Boycotting palm oil in general is actually bad for the environment
This was something I was surprised to learn on a recent trip to the zoo. While the palm oil industry is absolutely wrecking a lot of our rainforests, and, most notedly, orangutans, boycotting all palm oil is actually worse for the environment because palm oil is the most land-efficient vegetable oil crop. It supplies 40% of global vegetable oil but only uses 6% of the land dedicated to oil production.
It's also extremely versatile because "it is semi-solid at room temperature so can keep spreads spreadable; it is resistant to oxidation so can give products a longer shelf-life; it’s stable at high temperatures so helps to give fried products a crispy and crunchy texture; and it’s also odourless and colourless so doesn’t alter the look or smell of food products."
The issue is who produces it and how, so it's only certain products that should be boycotted.
I'm sure the solution isn't as simple as "download this app," but the zoo I went to recommended using the PalmOil Scan app (produced under the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) and led by Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, Chester Zoo, Auckland Zoo, Zoos SA and Mandai Wildlife Group). It's essentially only available in the Anglosphere (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, United Kingdom, United States), but it tells you if the entire company meets their standards (but not individual products so users don't just boycott all palm oil).
We acknowledge that all companies that receive a rating are in different places on their journey to use 100% certified sustainable palm oil. We want to recognise those companies that are doing well and encourage those companies that need improvement. We hope that by creating this rating system we will accomplish this task and assist consumers with making the most educated shopping choices in regards to sustainable palm oil.
Companies are scored on a point structure and can earn a rating of Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor, or No Commitment.
I'm sure a lot of Tilderianeses are conscious of this, so I wanted to share the information (and presumably get more info from someone who knows more).
It's exactly the same with bio meat, energy and crops.
As someone who lived in one of the most densely populated countries on earth (The Netherlands), what people often forget is that true biodiversity is found in wild nature. By using more land for agriculture we're forced to destroy the most biodiverse areas (or import food at huge co2 costs) defeating the whole purpose.
Same goes for (nuclear) power. I understand all the disadvantages but using a minimal amount of space to provide a high living standard for a large amount of people and being able to have more nature is a pretty big advantage if you don't have the luxury of unlimited space.
Reduce, reuse, recycle definitely also works for food and energy!
Eh, that is very reductionist. By sweeping it all into one big bucket in one grand statement you do simplify it a bit too much. There certainly is truth to what you are saying. However, as is often the case things are wildly more complex than A is better than B.
For example. Using less land per unit of output doesn't automatically means more land left wild. That only holds if the "spared" land actually gets protected. In practice, making a crop more efficient and profitable often drives more expansion, not less (Jevons paradox). Palm oil is actually a good example here.
This I fully agree with. Without cheap palm oil available it might actually have reduced our overall use of oils.
You also mention CO2 specifically, but that isn't the only thing with a climate impact. Nitrousoxide from fertilizer also has various effects on the climate, certainly when it is used in the context of intensive "efficient" agriculture. Methane as a by product from palm oil production also plays a role.
What is still CO2 related though is the fact that with palm plantations we are often talking about lands that used to be peat. Which when drained releases a ton of carbon and keeps oxidizing for decades.
To be very clear, as I said at the start, I am not saying your points hold no merit. What I am saying here is not intended as a complete counter. What I am saying is that things are far more complex.
As one final example. Yes, if everyone switched to organic meat in the same consumption pattern it would be bad for the climate. However, animal welfare is also something that should be taken into consideration imho. With factory farming animal welfare is poor to say the least. Some people might argue we should go all vegan or vegetarian, though we still depend on animal products for various other things that are difficult to replace without other things that impact the climate. But, we can certainly reduce our meat consumption by a considerable margin, which would allow for organic meat to be used without significant climate impact.
The PalmOil Scan is based on the recommendations of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, with criticisms of the organization including that they will certify as sustainable plantations that destroy old growth forests and perpetrate human rights abuses, while failing to rescind certification from plantations that have documented violations of their guidelines. It's considered by Greenpeace and the Rainforest Action Network as somewhere between a failure and a greenwashing tool to mitigate criticisms of the palm oil industry.
