Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The Chocolate Climate Worriers have switched tactics, from claiming that climate is going to kill all the cocoa plants, to claiming we should feel guilty about wanting chocolate in the first place.
New Research Suggests Cocoa Trade Fueling Climate Change
Is your chocolate bar damaging the environment?
17/09/2017 8:07 AM AEST
LONDON, Sept 14 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Your afternoon chocolate bar may be fueling climate change, destroying protected forests and threatening elephants, chimpanzees and hippos in West Africa, research suggests.
Well-known brands, such as Mars and Nestle, are buying through global traders cocoa that is grown illegally in dwindling national parks and reserves in Ivory Coast and Ghana, environmental group Mighty Earth said.
“Every consumer of chocolate is a part of either the problem or the solution,” Etelle Higonnet, campaign director at Mighty Earth, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“You can choose to buy ethical chocolate. Or you’re voting with your dollar for deforestation.”
Mars and Nestle told the Thomson Reuters Foundation they are working to tackle deforestation.
“We take a responsible approach to sourcing cocoa and have committed to source 100 percent certified sustainable cocoa by 2020,” Mars said in an email.
…
Ivory Coast, Francophone West Africa’s biggest economy, is the world’s top cocoa grower.
While the bulk of its 1 million cocoa farmers ply their trade legally, Washington-based Mighty Earth estimates about a third of cocoa is grown illegally in protected areas.
…
The new chocolate furore seems to be based on a document published by a Washington think tank called “Mighty Earth”.
… The investigation found that illegal deforestation for cocoa is an open secret throughout the entire chocolate supply chain. The process of deforestation for cocoa starts with settlers who invade parks and other forested areas. These settlers then progressively clear the underbrush of forests by cutting down or burning existing trees. The photos presented here document how this unsustainable form of cocoa production leaves behind what are known as skeleton forests: trunks denuded of their crowns and leaves that remain in the cocoa monocultures as ghostly reminders of the great forests that once reigned.
With the forests gone, the settlers then plant cocoa trees, which take years before they are ready for harvest. Each cocoa tree bears two harvests of cocoa pods per year. When cocoa is ready to be harvested, farmers hack o the ripe cocoa pods from the trees with machetes. They split open the pods to remove the cocoa beans, which they then sort through and place into piles. The beans are left in the sun to ferment and dry; this is when the beans turn brown.
It is at this point that a first level of middlemen called “pisteurs” buy the cocoa beans from the settlers, transport it to villages and towns across the cocoa-growing region, and sell them onto another set of middlemen, known as cooperatives. The cooperatives then either directly or through a third set of middlemen bring the cocoa to the coastal ports of San Pedro and Abidjan, where it is sold to Olam, Cargill, and Barry Callebaut, who ship the cocoa to chocolate companies in Europe and North America.
Throughout this path, the illegal origin of the cocoa is apparent. We visited entire illegal towns and villages called ‘campements’ that have sprung up inside Ivory Coast’s national parks and protected forests. Even though these settlements are within protected areas, some boast tens of thousands of residents, along with public schools, social health centers, mosques, churches, stores, and occasionally cell phone towers, in plain sight of government authorities. Pisteurs openly admitted to us that they bought cocoa from inside national parks and protected forests. Owners of cooperatives within the illegal towns spoke openly about sourcing cocoa from protected areas as well. …
Read more: http://www.mightyearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/chocolates_dark_secret_english_web.pdf
What happened when what passes for the Ivory Coast government was pressured into taking action?
… The government of Ivory Coast took action recently against cocoa-driven deforestation by expelling cocoa farmers from Mount Péko National Park (which means “mountain of hyenas” in the local Gueré language). According to a report by Human Rights Watch and the Ivorian Coalition of Human Rights (RAIDH), the evictions were poorly planned and carried out in violation of human rights standards. When we visited Mount Péko after the eviction, we found the park once again filled with cocoa smallholders who had returned. Some smallholders explained to us that when they finally returned to Mount Péko, they simply paid the authorities higher bribes to go back to cultivating their lands in the park. …
Read more: Same link as above
My sympathy is with the illegal farmers. The political situation is horrendous, the report mentions the investigators were prevented from inspecting some regions because of an outbreak of fighting between government forces and rebels. Yet rather than jumping on a boat and becoming part of the global refugee problem, or growing drugs, those “illegal farmers” are trying to make the best of their miserable situation by cultivating cocoa.
We should be giving the farmers a break; but green obsessed Westerners are stirring up trouble for these unfortunates, drawing the attention of corrupt Ivory Coast authorities to a pile of money they haven’t stolen yet, trying to stir up climate controversy against their product, and complaining that these desperately poor farmers should be more sensitive to the environment.
For shame. Let these farmers get on with their lives, with their courageous efforts to make a decent living, to create safety and security for their families in the midst of nightmare circumstances the like of which few of us will ever have to endure.
I’ll give you my chocolate when you pry it from my cold dead hands!
Would you like a nice cup of cocoa while you wait?
Janice! 🙂
How COOL. Two chocolate lovers in a row AND both with a lovely first name, too.
I LOVE CHOCOLATE!
Your WUWT friend,
Janice
Janice –
Let me pour you a nice cup of cocoa.
