are all living in cloud cookooland if you think politicians give a monkeys doodah about enviromental issues,oh yeh,they say all the right things at the right time,cos that is what their script writers are paid for,third world countries,especially slightly unstable ones,are massive purchasers of arms,and arms are the politicians pay day,most of them have a finger or two in that pie,so why should they give a stuff for a few monkeys and a couple of acres of trees,they got loads of dosh and can have trees flown in,the bunch of b******s

http://www.armybarmy.org

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

I, don't believe we are living in cloudcookooland and think you may have underestimated the extent of our knowledge. Of course we know that politicians only care about keeping their job and raking in as much cash as they possibly can without giving a toss about how they achieve it so long as they can scrape by to the next election and possibly further (ignorance permitting) But this is an environmental forum. I have watched the slaughter of many innocent people in many countries at the hand of these people, as I am sure most of us at some point have also. I have seen at first hand the devastation of over exploiting the soils in the name of monoculture cash crops. And I am paying attention to the new conservative Green Hype to see what hidden agenda is behind it. On the face of it one could argue that Margret Thatcher was one amazing conservationist. She single handedly wiped out most of the polluting industry in this country, but this simply moved the polluting industry to other countries. So please don't believe for one minute that we don't understand what is going on in the real world out there, and if you have a solution then share it with us.

Andrew

"The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely to be correct."
K.I.S. "Keep it simple!"