It’s not nice to try to fool Mother Nature, but that’s what certain countries are trying to do in their greenhouse gas emissions reports. Malaysia, for instance, claims that its forests are absorbing more greenhouse gases than those in Indonesia; however, the palm oil plantations in the undrained peat bog forests of Simunjan release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases beyond measure.
Data form the basis of our predictions and the Global Carbon Project, a collaboration of hundreds of researchers show the data are flawed, indeed, deliberately so. The U.S., China and Russia all claim that the burning of fossil fuels is offset by land. Not so, scientists say, and our demand for products is fueling deforestation for palm oil.
What is palm oil? It’s used as a stabilizer in most food products. Just look at almost any prepared food on the supermarket shelf and you will see palm oil as an ingredient. And you can bet your bottom dollar that the workers who harvest the plants get little benefit. They have been shoved off their lands for multinational corporation profits. And you want to know why people are migrating?
Prayer for the Day
Redeeming God, whom we cannot see but whose presence we feel,
Let us not be complacent when we see evil in the world;
Empowering God, who speaks to us through your Holy Spirit,
May we act when we hear the cry of the oppressed and forgotten;
Loving God, whose presence is often found where we least expect it,
Broaden our imagination making us instruments of your justice.
We ask this in the name of him who shows us how to love,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
The simple fact is that the world is not paying for the services that forests provide. At the moment, they are worth more dead than alive—for soya, for beef, for palm oil, for logging, feeding the demand from other countries.
Prince Charles
I would make a difference by banning unsustainable palm oil in order to save the rain forests and orangutan habitats along with the rest of the three hundred thousand other species that live in the rainforests.
Katie Cleary, American movie actress
When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand?
Trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile.
Isaiah 1: 12-13