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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Hoser says:
August 27, 2013 at 5:20 pm
Moms, Canola, rapeseed?
Do you mean this lovely plant?
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3211/2676326824_77eb8a7512.jpg
I do the shopping and I’ve know the history of the plant since about 1978 after seeing a field and visiting with the farmer growing it. I have used it ever since.
The soils of Sumatera and Kalimantan (Borneo) are very poor except in the volcanic areas.
Riau has very poor soil. The tropical rainforests were built up over a period of thousands of years. The roots of large tropical rain forest trees such as Teak and Mahogany were buried in a layer of peat that had built over thousands of years. The tropical rain forests generated their own sticky humid wet local weather. Years ago, flying low over the rain forests you could see that the bottom of the large trees were resting in wet swamp.
The tropical rain forest trees were harvested for the Teak and Mahogany. Years ago a U.N. introduced Green ban on the export of raw logs meant that these high value woods were turned into three ply and four ply to make packing cases. (unexpected consequences).
After the marketable wood was cut down the locals would then slash and burn the resultant undergrowth to grow their cash crops. The fires caused the peat layer to burn. The peat eventually burned down to ground level where the soil was thin and not filed with nutrients.
In 1982, – 5 million hectares of Tropical rain forest burned down in East Kalimantan due to drought and slash and burn methods that got out of control. Resultant peat fires lasted for years.
In K.L. where you see the rows and rows of palm oil plantations – these were formally rubber plantations. Palm oil being much more cash effective than rubber.
Sumatran rubber plantations have been pulled out in lieu of Palm Oil.
Palm oil trees require artificial nutrition – it’s bought in. My neighbor is one of the largest importers of “Bio organic” fertilizer to Kalimantan. Palm oil leaches whatever nutrients are in the soil.
The small particles that cause the most damaging pollution in S.E. Asia comes from the burning peat.
Back in the early 2000’s the governor of the Province of North Sumatera was so concerned about the rainfall deterioration in his province that he commissioned a study by some U.S. agriculturalists and forestry experts. They concluded that so much rainforest had been cut down the prevailing weather patterns had been altered. Areas that previously received enough rainfall to sustain three crops of paddy rice a year now were only receiving enough rainfall for two crops.
That Governor started an extensive tree planting program back in 2004 – 2005.
My wife, her father, her mother and both maternal and paternal grand parents were all born on Sumatran rubber planatations. None of these rubber plantations survive they have all been converted to Palm Oil. Thne rubber plantations previously belonged to U.S., Dutch or British companies. The Palm Oil is now all in Private Indonesian hands.
In Eastern Indonesia, there are signs everywhere that periodic burning is illegal, yet every year it goes on regardless. The locals do this for several reasons:
-they say, “to stop the trees growing back” so they can continue their herding and agriculture.
-to replenish the soil
-to stop the National Park vegetation from expanding into their villages and livelihoods.
-to destroy illegally planted vegetation by National Parks officials on their farmland.
Its been going on for centuries and wont stop, but they don’t do it in the National Parks.
W. T. Menny says:
August 27, 2013 at 2:43 pm
So we DO have your permission then, nay your “requirement” and your desire!, to immediately sterilize you, your parents, your family, and all living relatives?
One more thing.
The tropical rain forests can never be reinstated.
It takes thousands of years for them to grow.
In real deep tropical rain forest there are no animals, no food and no insects. There is a barrier you pass after around ten to twenty kilometers when you enter a deep rain forest. After you pass that barrier – The Jungle is Nuetral.
A percentage of the tropical rain forest of Kalimantan and Sumatera was destroyed in the seventies and eighties due to a “Central Government” relocation policy. It was called “Transmigrasi”.
The idea was that Java had too large a population so many people suffered forced relocation to the outer provinces to try and bring the Javanese population down and under control.
The reality is that some officials had their hand in the pocket of logging firms who cleared rainforest under the guise of Transmigrasi.
Western Governments had a hand in this devastating Transmigrasi project – N.G.O.’s and aid projects.
Only one spotted the troll, well done. So North Carolina is going to be replanted with oak, ash, elm, beech, etc. LOL. It will be cheapest fasted growing monoculture.
Here you see the blatant hypocrisy of Greens. Palm OIl bad, Firewood good.
Good point about corruption in Indonesia but that affects everything not just Palm Oil.