– Janice
I consider chocolate to be one of the four food groups.
Thank you, dear Janice. How very kind. And, yes, indeed! 🙂
What do you mean “one of the food groups”?
Chocolate is all of the food groups!
Running out of coffee or tea is inconvenient. Running out of chocolate is unforgiveable.
5kg of chocolate
Chocolate in all of it’s delicious evil forms:
Hagen Daz Belgian Chocolate
Hagen Daz chocolate chocolate chip.
Don’t forget the fudge sauce!
Chocolate, Bacon and Beer… there’s a fourth food group?
@ SMC: pizza. 🙂
@Janice Moore…
Pizza… How could I forget Pizza. Obviously, my education is lacking. How deplorable! 🙂
I have to wonder how much carbon was being sunk by the forest vs how much is being sunk and consumed by the cocoa farming. Perhaps growing cocoa is a better other option for sinking carbon.
Reading all this ’caused’ me to take an extra dose of chocolate! Lindt and Green and Blacks are my favourites and I ate a bit too much after reading the article and comments.
Regards to both Janices!
Hi, Annie! 🙂 Yes, indeed, Lindt is delicious chocolate (and Cadbury bars and Dove chocolate and…. sigh).
It is hard to beat Magnum Infinity Chocolate
http://www.magnumicecream.com/content/dam/unilever/magnum/global/static_not_in-useproducts/product_only/ice_cream/ice_cream_unidentified/Infinity_Chocolate-370956.png.ulenscale.588×1509.png
http://www.magnumicecream.com/ca/en/ice-cream/infinity-chocolate.html
Milk chocolate makes the climate warmer; Dark chocolate blocks more sunlight so it stays cooler.
So the drill is Dark Chocolate for Summer (no cheating please Ladies) and milk Chocolate for the Winter months.
For Spring and Autumn, well take you pick; either one will work.
Anyone called Janice is just cool with me anyway !
Remember I said no cheating please.
G
I was just going to say that this will be a very hard sell to 50% of the human race and a lot of us in the other half love chocolate almost as much.
Did you ever notice the wagging nannyfingers of the Left are always out to part us from the things we like best? Chocolate, beer, bacon, burgers, whisky . . . it’s so they can feel superior downing their miserable kale, yogurt and hydrolyzed protein “smoothies” which would make my farm dogs hurl. The best way to deal with such nonsense is to ignore it.
Oh no way. It’s never in my possession long enough to actually BE pried out of my hands. And if it is, it’s all melty and you’d have to lick it off!! And I would pet my dog as I died so you’d get nothing but melty dog hair chocolate.
This article has caused me great snowflake stress. The micro aggression is unbearable. I demand a safe place to watch Willy Wonka, some chocolate chip cookies, and a mug of Janices cocoa. If anyone knows a therapist connected to Mrs. Fields somehow, that would also be helpful.
“And I would pet my dog as I died so you’d get nothing but melty dog hair chocolate.”
Works for me. After all, getting dog hair out of the teeth is what tooth picks and a tooth brush are for. :))
Ok. Not sure if I find that disgusting or just slightly kinky. I’m gonna need some more cocoa while I ponder that SMC…
We’re talking about chocolate Aphan. Are you suggesting there are limits when it comes to acquiring chocolate?
No. I’m just having a bit of chocolative dissonance at the moment. I’ll just listen to Ben Shapiro for a moment and it will pass…
Take your time. It’ll pass. Just remember, sometimes, to advance, you must sacrifice.
Word to the wise…Never pet your dog with chocolate hands.
1. It makes the chocolate inedible to you.
2. Chocolate is toxic to dogs.
3. You could wind up inventing Chocolate covered Fleas.
Almost forgot about Janice’s Cocoa; I’ll have some of that too !
Thanx
G
Putting some real science into this- cocoa is an understory plant, a small tree that requires shade to grow well. A tropical forest usually has three “stories”, a very tall, 100-200 foot canopy, a mid-story 50-150ft, and the understory- 20-50ft, with brush, bushes, vines, and smaller plants near the ground. A typical cocoa farm in Africa and anywhere else is a few hectares farmed by a small village cooperatively. It is in a forest with the cocoa trees planted in the shade. The cocoa is harvested roughly twice a year and the beans fermented and dried, at most a 1000kg at a time over a month or so, and sold to the government. The farm also harvests the larger trees, which may be palms, nuts, oranges, or some other crop which provides the shade.
An open plantation with the trees in direct sunlight does not produce as much per hectare, so more area is needed. The larger scale processing does not ferment the beans properly resulting in much lower quality. Chocolate made from under fermented beans is chalky, sour, extremely bitter and has little of the luxurious taste.
I once tasted chocolate liquor(sorry, it doesn’t have alcohol in it) ground from well-fermented beans from Trinidad. It tasted like a chocolate fudge cake with a rich, pleasant taste and lots of background flavors. All it needed was some sugar and a bit of vanilla to make a top notch chocolate. Out of the thousands of liquors I tasted over the year it was the only one that really tasted like chocolate. Typically chocolate liquor, or baking chocolate, has a very strong, bitter, often sour taste making the chocolate notes of brown(roasted), fruity, sweet, floral(rarely). Poorly fermented beans often are extremely astringent, very bitter, often smoky(from using heat from wood fires to dry it), and even hammy or meaty.
