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Palm Oil and the Sinister Motives of Greenpeace and FOE |
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Written by Jon Tomczyk
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Friday, 30 January 2009 |
 Distortion of facts and data manipulation appears to be the forte of “environmental” types. Just what motivates them to engage in this modern day version of hysteria and panic inducing scaremongering is baffling, to say the least!
The seas will rise up to 100m by 2100 claims ABC Science Show host Robyn Williams. Six meters, suggests Al Gore. So let's take in "climate refugees" from low-lying Tuvalu, says some. And ban coastal development, says others.
In fact, while the seas have slowly risen since the last ice age, before man got gassy, they've stopped rising for the last two, according to data from the Jason-1 satellite.
"There is no evidence for accelerated sea-level rises," the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute declared last month.
Palm oil of course has been a victim of the same predilection of “environmental” types such as the inappropriately named Friends of the Earth (but with the strikingly accurate acronym “FOE”) and the equally grossly misnamed Greenpeace, serving up on a regular basis putrid dishes of untruths and fact distortions.
In a recent “report” called “Malaysian Palm Oil: Green Gold or Green Wash?” FOE alleged that Malaysian palm oil is responsible for massive deforestation and consequently contributes to global warming.
So much for hype. Let’s consider the facts.
First, palm oil is one of the most productive of all the oilseeds in production. It can yield an incredible 4.5 metric tons of edible oil per hectare. If we compare this to the typical 0.5 metric yield of most of its competitors such as soy, sunflower or canola, it is clear that palm oil requires less land to produce the same tonnage of oil as its competitors. That means that there is no necessity for palm oil to resort to massive deforestation to meet world market demands. This is borne out by the fact that Malaysia, despite being the world’s largest producer of palm oil for more than a hundred years, can still maintain forest cover of 65%. That might not appear to be much until we compare it to the typical 20% forest cover found in the countries of the industrialized west from which FOE hails!
Secondly, palm oil being a tree crop would be superior to its competitors, which are all basically grains, in terms of CO2 sequestration.
Thirdly, the oil palm tree is virtually a perennial crop with a productive life of close to 30 years, which does not require the annual tilling and soil preparation ( with all the overuse of chemical fertilizers that that entails) that its competitors typically require.
Further, the actions of Greenpeace against the first shipment of sustainable palm oil from Indonesia are no less perplexing. In typical Greenpeace fashion, they attempted to prevent the loading of crude palm oil on the Isola Corallo, a Rotterdam-bound tanker in Dumai, Indonesia's main palm oil export port.
A Greenpeace activist was locked onto the anchor chain of the Isola Corallo for over 36 hours to stop it from moving. The Greenpeace ship, Esperanza, then occupied the palm oil loading facility to prevent the Isola Corrallo from loading Sinar Mas palm oil. The Esperanza was finally forced off the berth by Port authority tugs after a seven hour face-off.
When Greenpeace is not engaged in deviant criminal acts such as the Dumai port circus act, they are busy shouting themselves hoarse about the imagined damage to the rainforest by palm oil.
Even the first Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certified sustainable palm oil shipment from Malaysia by United Plantations (UP) was not spared. It is actions such as this that raises serious questions as to the true motives of Greenpeace. If sincere attempts to comply with RSPO recommended directives by UP, an oil palm company with more than a hundred years of compliance with the principles of sustainable development, can be attacked with such venom by Greenpeace, then Greenpeace opens themselves to the legitimate query as to what their real agenda is.
In the view of the Palm Oil Truth Foundation, it is about time that the environmental movement transforms the debate about global warming by offering a fresh perspective based on truth and human needs, devoid of the fact-bending and hysterical scaremongering that typifies the current approach of the likes of FOE and Greenpeace! THE END.
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¨Palm oil causing massive deforestation and global warming?¨ FOE and Greenpeace are co-winners of the ¨Lie of the Decade¨ Award! Posted by Sean April, on February 1, 2009 at 3:04
FOE and Greenpeace? Might as well get your info from tarrot cards or tea leaves. They´ve a better chance of being accurate and true! Posted by O´Higgins, on February 1, 2009 at 2:53
¨Fact bending and & hysterical scaremongering¨? The Palm Oil Truth Foundation gets the line of the week award! Posted by ´Zany, on February 1, 2009 at 2:43
Interesting argument. Fact bending huh? Posted by Joan, on January 30, 2009 at 20:10
Hmm, this really makes me think that Greenpeace's motives are off the mark. I don't like activists anyway. Posted by Walter, on January 30, 2009 at 19:25
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Palm Oil and the Sinister Motives of Greenpeace and FOE 
