From NASA, while we wring our hands over coal fired power plants in the west, the rest of the world seems oblivious to creating even far worse air pollution. Hi-res sat image follows.
Illegal Fires Set in Indonesia Cause Smog Problem
Widespread wildfires are lighting up Indonesia, but these fires were not started accidentally. These fires were set deliberately to clear land for palm oil companies. This type of “slash-and-burn” agricultural has been used for centuries to clear land for new planting, however, the setting of such fires is now illegal in Indonesia. That doesn’t seem to be stopping plantation owners from continuing this practice. The Huffington Post reports that Laurel Sutherlin of the Rainforest Action Network, a San Francisco-based environmental organization sent the paper an email stating, “Widespread, illegal burning to clear rainforests and peatlands for palm oil and pulp and paper plantation expansion is unfortunately a well-established yearly ritual in Sumatra.”
The worst by-product of this practice is the deliterious smog produced by the fires. Smog so lethal that a record high of 401 pollution index was recorded in the city-state at noon on Friday (Aug. 16), according to UK’s The Independent. A measurement over 400 is said to be life-threatening to sick and elderly people, the paper notes. Of course, deforestation is also a negative by-product of this practice as well.
A staple for cooking throughout Southeast Asia and elsewhere, palm oil is the single largest traded vegetable oil commodity in the world, and global demand is rising rapidly, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says. The oil is increasingly used in the manufacture of cosmetics, soaps, pharmaceuticals and industrial products. It is also used to make biodiesel fuel.
Image: NASA’s Terra satellite collected this natural-color image with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, MODIS, instrument on August 27, 2013. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS’s thermal bands, are outlined in red. NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC. Caption by Lynn Jenner with information from the Huffington Post and The Independent
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The Girl Scouts switched to palm oil a few years ago under pressure of environmentalists. Go figure.
The Rain Forest Action Network likely won’t say a peep about how restricted logging and bad forestry practices create out of control forest fires like the one I’ve been breathing for ten days, has destroyed 180,000 acres and is slowly but steadily working its way towards my home. They will, like Jerry Brown insinuated yesterday in Tuolumne City, that global warming is to blame for the Rim fire and all the fires in the future in California.
It get discouraging because people look no further than a politicians speech or press release. So they’ll believe it too.
How is this different than the Brit’s requirement to use biomass (from US forests) in power generation plants?
“In the case of NC, most forests are replanted in similar ot original trees in order to produce the next “crop” – sustainable farming.” The timber/paper companies have been doing that for decades and are still doing it. Trees are a cash crop, like other cash crops, just much slower growing. I’ve always laughed at the “recycle paper, save a tree” bit since a majority of the trees were grown for just that purpose.
As for Drax going to wood pellets-“Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.”
Grey Lensman
Thomas Traill says: August 27, 2013 at 10:03 am
“..You know, I am actually convinced that Palm Oil is a huge problem…”
Dear Ladies and Germs,
We must bear in mind that we are all susceptible to indoctrination, especially in areas we have little knowledge, and where the story just ‘sound right’.
It is quite clear that ‘big canola’ is behind this demonization of palm oil, and we are all patsies for deciding to hate palm oil. 😉
Global oil yields: Have we got it seriously wrong?
Denis J. Murphy
August 2009 http://www.aocs.org/Membership/FreeCover.cfm?itemnumber=1102
Grey Lensman when I flew the Indonesian Haj three times 1993 – 1995 I lived in Medan ,Surabya and Jakarta and thought that Indonesia was the most corrupt country possible. It seemed that corruption was endemic at all levels.. Unless it has changed enormously surely bribery is the explanation of why nothing is done.
GlynnMhor says: August 27, 2013 at 10:55 am
Markx suggests: “… plow in your low yielding canola, and replant your own bl**dy forests.”
Canola is generally grown where no actual forests have stood for centuries, namely prairie grasslands.
