The Knowledge Society and Elaeis guineensis

The European Commission is busy talking about Palm oil and biofuels again. They are trying to deceive themselves (and, oh so gullible, us) that oil palm plantations can be classified as forests. They can then claim that palm oil is sustainable, even if tropical forests have to be cut down to accommodate them. If they do come to that conclusion after their present discussions they will be committing a crime against the planet. Of this there is no doubt. Greed seems to have no limits.

This EU move would, of course, if successful, cause even further clearance of the few remaining tropical forests in Indonesia and Malaysia for palm oil. Needless to say the Indonesian government is complicit with and supportive of the EU initiative and has published highly misleading and irresponsible data to justify it’s disastrous destruction of prime forests for palm oil as part of its greenwashing efforts and perhaps also to line up its now extensive palm oil plantations for remuneration under the REDD agreements. Not only has Indonesia become the world’s largest producer of palm oil but is also the world’s 3rd most profligate carbon emitter on account of forest clearance.

True, oil palms are trees, scientific name Elaeis guineensis, an African tree. But to class oil palm plantations as forests is either naive or positively wicked. They are saying that motor cars are more important than humanity.

Of course, for those that believe in

God, or have even a modicum of morality, the issue is clear: tropical forests are the most amazing and multifarious manifestations of His creation and that we humans are the stewards and cherishers of this fabulous heritage. Rainforests contain more that 50% of the world’s known species, not to mention countless as yet undiscovered ones. To cut rainforests is not just a crime against humanity but an insult to God Himself. And, yes, rainforests must be cut to make way for the insidious armies of oil palms. For the grey infidel and presumably secular aspiring Eurocrats, there is no such understanding as all is economic and what it’s worth on the boards of the Stock Markets, chips on the financial poker game.

Does one have to wheel out the facts again for immoral legislators to read? Oil palms devastate the land where they are planted. Once planted the soil becomes a sterile desert, its nutrients and water resources consumed. The oil palms give nothing back to the soil in terms of compostible mass. Nothing lives in an oil palm plantation except rats and snakes, not counting those that live with their eyes fastened on the stock exchange boards counting their profits.

The truth is that there is no such thing as sustainable palm oil for Biofuels. Arguably oil for cooking and human consumption might be seen as being sustainable but for cars and the diesel engines of the world, definitely not. Just the sheer extent of land needed to fuel international demand makes it an impossible proposition. Sooner or later humanity will have to choose between its machines or its own survival.

Wouldn’t it be better and more efficient to use human fat to make biofuels? There are enough obese reserves in the streets of any European city without having to import oils from faraway places. Only a few decades ago such manufacturing skills were perfected in the heart of what is now the European Union, although the preferred end product was soap. So, it’s not for lack of technology. The two options are clearly crimes against humanity. Jean Ziegler, UN special rapporteur on the right to food confirmed this in 2007 at UN HQ, New York. When will they learn?

The only sure known way of climate regulation and carbon sequestering, is to plant trees, real trees, and to conserve natural tropical forests. Oil palms do little to sequester carbon (50-90% less than tropical forests over 20 years), or cool the climate. As for stabilizing the water table the oil palm solves this by drinking it all itself! Levelling forests for oil palm releases huge quantities of carbon. When plantations are planted on peatlands, even vaster quantities of carbon and methane are released as the land is drained. On exposure to air, peat rapidly oxidizes, decomposes and releases disastrous amounts of carbon dioxide and methane. Methane is about 20 times stronger than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.

Moreover the production of one ton of palm oil results in carbon dioxide emissions of up to 33 tons (9tons carbon) roughly ten times that in the production of ordinary diesel. Added to this are the damaging use of fertizilers and the methane emissions of the palm oil production process. But the most criminal aspect is the loss of tropical forests cleared for plantation planting.

If European society claims to be a knowledge based society then it is severely in self denial as it condones the destruction of the rainforests in favour of biofuels from palm oil. For the most valuable commodity of the tropical rainforests is just that: knowledge. Only 1% of the chemical components of forest plants has been catalogued, whereas 25% of prescription drugs derive directly or indirectly by synthesis from tropical forests. The forests constitute a real working model of how ecosystems interact and affect the global ecology, balance and climate, of which little is known. But we do know that to cut them down heats the climate, reduces rainfall, diminishes oxygenization, releases carbon and lessens carbon absorbtion. All this to feed your car and make the fabulously rich handful of companies richer and richer….and spit in the face of the Almighty, as we burn thousands of books of the as yet unwritten knowledge of the future. Indeed such knowledge may save us. Or is the folly of man inevitable, as we all leap like lemmings off the pages of history driving our biodiesel powered cars?

Tok Man
www.upriverprojects.org