See also the unknown posters here, straight away on meme, “Palm Oil Bad”, with no evidence, no facts, no science.
BTW, Ozone is not a pollutant, its part of natures toolbox to clean up pollution and control radiation.
It is poor farmers on $1.50/day who burn scrub to plant dryland rice that cause the fires. They are so poor they can’t afford herbicide. Their lives are little different to 100 years ago. Palm oil companies get massive fines if they are caught burning to clear land. Subsistence farmers fires spread into palm oil plantations and plantation companies spend a fortune putting this fires out.
1 ha of oil palm = 10 ha rape/canola oil. What is better 10ha of a low yield crop cultivated in Europe multiple times a year or a 1 ha of high yielding oil palm replanted every 25 years? Due to the high yield/ha the transport infrastructure and logistics are much more efficient for oil palm and palm kern shell and empty fruit bunches can be used for energy production at the mill.
If your care about cutesy animals release some Sumatran tigers into Yosemite.
…filthy stuff! The hippies who delude themselves into thinking they are helping Gaia are on the wrong page entirely. Algae oil would be superior, but no one has solved the riddle of how to grow it yet.
http://www.orangutan.org.au/palm-oil
Dr. Bob says: August 27, 2013 at 1:14 pm
“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.”
Dr. Bob, suggest you go to the following web site:
http://solazyme.com/
By the end of this year their commercial-sized JV plant (with Bunge) in Brazil should be operating.
In the 1st Q of 14 their commercial-sized JV plant (with ADM) in Iowa should be operating.
They can make a number of different oils, from transformer oil for DOW (a JV partner), to palm oil (a Hershey JV to be announced soon?). And they can switch oils between batches (1-2 weeks?).
Early on SZYM switched from open ponds (hence SOLA-zyme) to (dark) fermentation tanks.
They produce (and patent) altered algae strains to produce oil to specifications. They started with the highest margin oils (Algenist facial cremes) and high-protein, low fat veggie drinks (Food Fusion Phood). Recently added to Twin-Labs’ Clean Series. Pays some bills while the commercial sized-facilities are ramping up.
3/4 of my portfolio is energy. All oil & ng, diversified into many areas: Wildcatters in the Bakken, refineries, off-shore drilling rigs, pipelines, gas stations, etc. But no solar or wind (or coal).
SZYM is the only “alternate energy / renewable / sustainable” stock I own.
I’m making a sizable bet that they have a “disruptive technology” (re a Forbes article).
Philip Bradley
So the clear cutting of Europe’s forests to build ships and provide land for wheat and barley was not a disaster?
Other poster, please explain how cutting scrub and shrubs and secondary growth and replanting with lush dense palm oil changes the rainfall pattern? That we would all like to know.
Anthony, I noted your intro. Did you see the very second reply, “Freeisroy” clearly a paid troll/shill. Hope you read all the replies and gain a bit of understanding as to what is really going on here.
Nutrient drain, so that does not apply to planting rapidly growing monoculture trees to replace clearcut forest in North Carolina?
Yes corruption is bad in Indonesia but is USA any better, really?
About the nutrient depletion, read my observations re using used fruit bunches and palm fronds as natural mulch and fertiliser. And again, I reiterate, growing firewood, where all the growth is removed does not do this?
[Quote]Palm Oil Plantations Endangering Orangutans
During the past decade the orangutan population has decreased by approximately 50 percent in the wild. This is primarily due to human activities including rainforest destruction for palm oil plantations. At present, 80 percent of orangutan habitat has been altered or lost.[/quote]
Unfortunately this is a bit of a furphy.
The Orangutan population was already on the critical endangered list before Palm Oil. The Indonesian population explosion can be blamed for the initial problems.
And it’s not just Orangutans. Tigers, elephants, rhinoceros and a whole bunch of other large primates.
Orangutans are only the face of the awareness problem.
CRS, DrPH says: August 27, 2013 at 7:42 pm
“Algae oil would be superior, but no one has solved the riddle of how to grow it yet.”
See above.
Some words on the economics.
Palm Oil is simply streets ahead in terms of yield per hectare per year and product value.
Palm oil has greater value/profit margin as a food or feedstock
Palm oil is infinitely better as a food/cooking medium than either Soy or Canola
Making Palm Oil into biodiesel is a loss maker. It is only done because EU wanted it, so Planters built refineries only to find the price was lower after doing it. So the Malaysian Government being Corporate friendly rather than people friendly, mandated that all diesel sold in Malaysia must contain 5% biodiesel.