Yeah, I know that Glynn, was just ‘figuratively speaking’.
But there are plenty of places the developed world could grow forests, instead of stridently accusing the developing world of thoughtlessly cutting theirs down. For example, the whole east coast of Australia was tropical rainforest once – it only took 150 years to clear it all.
One thing I do know from experience – given half a chance, forests will very rapidly re-establish themselves. And it would not be too many generations before the biodiversity accelerated.
Not to mention all of the fires in Africa, where the people burn trees to make charcoal so they can cook their food.
I lived many years in Indonesia, and saw extensive rain forest cut for palm oil. I saw just as much former jungle wiped out for tea. Funny how that boycott never happened.
Thomas Traill says:
August 27, 2013 at 10:03 am
Viable alternatives to coal & oil already exist & are able to compete economically with them, including their fellow fossil fuel gas.
Yet Neo-Luddites have somehow convinced themselves that the alternatives too are bad, such as nuclear & hydro power. Windmills are uneconomical environmental abominations, yet receive huge subsidies. Solar panels might become economical, but still carry heavy environmental consequences.
Go figure. Public policy makers clearly have not done so correctly.
[First paragraph above should be quoting Traill, right? Mod]
I heard from a family member that the people who own the plantations where the Singapore Smog originated live in Singapore. Heh-heh. They had to flee to better climes. It was not much better in Penang.
For the general discussion of PM, the composition of the particles has a lot to do with their effects. It is not as simple as counting a number. 400 micrograms of PM2.5 is not necessarily serious and does not make everyone drop dead. It matters a lot what is in it. Evaporated and condensed toxins can cause problems at much lower concentrations. Ground dust is much less potent (like in Beijing which is about 50% dust from nearby farming, the rest mostly from diesel).
The smoke from Indonesian fires is pretty awful because of the low burn temperature (wet material) and gunk that boils out of the plants that evolved to contain alkaloid liquids the insect/critters don’t like.
Large forests that turn from different teaks to palm trees subtract biomass for fuel from the available total. Palm makes lousy firewood. People have to buy something else to burn.
No one mentioned that harvesting palm oil is a dangerous job. Many poorly paid migrant workers are killed each year. It is mostly roses for the owners, not so much for everyone else.
I had a discussion with a Greenpeace recruiter that was trying to get you to join GP because Mars candy bars contained palm oil, and that was oh so bad for the environment. No suggestion of what would replace palm oil in chocolate though. So I pointed out that they had the problem totally backwards. One major use of palm oil is to feed several hydroprocessing plants of roughly 800,000 MT/year capacity that produce hydroprocessed “renewable” diesel just to meet the EU mandate of 5.75% biomass content in the European fuel mix. This mandated biofuel content drives huge needs for “green” palm oil forcing other consumers of palm to go to plantations that are carved out of the forests (and are thus not considered green). So, if you want to eliminate the rain forest burning problem, change the EU fuel requirements to not allow palm derived biofuels. That is probably half of the palm oil demand currently. I would like to see statistics on that to validate the problem.
“Canola is generally grown where no actual forests have stood for centuries, namely prairie grasslands.”
We should stop being hypocrites. Plow it under and let the Buffalo have it back.
Yum. Buffalo.
“Parks Canada led the ecological restoration of the mixed-grass prairie ecosystem in Grasslands National Park. The project focused on re-introduction of natural processes, such as large herbivore grazing by bison and cattle, and the use of prescribed burns. In addition, previously cultivated areas, as well as areas dominated by invasive plants, were re-vegetated. During the project, various partners and stakeholders were involved in the planning, decision-making, and celebration of the restoration work including local communities, Aboriginal people and park visitors.”
http://www.pc.gc.ca/progs/np-pn/re-er/ec-cs/ec-cs01.aspx
Wait …. “prescribed burns” emulating lightning strike fires is natural?