Here is a typical farm:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kpgbq465X7A/Vp5O3avdevI/AAAAAAAAApI/AYuKMf99zt0/s1600/CocoaFarmBG.jpg
Some of the facts which make this a NON-genuine-conservation issue:
1. Trees can be re-planted — at any time.
2. That they are gone for awhile is not a real problem.
3. A “cocoa monoculture” is not inherently bad (iow “So what?”).
******************************************
“Great forests once reigned” is emotional garbage talk. It has some poetic truth: trees can be majestic. This fanciful language, however, does FAR more to confuse than to illuminate, here.
“Ghostly” implies the forests are dead and gone — forever. More garbage writing.
***************************************
Thank you, Eric Worrall, for another fine article getting the truth out about conservation, or “hard green” (Peter Huber) — as opposed to “soft” or junk science “green.”
Traditionally, cocoa was farmed in a complex jungle.
New cocoa farms in various parts of the world are being planted as monocultures for reasons.
“Great forests once reigned” is emotional garbage talk.”
Indeed.
Professor Philip Stott, Emeritus Professor of BioGeography at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, wrote this in 2003:
“At the end of the last ice age, only some 12-18000 years ago, the tropics were covered by seasonal savannah grasslands, cooler and much drier than now. There were no rain forests in the Malay Peninsula and much of Amazonia, and, despite the increasing human development of forested space, there are still more rain forests persisting than existed then. As in Europe and North America, the forests came and went as climate changed; there is no Clementsian “long period of control” under one climate. Beneath many rain forests, there are sheets of ash, a testimony in the soil to past fires and non-forested landscapes.”
He still maintains a site here:
http://www.probiotech.fsnet.co.uk/trfseminar.html
Items like these never get much traction:
“Brazil: Ancient Amazon Actually Highly Urbanized” August 31st 2008
“The report in Friday’s edition of the journal Science, describes clusters of towns and smaller villages that were connected by complex road networks and were arranged around large central plazas. Researches also discovered signs of farming, wetland management and fish farms in the ancient settlements that are now almost completely covered by rainforest.”
http://en.mercopress.com/2008/08/31/brazil-ancient-amazon-actually-highly-urbanized
“Stone age etchings found in Amazon basin as river levels fall”: 10 November 2010 Guardian
“Archaeologists who have studied the photographs believe the art – which features images of faces and snakes – is another indication that thousands of years ago the Amazon was already home to large civilisations.
“Eduardo Neves, president of the Brazilian Society of Archaeology and a leading Amazon scholar, said the etchings appeared to have been made between 3,000 and 7,000 years ago when water levels in the region were lower. The etchings were “further, undeniable evidence” that the region had been occupied by a significant number of ancient settlements and people.””
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/10/amazon-brazil-stone-age-etchings?CMP=EMCGT_111110&
This is still online:
SOUTH AMERICA DURING THE LAST 150,000 YEARS – Jonathan Adams, Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
“In general, it would seem that 150-130,000 y.a. the continent showed the general glacial-age pattern of colder and more arid conditions. After about 130,000 y.a., climate warmed and moistened and the forests reached a similar area to the present. After 115,000 y.a., cold and aridity began to influence the vegetation, to an arid, cool maximum around 70,000 y.a., followed by erratic but generally fairly cool and drier-than-present conditions throughout the continent. A second cold, arid maximum began around 22,000 years ago and lasted until about 14,000 14C y.a., after which rainfall and temperatures increased and the forests returned over several thousand years.”
https://web.archive.org/web/19980704172829/http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nercSOUTHAMERICA.html
It seems like the “global cycles of carbon, water, energy and patterns of rainfall” affected the rainforest, and dictated the vegetation, rather than the other way around.
Nice research, Mr. Ambler. Thanks for sharing that.
“Emotional garbage talk.” BING!!! You win the Internets for today.
Melty dog hair? What is so terrible about that? Has anyone noticed that every TV commercial involving a dog has the animal licking somebody’s face? Need I remind all that our four legged friends have a unique way of cleansing their excretive organs?
Cocoa and chocolate helped civilize the world. One would have to be un-civilized to imagine banning it.
G
It is rather like the situation with cobalt mining in the Congo. Corrupt and/or nonexistent governments do not or cannot maintain property rights. In the Ivory Coast, apparently the illegal farmers were driven off their lands by “rebels”. The official government does not have the will (due to diversion of funds to the officials?) or the ability to deal with the insurgency (again probably due to diversion of funds).
The problem is ineffective government, not chocolate or cobalt demand.
You can choose to buy ethical chocolate or yummy chocolate.
What’s the difference… besides price?
The ethical chocolate will taste nasty. Like vegans taste to zombies. Dry, crumbly, non fat and bitter.
Sounds like cocoa powder, just before you add it to warm milk, some sugar and a pinch of salt… I’ll still lick the cocoa powder off my fingers. Yum.
