Rare Sumatran Tigers Threatened By Palm Oil Plantations.

[NNadir]

In order to help places like Germany fuel their cars to meet their renewable energy portfolios there's been a big, big, big push for palm oil plantations in South Asia.

Because our cars are the most important things on earth - I mean, how else would we spend days and days driving around looking for "organically" locally produced foods - we have no fucking use for things like the Pantanal, the world's largest wetland, in South America or things like Sumatran tiger habitat.

The chronicle of car worship gets worse and worse and worse...

Endangered tigers found in Indonesian jungle allocated to agriculture
· Scientists hope evidence will save other areas
· Zoologists appeal for change in land-use policy

Alok Jha, science correspondent The Guardian Wednesday October 31 2007
Conservationists have found several species of endangered animals living in parts of the Indonesian jungle given over to timber and oil-palm plantations. They warn that the habitats for these rare animals could be destroyed by the plantations and have called on the authorities there to reconsider the way they allocate land for agricultural use.

A team of scientists, led by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), found evidence of Sumatran tigers, families of elephants, sun bears, tapirs, golden cats and clouded leopards in so-called degraded land on Sumatra - areas that are not protected habitats and have been designated for agriculture. There is some 60m hectares of degraded land on the island...

...The London team studied a 2,000 sq km area of degraded land next to the Bukit Tiga Puluh national park in central Sumatra. Using camera traps, they took pictures of an entire family of Asian elephants, a species currently classified as endangered by the World Conservation Union's Red List - fewer than 50,000 of these animals are left in the wild and they are at risk from the illegal trade in ivory.

The team also found evidence of the Sumatran tiger, classified as critically endangered. The smallest of all tiger subspecies and found only in Sumatra, it is believed there are only 250 mature individuals left. It is threatened by habitat loss and poaching. Other rare species found in the survey area include the golden cat and the Malayan sun bear.

I wonder how "renewable" the tiger's genetic code is.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/oct/31/endangered

For Thanksgiving Dinner, I'll be driving 8,000 miles in my renewably powered Mercedes E320 palm oil powered diesel to feast on wind power threshed wheat bread baked in my renewable solar oven. (I'm driving to Belize to make sure I get plenty of sun for my renewable oven to operate.) The meal won't be vegetarian unfortunately, but we'll be feasting on organically grown Sumatran Tiger meat killed by totally natural organic flint spears fashioned from renewable flint flown in from Antarctica.

We'll be feasting on organically mango tarts, harvested from rototilled rain forest Mangos just before the rototilling of the forest, using renewably powered sustainable rototillers and our renewably powered wood-fired steam chainsaws. (Amory Lovins will be flown in to Sumatra from Snowmass, via Bentonville Arkansas, to certify that all of the trees for the wood fired chain saws would be renewable if there was any habitat left to grow them.)

We plan to feast on organically grown nuts from whatever the fuck kind of trees those were before we rototilled the forest to make our palm oil plantation to power our new organic Mercedes E320.

We also plan to fly in organically grown wild potatoes from Lima, Peru.

I'm not sure if we'll be able to get a roast California Condor though. The blind we had to shoot one using organically certified lead bullets caught fire last week and the Condors may have already been roasted.

[Lorien]

3. They are truly magnificent animals:

They are leaner than the Bengal and Siberian, have highly contrasted markings and an intense, intelligent look in their eyes. It would be nothing short of tragic to lose these creatures to yet more of mankind's thoughtlessness and greed.

[NNadir]

4. They will certainly not be the last species ground up and pureed to fill our gas tanks.

Actually I think one of the species threatened by gas tanks is Homo Sapiens, but that's just my opinion.

The Orangatan is another species threated by palm oil plantations.

[Lorien]

1. While they still exist we need to fight for them

http://www.tigertrust.info/

Every species on earth is threatened by homo sapiens and their gas tanks, but that doesn't mean that the forces of Mordor MUST win. Fight 'em.