That being said, market forces mean Palm Oil as a food is expensive, So the Malaysian Government subsidizes its price to keep it as a cheap low cost item. But again who gets the subsidy?
So we have this total Green Stupidity, Oil Palm is bad but Green EU mandates that it is grown. So one side of Green mouth says “good” whilst the other says “bad”.
The planters, they just keep making money.
Palm oil trees are grown in great rows. Workers thin out the fronds from the trees so as to the advantage of the palm oil fruit.
The fronds are deposited in rows in parallel lines with the palm oil trees rows.
The frond deposits become infested with rats and other rodents.
The enemies of rats come along to hunt the rats – snakes – which includes Cobra’s.
Be very careful about standing on a row of palm oil fronds
I’d rather walk through a rubber plantation any day rather than a Palm Oil one.
If you don’t know how a tropical rain forest generates it’s own local weather patterns – you’ve never been in one.
LES
Please read the posts, you might learn something rather than parrot fake info.
Planters use barn owls, one nest site per ten hectares and swifts.
Planters also use plants such as marigolds for insect control.
Regarding palm oil plantations being sterile. Virgin rain forest is virtually sterile supporting little life. See how few native humans can live off the land in such places. I have stayed in a Planters house, on an island 100% plantation. The variety and amount of life is staggering. Blue king fishers, troops of monkeys, blue king fishers, monitor lizards, to name just a few, all require a viable ecosystem. They also grow every single species of trees found in Malaysia. The barn owls were magnificent.
Most of the destruction in Kalimantan was caused by the forced relocation of Maduri to the Island and the land clearance to house them.
Strange how nature resolved that. The Local Dyaks reverted to type, invoked law of the jungle and the incursions and damage stopped. Dyaks are “head hunters”.
Oh and Les, a lot of my friends are 40 year plus Palm Oil folks, rubber tappers and coca bean growers. tea planters and coconuts as well. I live in the Jungle. I own some rubber plantations.
So what do you want to know about Jungle?
correction, cocoa not coca. Plus my “plantation “is very small, 35 rai but still qualifies
Philip Bradley
So the clear cutting of Europe’s forests to build ships and provide land for wheat and barley was not a disaster?
Didn’t happen in my lifetime.
I’m not disputing that all agriculture is destructive of habitats. Nor do I dispute the right of Malaysia and Indonesia to develop their agriculture using appropriate crops. My problem is with the Greens who are gungho for biofuels and renewable energy without realizing the consequences, and have rather belatedly realized how environmentally destructive biofuels are, not just in SE Asia.
As for Europe, the drive for biofuels has largely derailed re-aforestation efforts there, and in the USA there is large scale cutting of forests.
I’ve been through several palm oil plantations and haven’t seen a single monkey, normally highly visible in tropical forests. The only mammals I have seen are palm squirrels.
Grey Lensman says: August 27, 2013 at 7:55 pm
“..Yes corruption is bad in Indonesia but is USA any better, really?..”
I have spent 20 years in Indonesia, and must acknowledge that it is a society that runs on ‘under the table’ payments … but it is designed to … the salaries paid to government employees is not enough to live on, and the amount they charge to speed up or facilitate what should be normal processes are tiny.
And I have realized that low level corruption in no way impacts the economy. It is the money that heads back to a country’s capital city and then offshore that is the problem. And, most don’t realize that happens to a greater or lesser extent almost everywhere in the world.
When the Suharto regime fell in 1998 and greater power was passed to regional government, I jokes “Hell, they have just regionalized corruption!”. Well, I was correct in a way, but it was a very good thing – those regional cities/towns are unrecognizable only 15 years later – vibrant, growing, building and new businesses everywhere. (Contrast with Malaysian regional towns).
You see, the regional administrator who makes money then spends it on a new car, house, meals in restaurants, a new mistress (who is invariably a consumer of note) etc. Eventually the money goes around. But, centrally paid large amounts go straight offshore.
Look at the deals governments do in good old honest Australia. The government of the State of Victoria has just approved an $8 billion PPP (Public Private Partnership) project that they vehemently opposed whilst they were in opposition. And the justifications will remain off record.