I don’t think you can add anything to vegan/greenies to make them palatable. Not even enough “brains” to make them worthwhile to zombies
Ah well, I’m prepared for the zombie apocalypse… Lots of cocoa and ammunition.
Aphan, the secret is MSG. If you put enough MSG on a vegan they’re edible, but only for zombies.
BTW, that’s the culinary trick that makes cheap Chinese takeout possible; vegans + MSG.
The Romans made garum, a fish-based sauce with high concentrations of MSG that was as ubiquitous a condiment as ketchup is today. Considering the way it was manufactured (packing certain kinds of Mediterranean fish into vats between layers of salt, leaving to stew in the open sun, then collecting the fluids rising to the top), I wouldn’t be surprised if it also had a mild aphrodisiac/hallucinogenic effect.
Wouldn’t the new, aggressive growth be a better carbon sink then the established tree?
It almst always is.
Here’s to chocolate!!
http://theculinarycellar.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Frango+Mint+photo1.jpg
(Frangos — YUM!)
http://lifemadesimplebakes.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Brownie-Fudge-Swirl-Ice-Cream.jpg
(YUM — YUM — YUM!)
You can NEVER have too much CHOCOLATE!! 🙂
http://assets.marthastewart.com/styles/wmax-520-highdpi/d28/brownie_331_bg_6138982_bkt_w/brownie_331_bg_6138982_bkt_w_vert.jpg
http://static.fogs.com/static/uploads/images/605_undefined/4ffa8a1a-f0f3a411977.jpg
Ha, ha, HA! Envirostalinists! You ended up PROMOTING chocolate! Yay!
#(:))
Haagen-Dazs Java Chip! Coffee and chocolate. It doesn’t get better than that without adding malt…
Kahlua also adds a great flavor to coffee and chocolate
This why humankind should try to look after the Earth. It is the only known source of chocolate in the Universe. No wonder the aliens travel light years to get here.
Hmmm.
I’ll just have to have a nice piece of Ghirardelli and a cup of iced cocoa along with some tasty chocolate cookies.
I’m doing it for the plants. They need more CO2!
I’m a Philistine… I’ll stick with my Hershey’s.
I’m a non denummynational, nondiscriminatory chocolate num-phomaniac. Any country. Any type. Anywhere. In any form.
Ah, a fellow Philistine… I still prefer Hershey’s. 🙂
My vote is for See’s key lime and raspberry truffles.
Six days a week, twice on Sundays.
@F. Ross
You are obviously suffering from nutritional deficiencies. There is no cocoa in key lime or raspberry truffles (unless it has been properly fortified IAW nutritional guidelines?) . I strongly suggest a cup of hot coco or a chocolate bar so you may return to a proper state of mind. 🙂
There is nothing philistine about Hershey’s. I recommend taking their tour through a chocolate plant. A ride which after a lengthy luxurious ride surrounded by chocolate enveloped in warm velvety chocolate liquor aromas, the ride ends right next to the Hershey gift shop.
A plain Hershey chocolate bar or one of their chocolate almond bars and almost everything is right with the world.
@ATheoK
I’ve made the pilgrimage to Hershey, PA.
ATheoK
Not to sure about that.
My niece Phyllis is a teen and adores Hershey’s
The less time between coming out of the plant and getting into your mouth, the better. Chocolate has a “flavor half-life” of about four weeks. That Hershey bar you pick up at a Walmart checkout may only be half as delicious as it originally was, after shipping time and however long it’s been on the shelf.
And how exactly are you supposed to make chocolate last 4 weeks? Mine always seems to evaporate long before that.
Somehow, I just knew CTM would be at the bottom of that nefarious plot to destroy the world with Global Warming.
Let us get this straight. They claim that “climate change” is caused by deforestation yet the warmists will have you believe that human CO2 is the chief driver of climate. Please explain.
Now for something in better taste- my Fukushima meltdown cocktail recipe. 1 heaped teaspoon of cocoa in half a glass of milk, 1 teaspoon of honey to taste. Instant coffee 1 teaspoon if desired. In to the microwave and boil till it starts rising. Make sure it does not boil over-big mess. Add a couple of marshmallows of different colours and back on with the microwave. It will start boiling in a about 10 seconds. Even more important to make sure it does not boil over and make a mess.stir in to make sure cocoa etc dissolved.
Add 2 half shots of liqueur such as Galliano, Frangelico, Amaretto, Baileys, Kahlua, creme de Cacao.
To cool it off- about an inch or 2 of cold milk low fat or full cream in a plastic bottle. Finger on lid to make sure it does not explode and shake the living daylights out of it. Pretend you are trying to shake some sense in to a cAGW believer. Top up and stir in. Chocolate sprinkle and a tiny bit of cinnamon on top.
These are easier than it sounds. I have made thousands of these and the microwave emissions have not destroyed the planet yet. Pieces of high cocoa content chocolate also work well as does a bit of almond essence and vanilla essence. It also works in a milk frother but more of a pain to clean for one hot chocolate.
“They claim that “climate change” is caused by deforestation yet the warmists will have you believe that human CO2 is the chief driver of climate. Please explain.”
Umm. Forests turn CO2 into trees. Are you ????
Wow.
A forest by itself does not turn anything. You have to collect wood in order to make the forest turn CO2 into ‘carbon’.