[NNadir]

2. I agree.

But I must confess that I am increasingly cynical and despairing over the whole affair.

Maybe I've lived too long.

[jpak]

7. Umm...93% of global palm oil production is for food-grade oil, 5% for pharmaceuticals

and only 3% is for biofuel.

Timber harvesting and clearing/burning agricultural lands in Indonesia are the true culprits behind the historical declines of the Sumatran Tiger and Orangutan.

FYI

[NNadir]

8. Um...um...maybe you haven't heard about the European renewable portfolio standards.

What's your claim here, that you haven't sat around here calling for more and more and more palm oil production?

"Just 3%?" In all this "percent" talk have you ever considered that you are calling for the increase in the use of palm oil in engines.

Which "percent" would you like to take away to put in engines, food or pharmaceuticals?

Three percent of the tigers would be about 8 of them.

I note with disgust that the anti-nuke "renewables will save us" religion is claiming we're just getting started with renewable fuels.

This may come as a surprise to people who couldn't care about Orangatans, Sumatran Tigers, Asian elephants and the like, but there are activists now working to plead with Europe to abandon the RPS pledge. These activists hate the car culture, almost as much as I do.

How's the fight with the cook going over the organic shredded coconut going by the way? Maybe you could get one of the other servants to overrule him or her.

I will post, when I have time, a separate thread on the activist appeal for Germany and friends to stop the RPS before the last acre of Indonesian rain forest is gone. It's a fascinating.

All renewable fantasies sound great until you go to actually try them out.

[jpak]

9. Ummm..here's a Friends of the Earth report on palm oil production (global and Indonesian)

http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/greasy_palms_buyers.pdf

Biofuels were *not* the reason for the rapid expansion of palm oil production over the last 30 years...

Energy and retail companies in the UK, Netherlands and Germany have scrapped earlier plans to import unsustainable palm oil for biofuel and food-grade oil...

Netherlands exclude palm oil from support

http://www.wetlands.org/news.aspx?id=53486f9a-e23a-4e5c-a450-e55faad11f3c

Asda palm oil ban to save rainforests

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2132140,00.html

Morrisons makes palm oil pledge

http://www.greenconsumerguide.com/index.php?news=3225

Concern for rainforest forces RWE to scrap palm oil project

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article1265575.ece

Sorry to kick this strawman down (not)

[NNadir]

12. So let me get this straight. Amory Lovins is going to sit in Rotterdam and sort

palmitic acid molecules?

This is like the electron sorters we always hear about from "no nukes" jerk-offs who say they're only going to buy wind and solar electricity, like the greenwashers at Walmart.

Now let's hear the spin on this one: How many acres of palm oil plantations, soy plantations or whatever will it take to fill the bunker of one coal tanker with biodiesel?

You know what fucking tankers I'm talking about don't you, big boy? I'm talking about the tankers that will be hauling the coal from South Africa to fuel the German coal fired electricity plants that the anti-nukes did so much to cause to be built.

In fact, zero tankers will be fueled by biodiesel. That coal will be hauled by tankers loaded with petroleum diesel or even worse, FT diesel. There is not enough rain forest left in all of Sumatra to be rototilled to serve those tankers, and that's just the tankers.

In fact, the RPS standards in Europe are just an excuse for first world brats to feel smug and superior and "concerned" at the expense of the third world. And in order to gratify this smug conceit, the yuppies are certainly willing to tell ever more elaborate lies to themselves and to everyone else.

Let's be clear: The Russian fossil fuel industry owns the European "Greens." They paid good money for them, or bad money for them, depending on how you see it. So long as the Germans and friends can do some "percent" talk, they're not going to get off their asses and do the work that must be done to replace cars. It is already way too late for that of course, but still...