Palm oil seems like an effective way to sequester carbon. /sarc
In 2004, I went on a business trip to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. As we were landing, I looked out of the window to see what I thought would be jungle. I was amazed to see the jungle was actually palm trees planted in straight lines for as far as the eye could see. This palm oil stuff is big business!
Biodiesel is what’s driving the huge uptick in demand, particularly in Indonesia. It’s one of the many unintended consequences of the CAGW lie. Funny how groups responsible for helping to push that lie are now bemoaning the result. Oh, the irony.
Whether it is Palm oil or Canola: More people is bad; fewer people is good.
(James T. Bartis, Tom LaTourrette, Lloyd Dixon, D.J. Peterson, and Gary Cecchine, Oil Shale Development in the United States: Prospects and Policy Issues, RAND Corp. monograph, MG-414-NETL (2005: ix) quoted in The State of World Oil Reserves: Conventional and Unconventional Resources in the Future Supply Mix, J.A.B., III, Inst. for Public Policy, Rice Univ., Amy Jaffe, Kenneth Medlock, Ronald Soligo (October, 2011).)
Proven world oil (conventional) technologically recoverable reserves: 1.35 trillion bbls. (Jaffe, et. al., ibid. at 18, Source: EIA (Energy Information Administration).)
Proven world oil (nonconventional) T. R. reserves: 2.13 trillion bbls (Jaffe, et. al. ibid. at 19, Source: WEC (World Energy Council).) As innovation improves recovery ability of oil sands and of extra-heavy oil deposits, these reserves would expand significantly. Ibid.
(Jaffe, et. al., ibid. at 13)
(Note: Jaffe, et. al.’s analysis of wind power and electric vehicles is weak and overly optimistic given the facts about windmill electricity production.)
Thus, there is NO NEED to use biofuel as a petroleum liquids substitute at this time.
I was amazed to see the jungle was actually palm trees planted in straight lines for as far as the eye could see. This palm oil stuff is big business!
I’ve seen palm oil plantations first hand, and it’s monoculture for hundreds of sq kms. And contrary to what was said above, the palms grow fine in higher rainfall areas, which were previously primary or secondary growth tropical forest. The plantations are almost completely devoid of wildlife.
Palm oil plantations are the worst environmental disaster of my lifetime. Nothing else comes close.
It’s the intensive monoculture aspect that is the real problem. But it is a very profitable business and Indonesia is a very corrupt country. So, in practice it’s completely unregulated.
“Palm oil plantations are the worst environmental disaster of my lifetime. Nothing else comes close.”
Not 40% of the US corn crop being burned in cars?
The Rainforest Action network was heavily involved in the Chevron/TexPet shakedown by Steven Donziger and a host of other “usual suspects” which lead to a RICO suit by Chevron (successor to Texaco). You can read about it here .
I’m not sure I would give any credence to their claims.
Almost all farming is devastating to the environment, replacing ecosystems with human cultures, often permanently. The only worse damage is done by habitation, cities and towns.
Industrial and resource influence is trivial by comparison.
Not 40% of the US corn crop being burned in cars?
They didn’t cut down rainforests over the last 30 years to grow the corn.
The Southeast Asian Rainforest is the oldest and most biologically diverse rainforest in the world, being 70 million years old. This makes it older than the Amazon and the African Rainforests. With a range of more than 3,100 miles, it is crowded with plants and animals (F, Lydia). The Southeast Asian Rainforest is made up of organisms that can only be found in Southeast Asia, which makes it diverse from other rainforest organisms.
I worked in Indonesia (Sumatra) in 1963. Air transport shut down then for long periods due to burnoff smoke. I was stuck near Palembang for a month, trying to get out. Finally went by train and inter-island ferry to Java.
I don’t think that was palm oil driven then. Just a traditional land clearing process.
Ed Thurstan
More of a comment on consumer mentality: How many moms would stop buying products made with canola oil if they knew is was actually rapeseed oil?
CANadian Oil Low Acid