Palm oil: the biofuel of the future driving an ecological disaster now
Ian MacKinnon in KalimantanWednesday April 4, 2007
The Guardian
The numbers are damning. Within 15 years 98% of the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia will be gone, little more than a footnote in history. With them will disappear some of the world's most important wildlife species, victims of the rapacious destruction of their habitat in what conservationists see as a lost cause.
Yet this gloomy script was supposed to have included a small but significant glimmer of hope. Oil palm for biofuel was to have been one of the best solutions in saving the planet from greenhouse gases and global warming. Instead the forests are being torn down in the headlong rush to boost palm oil production.
Read the rest of the article here...
And so the debate rages on...
Are we fools to believe that we can save the planet (and ourselves) by our feeble human efforts? Or are we fools to believe that some vegetable oils are more ecologically friendly than others? Or are we fools to deny that everyone's just looking out for their selfish interests?
3 comments:
It is a really very scary thought. We really should harvest wind and solar energy, biomass, etc. Au naturel the way to go.
Oil and gas is "natural"... formed from the remains of animals and plants of yesteryears. :)
In the final analysis there is no human-engineered panacea for all our ills. All human activities are inherently detrimental to the environment because this is a fallen sinful world. We can't escape entropy. Everything is falling apart.
Our only long term hope is the new heaven and new earth. That's wonderful, isn't it?
And with this perspective we can then live meaningfully today.
yes,it is wonderful.. glad we've got a new heaven and earth to look forward to. man, if it's better than all the snap shots you've taken, it'd be mind blowing! :)
Post a Comment