Now Can the World Have Its Forests Back?

A main cause of deforestation in South America and Asia has been clearing land for palm oil production.   Palm oil has become a major source of biodiesel, a supposedly green fuel.   Not so fast.

The Guardian has received leaked EU data that shows palm oil biodiesel the second carbon filthiest fuel, next only to Tar Sands bitumen.

Hint - think twice before investing in palm oil futures.   To meet EU standards for certifying biofuels as "sustainable" they have to be 35%  lower in CO2 emissions than conventional crude.  By 2018 that jumps to 60% cleaner.   Those are only emissions standards that don't take into account costs or other factors.   For the Tar Sands the figure given doesn't begin to incorporate the many associated environmental costs of bitumen extraction, shipping and processing.

The more you look at this the more it can come to resemble a dog chasing its tail.   If the warnings from climate science are right, the effective solution is to decarbonize our economies and our societies.

Saving Indonesia's Endangered Orangutan

It should have been great news. The orangutan is an endangered species in Indonesian Borneo. The good news was the recent discovery of a colony of 500 of the primates. The bad news is that they were discovered in the course of preparations to clear their tropical forest refuge for a palm oil plantation.

Palm oil is one of the sweetheart crops for the production of biofuels. From the Sydney Morning Herald:

Global warming might just save the [orangutans and their] ecosystem. Not only are environmentalists outraged by their possible destruction, but these trees spring from carbon-rich, metres-deep peat - potentially worth millions of dollars under a proposed post-Kyoto Protocol deal to fund the preservation of forests.

Clearing peat forests has made Indonesia the world's third-largest greenhouse gas emitter, sending more than 3000-million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere a year. It is driven by greed, with palm oil and timber barons lining the pockets of officials from Kalimantan to Jakarta - even the Forestry Minister has blocked prosecution of illegal loggers.