You mentioned some chaps there that I never even knew existed. Well I know Galliano of course; that Galliano igitur ditty, for drinking while still sober.
Have to check out that Crème de Caca; sounds disgusting.
G
“Illegal towns … illegal farmers” ?
You surely meant to say “undocumented.”
Fair point… 🙂
Where’sTrump’s wall when we need it?
Plenty of documents; you can buy then at the flea market behind my house in the Central Valley.
Well my wife could, but they’d look sideways at me.
G
Great article, Mr. Worrall and you are to be congratulated for not spray painting the piece with the colorful language that more appropriately describes those trust fund totalitarians and their idiocies.
On another note-
What the world really needs is chocolate trees that have been hybridized to grow in USDA Zone 7, aka my back yard.
Or hybridized with banana trees. Or cows.
I see ex-congressman Henry Waxman is the chairman of DC lobbying outfit “Mighty Earth.”
http://www.rockyhigh66.org/stuff/waxman3.jpg
Where’s Santa’s house?
Just an FYI, That looks like a 637 boat, and there was never a 637 boat called Waxman… And when I went to the North Pole, we didn’t impale any polar bears on the periscopes (which are actually side by side). We did however, scare the be-Jesus out of a polar bear when we were practicing our ability to surface through ice…. I still tell that story… 🙂
Actually, I photo-shopped that back in 2009 in response to Waxman’s idiocy, to which someone else has added Waxman’s statement.
Sustainable recycling of a worthy artwork. We eco-plagiarists call that a “derivative work.”
Gracias.
Mike
I wonder what Waxman’s income is as chairman of Mighty Earth? For some reason I surmise it’s a heckuvalot better than the incomes of those ‘illegal’ cocoa farmers.
That looks just like the 18th Green on the course used for the LPGA Evian Championship, that just concluded today In France.
Lydia Ko came in third, after placing second in last weeks tournament in USA
She’s on a comeback trail it seems after a bad year and a bit.
G
The cacao plant is a South American critter, Aztec-cultivated originally starting back around 1900BC, and its correct name is xocoatl.
What’s the real problem here? Corn is also a Mesoamerican plant that has become a major food source worldwide. Are they going to have fits over that?
What is the real problem? The authors are allergic to chocolate? They get annoyed when they see other people grooving on chocolates and nearly going orgasmic when the flavor is just so?
Do these whiners even stop to think for a tiny second that African rice went to Italy as a trade item long, long ago, as arborio or short-grain rice and long grain white rice comes from China – yet it is also raised just about everywhere? Are these marones even vaguely aware that corn is almost as much a staple in diets now in many countries? Are they going to have hissy fits over the fact that potatoes and tomatoes also come from South America and are so widespread now that corn and soybeans (a Chinese plant) are as common as wheat and peas are in Europe and everywhere else?
Are they going after the most popular flavor in the world now? That’s vanilla, in case no one knows the answer. Are these sorry idiots going to insist that vanilla planters in Madagascar, on Reunion Island, in Mexico and Tahiti stop growing this insanely wonderful flavoring ingredient? Are they nuts?
Maybe these hysterical twits should spend a little time researching the history of foods of all kinds, including chocolate, before they hold their collective breath and turn blue.
No one is forced to eat chocolate, but on the other hand, no one who loves chocolate gives a flying flap in space about where it is planted and harvested.
We only care that it exists. This is, indeed, a tempest in a teapot.
What were the Aztecs doing in South America?
Stealing some xocoatl plants to plant in meso-America, so they could have chocolate; for desert, after they tossed the virgins in the volcano crater.
G
You’re not seriously suggesting that green snowflakes study HISTORY, now, are ya? /sarc
The whole idea is to shut down trade. Trade involves money and finance, which are evil. It involves the creation and consumption of large amounts of stuff that the progressives consider to be evil (both the stuff, and its creation/consumption). Transportation, of all sorts, other than by humans on foot with what they can carry in their arms, is evil. The wheel is evil. Fire is the ultimate evil. These are the elements of the narrative.
By convincing people to limit trade, finance, and technology, all these evils will go away, and we will eventually pass back into a state of paradise. That is where this is all heading.
Can’t blame the wheel on the Aztecs they found in the perfect shape for a calendar; but otherwise not much use for anything practical.
G
You seem to forget that social justice warriors need at least something to whine about or they have no reason to exist. It’s like Cancer Societies, they don’t really want to find a cure because hell that would mean I’m out of a job right? Just like the eco-terrorists, how are they going to afford their daily consumption of Starbucks on minimum wage salary?
Q: Theobromine metabolism.
A: What quality sets homines sapientes sapientes above pretty much all of creation, acting as a constant reminder to the acrylic-painting elephant, the adjective-using bonobo and the butt-scratcher-fashioning parrot of the humiliating truth that we alone, not they, are created in the image of G_D, and are second only in Her esteem to the noble rat?
you mean, “…Image of GOD, and are second only in His esteem…”. :))
Sorry Vanna, I’m always getting Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune mixed up. So sue me for trying to save a few bucks on a vowel.
Sorry but, I don’t have the correct plumbing to be Vanna. 🙂
“My sympathy is with the illegal farmers.”