Let's be clear, I have nothing but sympathy for the workers and farmers of Indonesia who will be exploited by this business, and nothing but tears for the Indonesian rain forest, about which the anti-nuke industry/religion couldn't care less. These people are pressed against the wall and they feel, undoubtedly, powerless and desperate. And they are powerless and desperate.

I was relieved to learn that Indonesia is pursuing a commercial nuclear program, but in the meantime, there's nothing to look forward but more rape by the Europeans, after centuries of such rape. How dare the Dutch say anything to Indonesia?

One of the things you notice, by the way, when one confronts anti-nuke ignorance, is that such ignorance consists not only of anti-science dogma, but that there's an awful lot of attendant ignorance of history.

As for the "RPS" biofuel nonsense, if it's so great, why is anyone in Europe importing oils from Asia? Aren't they supposed to just grow it locally?

It's just all Yuppie conceits at this point. It's nothing more than the car culture unable to face the fact that it not has cancer, but it is cancer. In other words, it's about denial.

Why not take Mom's (organically grown biodiesel powered) E320 out for a spin to buy some organic locally grown beans for a fabulous Maine bean fest tonight? We certainly always look forward to your farts here. Be sure to pick up an organic turkey while you're at it. Maybe you can fly the turkey guts out to the Changing World Turkey to Oil Plant that was supposed to save the world, but currently produces 500 barrels of oil a day.

Or have Amory Lovins drop it off. Just drive or fly the guts out to Aspen on the next ski adventure and drive 'em over to the RMI offices. (You can't walk there, though. ) It would seem that Carthage, MO would be near the flight path on the flight from Aspen to Bentonville, and I'm sure that Walmart would have no objection to Lovins making an extra landing with the corporate jet, especially for the important matter of the supply of turkey.

As for my feelings about turkey, I don't eat mammals or birds, but I still know a turkey when I see one.

[jpak]

14. and, yes...you are right about this...

I never " sat around here calling for more and more and more palm oil production?"

This is your claim.

It is false

It is untrue

It lacks veracity

etc.

[NNadir]

15. Oh. I see. I must have been mistaken. I thought you took biofuels seriously.

Apparently not.

Presumably then, you'll be willing to tell this German to fuck off:

http://www.newenergyreport.org/013618.html

And of course you'll approve of this German utility's plan not to convert a British plant from dangerous fossil fuels to biofuels on the grounds that they couldn't find "sustainable" biofuel anywhere on this planet:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article1265575.ece

A leading German utility has abandoned plans to convert a British power station to run on palm oil, in a blow to the promotion of biofuels in Europe. The decision by RWE npower to scrap the project at its Littlebrook plant in Dartford, Kent, which was seen as a test case for palm oil as an alternative energy source, comes after it was unable to secure sufficient supplies without risking damage to tropical rainforest. The move highlights the mounting alarm over the scramble in South-East Asia to bring more land into palm oil cultivation.

These cutesy schemes always seem really, really nice until someone goes to try them.

I, of course, do not suffer from the moral stain that lies on the anti-nuke religion, the religion that says we either choose the tigers or the dangerous fossil fuel.

We'll strike this plant from the big, big, big, big "percent talk" renewable energy portfolio standards calculation, then.

I guess we're back to watching Gerhard Schroeder suck up to Vlad Putin for money then, are we not?

[jpak]

16. No, I serious about false statements about me

In the final analysis, the your ad hominem argument *always* loses...

[NNadir]

17. There's nothing ad hominem about noting that the Germans abandoned a biofuel plan.

I simply noted that we should scratch this from the big "Renewable Portfolio Standards" that the anti-nuke Germans are always talking about while they finalize plans for their new South African fueled coal plants.

Now, if you take noting that remark as something personal, I can't help that, but I couldn't care less about it either.

My concern in writing here is about something called "climate change" which is connected with something I call, much to the objection of whiny little anti-nukes, "dangerous fossil fuel waste."

Now, I've heard all sorts of yuppie whining about the fact that I call it "dangerous fossil fuel waste," which I can only take to be an indication that in the anti-nuke churches, fossil fuel waste is not regarded as "dangerous."

