Green Options

So what is the problem with palm oil? Take a peek at this short video explaining:

To recap, palm oil is in many common supermarket products such as snacks, candy, and even soaps and detergents. Rainforest Action Network has created a site to educate consumers on the how destructive palm oil is to our global environment. Palm oil destroys vital ecosystems, contributes to global climate change, results in the displacement of Indigenous people and small family farmers, and is produced through exploitative labor practices.

Please help educate grocery shoppers about these facts and take action in anyway possible. RAN tells us: “Palm  oil  plantations  are  expanding  into  the  planet’s  most biodiverse  ecosystems,  including  rainforests,  grasslands  and  peat swamps in South America, Southeast Asia, the Pacific and Africa. These regions are home to millions of plant and animal species, including highly endangered orangutans, clouded leopards, and sun bears.”

Big palm oil companies pay to have important oxygen providing rainforests clear cut for their palm crops and painfully push out the native people that rely on the land. This endangers the plants, animals and waterways that entire communities have thrived on forever.

While deforestation is clearly visible from satellite imagery, selective logging of rainforests is much harder to track. A team of some of the best scientists across the world have developed estimates of the severity of human logging in tropical regions, but say they really have no idea how accurate they are.

At today’s symposium “Will the Rainforests Survive? New Threats and Realities in the Tropical Extinction Crisis” at the Smithsonian Institution, Gregory Asner from the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology explained the results of an extensive study on the extent of rainforest destruction worldwide.

Environmental activists represent the planet against the interests of corporations and human greed, all in an attempt to preserve our natural world for future generations. Tactics vary from radical to judicial, yet they share many of the same goals and dreams.

For every new coal plant, for every new species facing extinction, and for every newly polluted stream, there is a victory of equal importance. This list compiles the most significant progress made by the environment and conservation movements in 2008.

Bank of America received praise from the Rainforest Action Network for its decision to phase out financing for companies that practice mountaintop removal coal mining, a controversial method of coal extraction.

Rainforest Action Network has declared yesterday and today, November 15th, as national days of protest against Citibank and Bank of America for their consistent support of the coal industry and its impact on global warming.

I am currently stuck at the car shop, having been towed here this morning. Over my shoulder, the TV is blaring day time game show, Price is Right in between ads for term life policies, diabetes mail order drugs, hemorrhoid medication, and Ex Lax. Clearly, I am the wrong demographic. But I remember why I quit watching TV. My brain cells are starving. I need some Food for Thought like right now. Oh my, the soaps are starting …

But, I Thought You Said “Eat Local?”
While President Bush may have told the nation that eating local was the way to go for the food crisis (despite that whole ethanol, lack of vegetable farm thing), he doesn’t seem to be helping us follow his innovative strategy. According to the American Farmland Trust, Bush is proposing cuts to the 2009 farm bill programs that would have supported local food, conservation and other agriculture programs. These programs were among the few bright spots that kept the new farm bill from being a total loss of reform. Hmm. Kinda hard to eat local if there isn’t any local food. By the way, what happened to that green tie?

Sticker Shock
Rainforest Action Network has organized a protest against products containing palm oil. On August 13, more than 2,000 concerned citizens across the nation will visit local supermarkets. The activists will be seeking out products containing palm oil and applying a sticker, “Warning! Product May Contain Rainforest Destruction,” on these products.