Environmentalism’s fiundamental objective is to starve poor black people. It is the last socially acceptable form of racism.
Their objective is to kill just about everybody but themselves. They just go for the easiest targets, first.
You are quite right, of course.
Although racism focussing on Israel is catching up fast amongst our Lefty friends. And there are clear signs that being white and Anglo Saxon increasingly makes you the legitimate target of ‘racism’, especially on college campus. If you worked hard all your life? Then they’ll double down. Why don’t you hurry up and die?
Enquiring young (white and priviledged) minds want to know.
Maybe we should ask the Congressional Black Caucus to look into institutionalized racism in America. I believe one of California’s two senators is actually a member.
We should ask her what she knows about racist organizations.
G
Mmmmmmmmm……climate change……
It took a bit of work to figure out – but just under 11.5% of the Ivory Coast is national parks or “strict nature preserve.”
That may not seem like much land to be off limits – but it is in a poor country that needs as many of its resources available as possible with due consideration for the future.
Also – contrast this with the United States, where 8% of the land area is public, which includes military bases and lands on which limited use is permitted (such as BLM and BIA lands).
What is really upsetting these people, though, is:
These ignorant savages are supposed to be sitting quietly in their dirt floored grass huts, cooking over dried animal dung – and waiting patiently for the next scrap of “aid” that their civilized betters of the United Nations and European Union inadvertently allow past their sticky fingers.
Let the chocolate climate warriors eat carob.
Carob, “… is used to make chocolate-flavored treats for dogs.”
Noaaprogrammer, if you’re not careful, I’m going to break out my guillotine. 🙂
Yeah, it’s the theobromine in chocolate that dogs have a hard time metabolizing. If they get enough of it in their system it can be lethal. Theobromine is a vasodilator (increases diameter of blood vessels), a diuretic (stimulates urination), and a heart stimulant.
My Rottweiler gleefully consumed 2/3rds of a flourless chocolate cake my daughter made for my birthday in less than 5 minutes while the cake was briefly left unattended on a side table. We were all sure she was going to die. Oddly, she not only survived she seemed to enjoy the whole thing…
claim is more credible than a minute increase in a trace gas. At least there’s CO2 in it.
ChOCOlate.
Which just goes to show, CO2 is beneficial.
Nooooo!!!!!!
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/01/06/eat-chocolate-save-the-planet/
ctm, You are a true warrior for the cause.
I saw stories on this a few days ago in the MSM. The affected area had grown to something like 340,000 hectares. That’s 58 square km, or 36 square miles. Look up the Ivory Coast on Google Earth, and put a square of that size in the “forest.” You won’t be able to detect it very easily from a high altitude.
Chocolate is my favorite food. So glad my cravings can also help struggling cocoa farmers.
Never mind the chocolate industry cutting down trees – it will never catch up with the renewable industry and its thirst for burning trees.
Or making way for palm oil plantations…
And replacing them with forests of PV panels and wind turbines.
Demonize chocolate ? What are they racists ?
Correct me if i’m wrong, but, doesn’t deforestation cause cooling?
It’s the rotten kind of cooling.
Am pretty certain we don’t actually know enough to answer that question, specifically and technically, we can extrapolate single known factors, ie less rain from less forest, less transvap, less moisture in soil, but.. you have to leave out everything not local and ignore several hundred other factors, many of which are not locally induced, to claim x amount of deforestation will have x impact over x area over x time.
And these people continue to wonder why no one takes them seriously…
One can eat ‘Ethical chocolates’ with nasty taste. I like the yummy one.
I guess the HuffPo journo didn’t find it ironic writing this up on their iPad shipped from China.
CAGW Enthusiasts are now starting to scrape the bottom of their Alarm Barrel in search of any new scare. The public is becoming increasingly bored with the fiasco and returning to deal with real problems.
Almost all the chocolate nowadays is fake anyway, be it adding palm oil and what not. I can only find original recipes in New Zealand.
thank you!
i was looking like the only one reading who isnt fussed either way over chocolate
i dont mind a small amount..but a block usually goes off before i get round to another nibble
and that was my point
chocolate is being adulterated with other oils!
theyre taking the cocoa butter out for high end marketing etc
and substituting crap oils
evidenced by the extremely short shelf life of an opened block…inc cooking choc
dark cooking choc could be kept in cupboard for years and still BE chocolate
recent purchase went pale and crumbly and utterly inedible even to cook with in less than a year.
recent nestle dark with mint turned to powder in 5 months once open.
I know , I’m a philastrine for getting away from purity… but
….. currently enjoying Lindt salted caramel chocolate bar.
I’m only going to each half of it now… really I am !!
I like their new 78% chocolate.
Half? Half? You know the trouble that can be caused when you promise to eat only half. See what happened with Climate Scientist Laurel and Climate Scientist Hardy trying that with a liquid:
https://youtu.be/iMoSu6e1IZ0
Also, in ChromoNutrition, chocolate is in the brown food group. Red food group includes maraschino cherries. Multicolor food group includes M&Ms.
\sarc for the humor-impaired
Pah!! Try the Lindt Creme Brûlée. Chocolate and custard. Your taste buds will love you for ever.
