
The Problem with Palm Oil - hispanic
https://ethical.net/ethical/the-problem-with-palm-oil/
======
wedn3sday
I really feel like the solution here has nothing to do with Palm oil, or any
other specific commodity. The solution is for rich countries to pay people in
poor countries to take care of their forests. If the market value of a healthy
forest is greater then that of palm oil, the forest will survive. If the
inverse is true, the forest will be destroyed. If we want people in less
developed countries to not exploit their natural resources, we're going to
have to pay them more then they could get otherwise, or the resources will be
extracted and sold.

~~~
wwweston
> If the market value of a healthy forest is greater then that of palm oil,
> the forest will survive. If the inverse is true, the forest will be
> destroyed.

More precisely: if the market value of palm oil is greater than that of
healthy forest, there will be _incentives_ to destroy the forest. That only
translates to "the forest will be destroyed" where people / societies have no
other values in play beyond their incentives.

Incentives matter, for sure, and using them as a tool to encourage
preservation is a good arrow to consider stocking the quiver with. But
something important is lost if we assume they're the only things that matter;
it's essentially an acceptance of the idea there are no values besides
incentives.

[edited "More precisely" conditional sentence to actually make sense, I
accidentally swapped the hypothetical and asserted consequence when I typed it
out the first time]

~~~
shawnz
> people / societies have [...] other values in play beyond their incentives.

Isn't that basically just a non-monetary incentive?

~~~
earthboundkid
Yes, but “incentives” is just a model. Sometimes the model helps; sometimes
not. You can fudge the model enough so that everything fits into it, but it’s
often adding complexity for no increase in clarity.

------
robgibbons
As a soapmaker, I used beef tallow as a primary ingredient for a long time.
More recently, trying not to use animal-derived products led me to try palm
oil, as it's a nearly perfect substitute for tallow. The properties of palm
oil are ideal for soapmaking, as well as many other products.

Palm oil is one of those wonder ingredients that are useful in so many ways,
and I truly hope we can find a way to make its cultivation more sustainable.
For now, it's most important to know where your ingredients are sourced and
the local impacts of harvesting them.

~~~
hef19898
You are raising a very interesting point, so. I assume you sourced your tallow
locally, right?

So the question is what's more sustainable. Palm oil from another continent or
locally sourced tallow from farmers supplying meat locally as well. And I have
no idea what the answer is, only that it is an incredibly hard question.

~~~
akiselev
I assume that at the scale palm oil is used, the size of an animal industry
capable of providing enough tallow would surely be far more unsustainable. The
fattier animals that produce tallow in large quantities have a trophic
efficiency of 1/5 or 1/6 so for every pound of animal mass they consume 5-6
pounds of plant food. That's a lot of calories wasted just chewing cud.

~~~
ip26
The confounding variable is that the cows would have been produced anyway for
food, so using leftover tallow, bone, etc is ecologically virtuous

~~~
firethief
Unless you pay for it.

The cows are produced for money. Muscle meat is one of the most lucrative
products, but demand for any part of the cow incentivizes more cows.

It's possible that it would still be ecologically the lesser evil because the
market value is low and what you might choose as an alternative isn't
necessarily better, but it's not so clear cut as you make it sound.

~~~
hinkley
And as many people have discovered, once you try to commercialize use of a
'free' resource it stops being free real quick.

Does anyone making biofuel still get their feedstock for free?

------
101404
Here in Europe, we destroyed our forests more than a millennium ago. Since
then, we are profiting economically from all the agricultural land that
destruction created. It made us rich.

But we really don't like it when other people want to do the same!

Solution?

We should fill Europe again with thick forests. Not the groomed artificial
woods we have now, that really only exist because we can sell the wood after
20 years. We should destroy all our agricultural land and convert it back to
dark natural forests, full of large and dangerous animals. Why do we expect
the Third World to have all the the economically useless forests?

~~~
gpderetta
Europe forests are growing again, both because of increased protection and
reduction in farming.

[1] [https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/07/forest-europe-
environ...](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/07/forest-europe-
environment/&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwikhMiF6N7nAhVKecAKHa6GCEkQFjAAegQIDBAB&usg=AOvVaw3yoswzOjEDFhsM6gTrGZRL)