And you know what?

It's not that dangerous if you live in a McMansion in Snowmass or your the heir presumptive of the family estates in the great north woods. But I am not here to defend the rich and powerful, but rather the poor and the weak. I've heard enough yuppie crying in my life time, and in fact, I've done some yuppie crying.

Here's the thing though. I bunch of anti-science illiterates have been vandalizing the nuclear infrastructure of Europe - the world's largest source, by far, of climate change gas free energy - while making, big, big, big, big talk about things like biofuels. Now it seems that one of the test case biofuels plants didn't even get off the drawing board, because the originators - Germans no less - can't find sustainable biofuels anywhere on the planet. And note, that's just one plant.

Now.

Maybe you can fly in some sustainably harvested wood from Maine to help them out. I don't know. I couldn't care less. All I do know is that what I have been predicting for years here, that the anti-nuke religion would inevitably lead to the burning of more dangerous fossil fuels, not less, seems to have lots of independent confirmation. In the last few days I've linked showing the South African coal executives falling all over themselves to thank the anti-nukes for working on their behalf. I've noted that those concerned with Sumatran fauna have plead with the world to stop palm oil plantations, and I've shown that the biofuels game in Europe falls apart without palm oil.

Don't take it so personally, unless of course, part of the family portfolio is tied up in German biofuels industry. Look. If it's not working out financially, give Gerhard a call and ask him to hook you up with Vlad. Vlad just loves to hand out money to European anti-nukes. It's worth every penny he pays, I'm sure.

Stop sulking. Listen, why not sit down with a nice warm glass of Allen's Coffee Brandy - whatever the fuck that is - and some organic Maine milk. Have a locally produced cookie made from genuine locally produced Maine wheat flour baked in the wood fired oven.

By the way, my wife never reads Democratic Underground but I told her that she just had to see the organic sustainably grown Thanksgiving dinner post.

Now mind you, my wife's a doctor's daughter and it cannot be said that she grew up deprived, at least in the sense of worrying about food and shelter and stuff that other people worry about.

Here's what my wife said after reading about the organic locally grown Thanksgiving dinner: "He's got to be joking; it must be sarcasm; nobody is that rich."

"No," I said, "It's quite serious."

"It can't be," she insisted.

"It is," I insisted. "The guy thinks he's a noble noble. He thinks he should be admired for this stuff."

Hell, my wife should know better. We used to live in West LA and we used to go to these organic dinner parties. I mean, it's not like my wife never went on a shopping trip to Mother Gooch's with a yuppie.

Damn if we didn't end up laughing like hell. It was a great memory of when our marriage was young.

There's nothing like comedy to relieve you when you can't sleep at night because you're so freaked out about the world you're handing to your children.

[Systematic Chaos]

18. Yup.

By the way, my wife never reads Democratic Underground but I told her that she just had to see the organic sustainably grown Thanksgiving dinner post.

Now mind you, my wife's a doctor's daughter and it cannot be said that she grew up deprived, at least in the sense of worrying about food and shelter and stuff that other people worry about.

Here's what my wife said after reading about the organic locally grown Thanksgiving dinner: "He's got to be joking; it must be sarcasm; nobody is that rich."

"No," I said, "It's quite serious."

"It can't be," she insisted.

"It is," I insisted. "The guy thinks he's a noble noble. He thinks he should be admired for this stuff."

Hell, my wife should know better. We used to live in West LA and we used to go to these organic dinner parties. I mean, it's not like my wife never went on a shopping trip to Mother Gooch's with a yuppie.

Damn if we didn't end up laughing like hell. It was a great memory of when our marriage was young.

There's nothing like comedy to relieve you when you can't sleep at night because you're so freaked out about the world you're handing to your children.


<><><><><><><><><>


I can't help but wonder about the whole tone of that post. It was nothing but "best of the best!" and "no expense spared - even had to argue with the cook about it!"