I know from personal experience that I cause more climate change after eating beans than after eating chocolate!
Only very local climate change.
Hopefully NOT global !!
Vegans release more methane than they’ll ever sequester by not eating cow.
Veganism is a mental disorder.
The greens and AGW folk raised not a peep while rain forests were being cleared by big business (and the timber harvested for profit) in preparation to plant eucalyptus trees to harvest ‘carbon credits’. Nothing said about biodiversity!
Small local greens (real greens) could not get the attention of the big greens over the issue. They hadn’t realised the big greens had morphed into big reds and couldn’t care less about the ecosystem.
But cutting down US forests to make electricity at Drax in UK is OK?
The claim is that climate change is caused by human consumers, not only of chocolate but of any other agriculture products or any goods and or services that involve the use of fossil fuels or any other carbon based fuel including wood. The obvious solution is to get rid of all consumers of the above mentioned goods and or services. If you believe that eating chocolate is bad then stop eating chocolate. If you think that the burning of fossil fuels is bad then stop making use of goods and or services that in any way depend upon the use of fossil fuels. If CO2 is bad we must eliminate it from our environment even if it means eliminating all life on this planet along with it.
They’re working on it.
I think the ‘They’ should be eliminated first. Just MHO.
I’m not automatically with the farmers. It all depends on how it’s done.
You can easily google pictures of the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. link In some of the photos, the Haiti side of the border is absolutely barren and the Dominican Republic side is lush. I leave it to you as an exercise to explain the difference.
Commie, Haiti is a failed state that doesn’t provide any services.Like Cote d’Ivoire, these people are largely foraging for themselves. Are you not impressed that illegal cocoa growers have built schools and clinics as part of it? They are a role model for the rest of the continent. All the ills that these societies suffer from can be laid at the feet of Europeans. They have to stop meddling now. Trees can be planted again when they have prosperity. These eco nuts are the modern face of the old ецgеиiсs crowd.
Economically, the British left their colonies in superior shape. The French, Belgians and Portuguese left a hell of a mess, precisely what each of these countries to this day have at home (why Britain threw its lot in with continental Europe, which, except for Germany and Netherlands, are basket cases, still is a mystery to me) . The worst of genocide, guerrilla atrocities, lack of infrastructure, etc in Africa is a legacy of these countries. Looking at lode and placer gold resources for a client in Benin (French W. Af ) some years ago, I was shown an area of about a square km that had been excavated and washed for gold in 1942 by the French using forced slave labour – the desolate mess remains.
Haiti has a proud history – a colony of black slaves that rebelled and kicked out the French and have been shunned and punished ever since by France.
Haiti has had a few bumps on the road from Roi Christophe to Papa Doc. Neither treated their fellow Haitians with much kindness or compassion. At least as explained to me when visiting the Citadelle 40+ years ago.
Don’t look at Tasmania.
Someone from the Dominican Republic once quipped to me that: “We had better dictators.”
Proof that this year has been cooler in New England.
http://bangordailynews.com/2017/09/16/homestead/everything-you-need-to-know-about-those-black-spots-taking-over-some-maple-leaves/
I’m seeing this near Cape Cod, Ma as well.
If chocolate causes Global Warming, what do you suppose “https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tWuG2oPL3o” creates!
Having 3 members of my family that suffered through breast cancer, I am certain somewhere, some idiot (s) have blamed that in global warming too.
The other day someone on CNN mentioned something about the 1st anendment that so shocked the anchor, it went viral and now that individual is making up t shirts and will donate the procees to breast cancer research.
https://www.outkickthecoverage.com/love-first-amendment-boobs/
How about doing the same with weather? I love the weather and…
Big Joe, you listening?
Logo above the image of 2 cyclones would be perfect!
How ugly can you get! These awful people were happy with chopping down forests to plant diesel palms and evicting forest dwellers human and animal in the East Indies and Africa. Plantations in Cameroon evicted pygmies from the forest and they have become impoverished welfare sufferers “to save the bloody planet.
I think there should be huge publicity and demonstrations in front of their comfotable evil offices in Washington. Maybe Black Lives Matter might take it on as a project and bring some African and Indonesian community leaders over to participate.
I find it odd, they worry that an honest business is emitting CO2, but something the left supports is far worse. The making of the batteries for their savior car is destroying the planet, far faster than they will admit.
https://www.wired.com/2016/03/teslas-electric-cars-might-not-green-think/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2016/04/22/the-carbon-footprint-of-tesla-manufacturing/#5f176b8b6096
The benefits of chocolate as one of the five important food groups* will never be outdone by any modern medicine. Yes, it will love you back. It will also act as a soporific to help you get through menopause (female or male, either one) and in its hot state will warm you in a way no salad can.
*Those five groups are: Pizza, popcorn, chocolate, hotdogs or kielbasa with onions, relish, pickles and mustard, and hot buttered popcorn. Liquid refreshment is optional.
Vegans and SJWs come from that planet that orbits Vega. Can we send them back there? Seriously, they are beginning to lose their death grip on the media. Most of us live in the real world and have real-world, everyday concerns. These people are in the minority, despite their self-assessment of their own importance. We should still be alert to their idiocy, but also willing to kick them to the curb where they belong.