~~~
101404
> "Sorry, but we can’t find the page you were looking for"

~~~
gpderetta
I tried to remove google tracking bits from the url, but miserably failed.
This is the correct link:

[https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/07/forest-europe-
environ...](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/07/forest-europe-environment/)

edit: anyway, as the parent pointed out, not everything is great, as the new
forests, even when not used for wood, are still sort of artificial. But at
least there is a trend in the right direction.

------
matthewaveryusa
I've said this before, and I'll say it again: Palm oil is the most efficient
oil to extract by practically a factor of 2 [1]. So in the long term, if
global supply increases or stays stable, if we replace palm oil crops with
another crop, eventually we'll make the problem worse and face more
deforestation.

[1] according to this
[http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html](http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html)

I wish the article would go more in depth into what it would take:

>Because when done right, oil palms can yield the highest amount of oil per
acre of land, and if Western countries drastically decrease their demand for
palm oil, that could bring a harsh disaster for many now reliant on a Western
thirst for the oil.

~~~
Gravityloss
Your comment has a lot of assumptions.

For example if the choice is between a palm oil biodiesel powered car or an
electric one, it makes a difference.

~~~
matthewaveryusa
Exactly, the focus should be on reducing consumption which, like you
mentioned, comes down to consumer choice and policy. less biodiesel cars means
less demand means less deforestation.

Thing is, everything has palm oil in it, so reducing global palm oil demand is
akin to reducing global consumption of goods.

~~~
SamBam
> Thing is, everything has palm oil in it

I feel like this is unnecessarily hyperbolic, unless I'm ignorant about the
true spread of palm oil in "everything."

This site [1] says that 72% of palm oil is used for food stuffs, all processed
foods, which anyone can eat less of. Most of the remainder is in soap
products. That doesn't sound like "everything" to me.

1\. [https://www.palmoilinvestigations.org/about-palm-
oil.html](https://www.palmoilinvestigations.org/about-palm-oil.html)

------
tengbretson
Are problems like this an inevitability of international trade among
economically unequal parties? If one party offers N dollars per ounce of palm
oil, and the other party desperately needs money more than anything else, how
could you expect anything less than the most desperate of measures taken to
produce as much palm oil as possible?

What are our options? No trade among economically disadvantaged countries at
all? Devalue our currency? Paternalistic oversight?

~~~
ipnon
When international trade consists only of material and not migrants

Mass wealth can only be generated in advanced economies. For the people of
developing countries to benefit their countries must participate somehow in
these advanced economies. With globalization they are allowed to participate
only by the exchange of goods (either selling manufacturing in developed
countries like China or natural resources in undeveloped countries like
Congo). Before globalization, they could not participate at all.

Advanced economies like the US and EU allow immigration only in a limited
capacity, and they do so in way that benefits mainly the investor class,
entrepreneurs and high-skill workers. Consider the typical Silicon Valley
visa, the H1-B. The H1-B only allows corporations to sponsor highly-skilled
workers to take jobs that are hard to fill with Americans. Think software
engineers working at Google. This kind of immigration benefits investors in
Google and workers in the software industry while increasing competition for
Americans in the market for high paying jobs. Excluded from all of this
especially are low-skill foreign workers.

Everyone wants to be rich, and they will not stop this pursuit. As long as the
majority of people in this world, those who are living in non-advanced
economies, can only become rich by the selling of manufacturing and natural
resources instead of their labor, then there will always be billions of people
whose work effects the planet's environment in a significantly damaging way.

~~~
solotronics
In no way does a H1-B benefit anybody but possibly some execs. It is exploited
to drive down wages in our high demand industry. Probably the worst is that
instead of taking new grads and mentoring them up there are many places that
would rather contract some H1-B instead.

~~~
dnissley
H1-B definitely benefits H1-B recipients.

~~~
boomboomsubban
Though they may be better off as a result of getting an H1-B, it's not clear
that the system benefits them compared to other possible immigration methods.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
> The Guardian interviewed 66-year-old oil palm farmer, Hussein Mohammad, who
> decried the EU’s choice to draw down their consumption of palm oil biofuels.
> He says, “I have spent all my money on the palm oil farm; I’ve recently
> planted new trees that will last for the next 25 years and my whole family
> relies on this. It’s how my kids afford to study.”