But then when someone points out that in the E/E forum of all places it just seems so damn elitist and out of place we get the info that it was all for under $4 per person or less than $200 for 40 guests?

Mmmmkay. :shrug:

[jpak]

19. Nope - no organic Turkey for you or your servants!

and your wife knows less about organic food and food miles than you do...

:hi:

[bananas]

20. Your wife said, "nobody is that rich" - BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Guess she didn't notice how everything was homegrown and homemade.
Does she have reading comprehension problems, or does she just need new glasses?
Oh - I knew someone like her - she'd buy "homemade" bread at the supermarket - it said "homemade" on the label, and she believed it!
BWAHAHAHA!!!!
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[jpak]

21. and she *never* reads DU

:shrug:

[NNadir]

23. No. She never reads it.

You got a problem with that?

Um, maybe you think she needs to read cutesy yuppie recipes. Frankly, if she wanted to do that, she could probably watch Martha Stewart or whatever the fuck yuppie cooking shows are on these days.

I hear tell that you're having 40 guests for dinner. Wow. That must be quite a dining room you have there on the estate, even acknowleging that your dinner's cost can only be measured in negative numbers and all the guests are going to take home cash party favors.

How are they getting there?

Um. Let me guess. They're not all driving over in their E320 Mercedes 4 wheel drive (you need four wheel drive in Maine, right) cars, of course not. They're coming over on organically grown renewable horses, no doubt, raised on organically grown local Maine grown hay from the entirely self sufficient (except for all the imported dangerous natural gas) State of Maine.

You seem to be fidgeting a bit. Have some Maine grown sustainable Allen's Coffee Brandy to steady yourself, boy. Mommy won't let those mean, mean, mean boys be mean to you, no, no, no, no. Mommy will tell those boys they're bad, bad, bad.

You know, many, many, many years ago, I had a housemate who's sister lived with a man who was born with access to hundreds of millions of dollars. For about three years, we used to ride a motorcycle up from LA to Montecito, in the hills overlooking Santa Barbara for Thanksgiving.

The guy would sit there chain smoking dope specially imported from Oaxaca and giving these long, long, long pedantic lectures about the origins of the food, which of course, food which no real person could afford. All I recall of it is how boring he was. He was so boring, you almost felt sorry for him, because he was so isolated from reality, so isolated in fact that he might have been dead.

This is a guy who daddy bought him a Maserati dealership when he was 21.

A few times, it got cold on the drive back, I remember feeling so lucky to know what it is to shiver. And when I got home, I just couldn't wait to get back to my peanut butter and jelly on white bread, bread containing (gasp) preservatives.

I trust you'll be inviting some poor kids from El Salvador named Jesus from down in Providence to the Maine turkey dinner to hear a turkey lecture from you on how any turkey can prepare a vast turkey dinner fit for a god - with Allen's Sustainable Coffee Brandy aparatifs included - on a piddling 4 bucks per person.

By the way, I don't believe for a second that your vegetables are homegrown. They probably were flown in from Uraguay and then some guy stamped "locally grown" on them, making it believable by charging 4 times as much as one would pay at Safeway.

And of course, if you do bring a token Salvadoran to dinner, you'll brag about it.

You must be high. I don't know what you're smoking, but you're on something, and I sure don't want to smoke any of that. In times like these, it is right to be sober.

Be sure you teach the Salvadoran kids how to grow a sustainable, renewable, organic garden, although you should probably take into account that they'll be planting the Maine renewable vegetables in the cracks in the asphalt outside their rat infested rooms. You may not know this, but most of the people alive on this planet don't have a sustainably harvested forest in their family.

And be sure to tell Jesus how to grill a rat in a sustainable wood fired oven (although they may be firing it up with garbage and cardboard).