Treasurer Michael O’Brien confirmed that the business case for the $6 billion to $8 billion tollway to link the Eastern Freeway and CityLink, will never be made public, citing commercial sensitivity. http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/eastwest-rationale-to-stay-secret-20130824-2sis1.html
Presumably they know such antics may get them voted out in the next election, but there are powerful figures at work there who don’t particularly care, for reasons of their own which we can contemplate.
Likewise a recent land deal in the same state where a minister overruled his department to approve a rezoning for a developer who happened to be connected to a senior party figure, was unraveled by media and public protest. Good, fixed then? Not really. Naturally the out of pocket developer sued, and naturally a government that did not want its senior figures dragged into public court cases settled out of court. For an amount which can’t be disclosed due to confidentiality agreements!
I could go on – Australian currency printing scandal, Australian Wheat board bribery (and profitien scandal)…. Enron … US bankers not being jailed … CAGW alarmism ……etc etc etc…
Its everywhere, but we in western countries don’t really believe that, and don’t recognize what we are looking at.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/heating-fuel-mandates-could-drive-biodiesel-growth-2013-07-11 (bold added after title)
Certain diesel vehicles are now being run with Straight Vegetable Oil (SVO). #2 heating oil is basically diesel, while #1 is kerosene, a known cleaning solvent.
Frankly, we can use more biofuels. For every fill-up of heating oil, about 250 gallons per standard heating tank, add a gallon or two of cooking oil. It’ll dilute, your furnace won’t notice it.
Except then we won’t need all those additional pieces of bureaucracy with many additional well-paid bureaucrats, nor the uncompensated screwing up of fuel oil producers who have to procure and mix in biodiesel. Also won’t need those several tax incentives.
The fuel delivery guy will have the gallon oil jugs and a funnel, will check off “biofuel added” on the delivery slip, and the government can verify compliance by stopping by and checking the slips at the office.
Would that really be too hard to do?
Philip Bradley says: August 27, 2013 at 3:22 pm
Palm oil plantations are the worst environmental disaster of my lifetime. Nothing else comes close.
This is over-hyped, impractical parroting of Greenpeace “sales talk”, designed to fill their coffers and perpetuate the lifestyles of a whole army of layabout ne’er-do-wells.
Sure, it would be lovely if we could just demand that whole nations sat idle while we shipped them food aid. But they can grow their own food and it is completely in our capabilities to grow our own forests – we just have to put aside productive land to do so. Or, we can jump into the market and buy up plantations in those countries and let them revert to jungle (believe me, you don’t have to try for that to happen … takes about 70 years and you’d swear you were standing in untouched jungle). Of course – you’d have to compensate locals for lost income and loss of jobs on an ongoing basis, but it’s worth it, right?
PS: Yes, for the NY 2% biofuel amount, that’d be 5 gallons of cooking oil plus 245 gallons normal fuel oil for a normal fill-up.
So what? They make five gallon fuel cans. The delivery guy can get them filled back at the fuel yard from a bulk tank.
It also makes me wonder about that “1.5 gallons per person per year”. With normal NY winters I’d expect about 3 fill-ups a year, so 15 gallons per household using fuel oil. “1.5” is possible statewide, taking different fuel choices into account, just not per person for households using heating oil.
Thank you guys for your feedback.
Notice certain hardline posters, write and run.
On the whole Palm Oil biodiesel is much more viable than corn oil ethanol, bu=y a long way but still iffy price wise.
Tropical crops, Palm Oil, Coconut, Coffee, Cocoa, Fruits, sustainable timber are a massive sustainable growth area. Breeding, protecting and relocating species at risk, is a very low cost and easy to do item, compared to the vast sums involved in the above. Planters now evne make roads and waterway access for Pygmy Elephants and tapirs.
With a bit of thought, a lot of Science and a lot less Hype and hypocrisy, much is being achieved.
Tropical rainforest can and is being rebuilt. We just need to do a lot more of it.
Note the areas of native vegetation cleared in Australia: (bearing in mind not much grows in the centre).
http://www.arf.net.au/content.php?pageid=1265241063
http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples/cam032/99024978.pdf
Figure 1.2 (Page 2)
Original coverage of rainforest (closed forest and low closed forest) in Australia (A) and areas
of rainforest clearance following European colonisation (B). Adapted from Anon. (1990) and
Webb and Tracey (1981).
See Figure 1.10 (Page 11)
Areas of native vegetation cleared between 1788 and 1980. Adapted from Lowe (1996),
Commonwealth of Australia copyright reproduced by permission.