I see the modern environmental movement as a continuation of western
imperialism. The developed Western world especially Europe intensively
developed their land and eradicated much of their wildlife, in the process of
developing the richest civilization in the world. As a result, now the
majority of undeveloped land and species lies in the developing world. The
modern environmental movement seeks to limit how these countries can develop
and what they can do with the natural resources of their countries by using
Western social, diplomatic, and economic pressure on these developing
countries.

~~~
pastor_elm
except deforestation is no longer a requirement for development and really
hasn't been for 100 years. Look at Japan and South Korea (67.00% and 63.20%
forestation respectively). Indonesia is already down to 46.46%. Go look at
Brazil outside of the Amazon. Mostly deforested already for farmland and it
hasn't really brought the country into the 1st world. Agrarian societies are a
dead end for development.

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
For Japan's case at least, it seems there was significant deforestation
followed by reforestation. I think that was the case in the US as well. It
seems that poor countries trash their environment to develop and become rich
(see United Kingdom, United States, China). Once they are rich they start
caring more about the environment and do things like reforestation and other
more environmentally friendly actions.

[https://www.nippon.com/en/features/c03913/japan%E2%80%99s-fo...](https://www.nippon.com/en/features/c03913/japan%E2%80%99s-forests-
from-lumber-source-to-beloved-resource.html)

------
ajna91
To put a face on the problem, this video of an orangutan fighting to remain in
its home while the forest is logged out from under it is powerful.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihPfB30YT_c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihPfB30YT_c)

~~~
gdubs
Attenborough’s recent film “Our Planet” had an episode dedicated to Palm Oil
monocultures and the displaced and dying orangutan. Heartbreaking. Good series
if you haven’t seen it.

------
kitd
It's disappointing that such an article doesn't even mention the Roundtable on
Sustainable Palm Oil [1] that is set up to address exactly these problems.
It's early days but you can look out for their logo on packaging.

[1] [https://rspo.org/](https://rspo.org/)

------
cbsks
This is one of the most useless comparisons I have ever seen:

"That’s an increase of the equivalent of roughly 36,000 Olympic sized swimming
pools of carbon dioxide more per year."

Why are we measuring gas inside of a pool? Is that a lot? or a little? I don't
think I've ever even seen an Olympic sized swimming pool in person!

~~~
lifeformed
And how does one visualize 36,000 of them??

~~~
cbsks
That part is easy. It's a cube with 33 pools on each side. Duh.

------
Mikeb85
The problem with palm oil is that it's an amazing product with amazing
properties and is very efficient to produce but unfortunately is best produced
in countries that have no qualms about razing their environment to produce it.

We used to clear-cut entire forests in Canada (and still do some of that). We
destroy eco-systems for oil production. Brazil razes the Amazon to produce
beef and soy. Lots of countries engage in environmental destruction for the
sake of the economy. Palm oil isn't particularly bad, it's just choices people
make.

~~~
fuzzfactor
In the US, palm oil is not a domestic oil, it's one that comes in chemical
tankers.

Petroleum & fuel tankers are too gross, those materials may be in the same
terminal, but not the same ship as palm or tallow. And they don't need to
fully remove every last bit of diesel after discharge for instance before
loading gasoline. They fully clean out the heavy fuel and crude carriers far
less often, compatibility is usually acceptable. Ship tanks are just
challenging to get really clean, depending on what has been in them.

Those developing plantations & ranches are in countries where they need our
industrial chemicals, and we seem to consume their products in similar bulk.

It could be considered an uneven exchange, but that's what intercontinental
commerce has been for millennia. While shipbuilding has been largely motivated
by profitmaking according to value differential, buyers and sellers are both
making money so they're accordingly influential.

These are the chemical ships where they have to clean out most compartments
after cargo discharge anyway, so they can load something different for the
departing voyage.

Chief Mates love it after they have discharged things like Benzene or Methanol
in developing countries because they leave the cargo compartments and maze of
on-board pipes & valves cleaner than any intentional procedure. And pure
chemicals like this just evaporate. They know they can load almost anything
after that.

------
howling
The article (as many others) fails to address the single most important
question in the palm oil debate.

What alternatives are there if we are to avoid palm oil? How are they more
environmentally friendly?

~~~
gitgreen
Algal oil is a potential substitute. There was a laundry detergent
manufactured from algal oil instead of palm oil however there was pushback
from consumers because the algae were genetically modified.

[https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-
business/2017/sep/29...](https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-
business/2017/sep/29/algae-yeast-quest-to-find-alternative-to-palm-oil)

Scaling algal oil production is a problem that is currently being worked on.