I have heard from a source that leaves me inclined to believe it, that some people would rather sleep on the streets rather than accept a night in a Salvation Army shelter, so overbearing are the lectures about holiness to which one has to listen.

I totally believe that.

God, I hate the yuppie car culture. It's so fucking despicable because it's so blind, so indifferent. I wish my wife wasn't sleeping. I need someone to tell me to laugh.

[NNadir]

22. Oh please. Home grown Allen's Coffee Brandy? You guys are so rich.

And when I say rich I'm not talking about your yuppie brat sensibilities.

I mean really, you guys have us cracking up. Really.

Um, guess what Schroeder-boy, there is a real world out there. How many people, precisely does the yuppie "wholesome organic foods" world think are having "homegrown organic turkeys" in Chad? How about Pakistan?

Um, Ecuador?

How about Honduras?

How about Indonesia?

What?

You couldn't care less?

Why am I not surprised?

Face it pal, all you and your little "organic turkey" know about Honduras is that the guy who works the leaf blower seems to have come from there.

Now of course, we're going to hear how, like Jesus with the loaves and fishes, the organic turkey has not only fed all of Maine with his organic garden, but has also invited all of Zimbabwe to dinner, for a cost of eleven cents - and they're all bringing home a year's supply of leftovers as well as cures for AIDS.

I have always said that the paid (off) anti-nuke industry is a religious industry. Only religious people talk about loaves and fishes: And let's be clear, the whole representation that 0.07 exajoules of little yuppie brat solar toys is enough is just a loaves and fishes tale that KILLS, like all ignorance kills.

If you can't defend yourself, make stuff up.

That turkey's turkey dinner is a rich man's conceit. Announcing here, in this forum, while the world's food supply hangs on mute indifference to billion ton quantities of dangerous fossil fuel waste is nothing but contemptuous.

But I have never mistaken ONE member of the anti-nuke neocreationist religion for people who give a shit. NOT ONE.

Only Yuppie brats are anti-nukes. "Yuppie brat" is a pair of words that fully, and completely characterizes all of the members of the anti-nuke religion, including those who, like Amory Lovins, are paid to kill.

[losthills]

24. You are so right!

And deforestation is one of the biggest ecological problems for our generation to deal with.

There are many reasons to cut down our last remaining forests for money-- and few reasons to preserve them that will be heard by governments run by corporate money or indigenous people struggling from meal to meal.

Your photos of the Tigers say it all. Are we to be known for all time as the generation that watched these magnificent creatures (and so many others.........) slip into oblivion?

Indeed, there are forces working to put these beautiful animals into the gas tanks of Walmart Shoppers looting the last dregs of consumer garbage to pollute our once awe inspiring Eden...

Whether these animals disappear from the face of the earth for all time to produce ethanol, or jiffy pop pop-corn, or chopsticks, or yamaha guitars, or mcdonalds hamburgers, they will still be gone for ever-- unless we have the will and the heart and the courage to stop it now.

And ever is a long time-- or "no time at all," as the nameless boy in Cormack McCarthy's The Road realized.....

[losthills]

25. I hope it's clear to all,

that my post above is a reply to Lorien....

[nealmhughes]

5. Monbiot has warned us about palm oil production for some time now.

He worries about the enviromental aspect of it, per se, i.e., the degredation of the soil, as well as animal diversity, and also the loss of food production.

[NNadir]

6. Who is Monbiot?

[nealmhughes]

10. George Monbiot, the British environmental author and columnist for The Guardian.

Just google his name for his writings.

[razzleberry]

11. needed ... the electric car, to take pressure off fuel prices

first of all, US (or Europesn) laws do no apply
to the whole world.

depending on prices, sometimes,
palm oil price will be coupled
to fuel price.
get over it.

people will take matters into their own hands.

[NNadir]

13. People will take matters into their own hands?

I guess I'm supposed to insert a happy face here.

I am here to fight ignorance, not applaud it.

In any case, I'm talking about the tigers, not people.