Following their”logic”, Easter, Valentine’s Day and any time a husband screws up increases the demand for chocolate so those that participate in these actions are just as guilty.
Glad to see you comment, Tom. I was praying that you and yours would come through the hurricane okay. Hope all is well.
Irma started to break up as soon as it went ashore in Naples. The western eye wall became very weak. We got winds of around 60 mph with gusts to 70 or so. We were lucky, others not so much. Lost power for 4 days, some still without. Venice is ancient Indian burial grounds and once again a hurricane avoided this area.
Within a couple years there will be serious calls for people to be allowed only to eat artificially produced nutrient packs…but I bet the artificial flavors will be good!
Depends if you prefer Solent Green or Solent Yellow
According to one side, the life that will do better in the future because of human caused climate change, includes: roaches, ticks, fleas, mosquitoes, rats, mice and weeds.
The solution is simple. Humans should adapt to climate change by adjusting their diet to eating: roaches, ticks, fleas, mosquitoes, rats, mice and weeds. (-:
Funny though, that bad life thrives with slightly warmer temperatures and increasing CO2 but “good” life suffers.
Good life got used to CO2 at 280ppm and a global temperature that was 1 degree colder than this.
Bad life/pests like it warmer with more CO2………..according to mainstream climate change theory.
I quite buying M&M’s when it was announced the evil company would be supporting energy from weather in future ads. If they’ll lie about where they get their energy from, I would assume they would lie about almost anything. I’m saving a lot of money now since companies went PC—cooking at home, buying as little commercial goods as I can, making what I need. It’s not becuase I think “the old ways” are better, it’s because I think the new companies are deplorables (to borrow a term from a loser).
I do have sympathy for the little guys that are just trying to make a living. However, if I have to support the middle man whom I despise, they are out of luck. Maybe someone can find a direct route to customers and leave out the middle men.
If they suppress the chocolate supply how are all of our betters in DC kinkyland going to be able to jump naked into vats of warm chocolate?
Ecoloonies, can eat ALL of their cat mint they want, I don’t care.but leave the Cacao plants alone!
No, they may NOT have the cat mint. That belongs to my cats… and other kitties.
So NO!!!
No, I suggest that since they think peculiar foods are better, they try cactus leaves and foods made from algae and yeast, and leave the rest of us alone with our chocolate.
What exactly does this Mighty Berk organization want to happen to the poor illegal farmers after they stop them growing the means to feed themselves and their families – presumably they want them to go away and die. That seems to be the preferred Green/environmentalist option for anyone who is black, African or Asian.
Dark chocolate is also extremely good for you (although presumably in reasonable quantities and not the amount I suspect most of us would prefer to consume). Can you get chocolate poisoning from eating too much?
Define “too much”?
My favorite cocoa is the Swiss Miss dark chocolate. Mmmmm. I find about 65% dark chocolate about perfect. Since my birthday is coming up, I’m expecting my husband to by some Lindt dark chocolate truffles for me. Sorry, chocolate is a health food – good for my health, which means my husband and kids stay healthy 😉
“may be fueling climate change”
OR, more than likely, these clowns may be full of sh!t.
FOAD, a$$clowns.
I’ll see your chocolate and raise 2 fat slabs of bacon!
Vegetarian and “Healthy” Diets Could Be More Harmful to the Environment
Carnegie Mellon Study Finds Eating Lettuce Is More Than Three Times Worse in Greenhouse Gas Emissions Than Eating Bacon
https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2015/december/diet-and-environment.html
Cocoa is the major money maker for the entire country of the Ivory Coast (IC) — a smallish place on the south-facing part of the east coast of Africa. Over 2.5 BILLION DOLLARS worth of cocoa comes out of the Ivory Coast every year, Ghana, next door to the east, is runner up producing less than half of ICs output, all other producers are small potatoes compared to these two.
What the Ivory Coast lacks is beneficent Rule of Law. Help them achieve that, and you will have done something worthwhile.
The Ivory Coast is smaller than Montana and a bit larger than New Mexico — if the entire place was turned into a cocoa plantation, the rest of the world would hardly notice. IC has an areas of about 125,000 mi2. The United States has about 500,000 mi2 planted in crops — all of which was once forest or grassland.
Without cocoa and rubber, the IC would revert to a land of subsistence hunter-gatherers….with wealth concentrating to those controlling the petroleum industry there.
“Your afternoon chocolate bar may be fueling climate change”
It’s worth it.
Don’t you guys know by now that the cause of EVERY phenomenon in the universe is linked to climate change? Sunspots, string theory, how well your favourite football team I played last sunday. You literally alter reality by driving a fossil fuel vehicle and exhaling. We should be ashamed of ourselves.
In my neck of the woods (Northeast USA) we have access to the ultimate source of chocolate indulgence: Death By Chocolate ice cream. Such a treat, but eat sparingly!
This photo of Richardson’s Ice Cream is courtesy of TripAdvisor
I see the photo didn’t go through. So it’s a bit like the Mitchell & Webb’s rule of the Inebriati: Never have more than a scoop and a half. So decadent.