I don't take anything Greenpeace says to be credible just because they allege it. They blocked the planting of life-saving golden rice and have vehemently and repeatedly misled the public about nuclear energy. This cannot be overstated: the Greenpeace-led bans on golden rice have killed millions of children.
If anyone wants to offset the genuine harm caused by this organization, I highly recommend donating to Helen Keller Intl’s Vitamin A Supplementation Program. This is one of the most effective, high-impact charities in existence at the moment, and donating can genuinely save children's lives.
I don’t think this is as simple as palm oil is good or bad. Yes, you are right that you can produce more yield per acre with oil palms, but while some organizations do say that you shouldn’t boycott it, there is plenty of disagreement.
In actuality, palm oil is filling the market demand of oil in general, and the problem is that that has been ballooning for decades at this point. If you are concerned about vegetable oil production, your best option is to limit how much you consume in general. But frankly if agricultural land use is a problem for you then the number one thing you should be reducing is meat and animal products, which consume the greatest amount of land and water.
well that's sounds exactly like what Big Palm Oil would want you to think
I know this is a joke, but it's legitimately true, and that's part of why I wanted to post this. I know it can't be as black and white as some organizations say, and I thought it was interesting and could generate a good discussion.
In this discussion I always like to go to the analysis done by Hannah Ritchie. It's worth a read as there is a lot of nuance and a lot depends on how you define deforestation and what you assume the impact of using an alternative, much lower yielding, oil would be. It took me numerous rereads of this section in her book to convince myself that palm has some benefits without hiding behind the damage it has done.
Ultimately, I would summarize it as something like this: palm oil has the highest yield amongst the oils we mass produce. The deforestation that resulted in palm oil production is both from old growth forests and from previously logged lands. The land area required to produce a replcament volume would be at least 4x greater, possibly but not necessarily, reducing forest by a greater amount elsewhere. Existing palm plantations might as well continue as the damage has been done. Programs to reduce the environmental impacts of palm oil production have been successful in reducing the impact.
(commenting on that analysis)
It doesn't seem like this jibes with the conclusion that increased e.g. sunflower or canola production would be a net ecological harm? Having driven through the vast canola fields of the Canadian prairies, I doubt that a forest would've taken hold in those climates; no one's ever chopped down a rainforest in Saskatchewan to plant more canola. It seems like we'd need a measure of "harm to the environment" to make reasonable conclusions, such as comparing the relative impacts per parcel of cultivating food crops vs. allowing the land to go fallow vs. actively restoring the ecosystem.
Hmm ... I'm not sure I'd agree with this characterization?
My views are mostly in line with the wikipedia article on this stuff, so I'll try to avoid repeating too much of it here. But the tl;dr is that:
(1) it ain't great to exploit cheap labour and lax environmental regulations in other countries so that Nabisco can save $0.01 per box of Oreos,
(2) even if it has a higher yield per hectare, we have to consider the opportunity cost: oil palms are most productive in regions which sustain some of the highest biodiversity on the planet, and some of the last untouched wildernesses left to us. I'm aware that there's a tradeoff between efficient, intensive agriculture vs. distributed, inefficient agriculture, but those forests are irreplaceable.
So I just try to avoid the stuff whenever possible, but sometimes there isn't a reasonable alternative.
I'd love to see a study comparing the ecological impact (not sure how to measure that) per litre of cooking oil, but the brief reading I did was polluted by internet hustlers talking about "ssseeeeeed oils" (spoken while hissing and punctuated by a spit), so that was not fruitful.
I think that's just most high-smoke point oils, especially if they're saturated? We can also hydrogenate unsaturated (frequently, liquid) cooking oils to make them solid, and collect the rest of the benefits.
So yeah. IMO everyone should continue trying to boycott palm oil in general. It should be saved for people whose cultures developed around using it (there's a distinct flavour to it, apparently, which is filtered out for the sake of foreign tastes), and everyone else should slow down on taking their stuff.