------
femiagbabiaka
This hits well on my biggest problem with a lot of liberal solutions to
climate change: not enough systems thinking. In Europe and elsewhere,
politicians got to celebrate the adoption of biofuel, and now they also get to
be righteous about banning it. Given how terrible almond production is for the
environment as well, I could see a similar move being made there. Who is
responsible for evaluating risk in these situations? Who is modeling effects
on our ecosystem when they promote $SOLUTION as panacea?

~~~
cjblomqvist
Couldn't agree more. That's why simple policies which do not dabble into the
how, just the end effect, typically works better (sorry for no references, but
AFAIK from my Master's on the subject it's pretty well established).

That's why carbon tax (especially a global one) is such an attractive policy.
Of course, there are issues with that as well, but generally it'll probably
(and seems to) have the largest and best effect long term.

~~~
kazagistar
Only if the carbon tax is applied retroactively, with interest, to make up for
the dramatic economic inequality generated by countries who already got ahead
economically by wrecking the atmosphere. Otherwise, it's just another way
developed countries are using to keep themselves ahead of the rest of the
world artificially with inhumane international policy.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
Baloney. If your line of reasoning held, Venezuela would be in a great place.
Obviously, the differences between countries of various levels of economic
development go far beyond who can put the most co2 in the air. Additionally,
we are already seeing renewables become cheaper than fossil fuels. A great
outcome would be leapfrogging - just like with cell phones vs landlines.

~~~
anthonypasq
> Obviously, the differences between countries of various levels of economic
> development go far beyond who can put the most co2 in the air.

not really. Everything is about energy

------
anonsivalley652
It might be tokenism or spitting into the wind, but I've avoid palm oil as
much as possible for going on 8 years. I read ingredients before purchasing
and resist the urge to shop unthinkingly.

Another thing is to research corporations who own particular brands such as
this free sample of just some of the villains on supermarket shelves:

\- ConAgra (which owns Angie's)

\- KraftHeinz (one of the worst companies to work for)

\- Sabra (supports occupation of Palestine)

\- MillerCoors (including Blue Moon)

Buy local from independent shops where and when you can.

The diffuse, Tragedy of the Commons of demand leads to circumstances in other
parts of the world, be it cash crops for food or for drugs (and sometimes food
is the drug).

------
nimbius
>The (not so) sustainable biofuels

I remember reading some time ago about palm oil converted to biodiesel and
immediately became suspicious of the final product as anything but a chance to
push the sale of palm oil.

soft oils like canola/linseed, and corn are suited best for biodiesel as their
final product is at a much lower gel point than coconut or palm. To run a
diesel safely at anything but sub-tropic temperatures with a minimum of waxing
or smoking, you'd need gallons of stabilizers and modifiers in the mix.

the place I remember hearing this being used was Indonesia, and only at around
50% for a passenger rail line. This makes sense as its partially using
petrochemical diesel as a cheap additive for gel and flow stability.

the UK and EU could improve their biodiesel uptake with better recycling
practices. most of east europe is awash in high quality sunflower oil for
frying and cooking, and could easily see this waste oil converted.

------
kokey
It's refreshing to see an article actually pointing biofuels policy being the
dominant driver of palm oil related deforestation. If I remember right another
problem is that India was expected to become a big palm oil producer where
they are historically one of the biggest palm oil importers. This
unfortunately didn't happen, somehow the upfront cost and time to production
was something that was somehow difficult in India where Malaysia and Indonesia
could do this. Something else I'm curious about is what effects we will see
from the recent change in policy in Europe, which is busy increasing the local
production of canola/rapeseed crops significantly and I suspect that will have
some unintended consequences.

------
DoreenMichele
The world does not have to run this way. We can make other choices.

Part of the solution could be:

Walkable "first world" cities.

Better public transit.

Passive solar design.

A _less is more_ ethos in developed countries.

Actively valuing and protecting small businesses rather than crushing them
under our boot in our rush to cater to big business.

------
INTPenis
A lot of brands in Sweden started advertising "no palm oil" a couple years
ago. Now it seems they replaced it with shea oil in some cases. Is that any
better?

I feel like the food industry is always in a race with ethics to find the
cheapest process.

------
SubiculumCode
In terms of climate change, palm oil seems to be a really really bad
substitute for other oils. I'd support increased tariffs on palm oil, and
moneys to subsidize keeping rain forest.

~~~
vsyu
Yeah, I had heard palm oil isn't the healthiest for you but didn't realize
that it had so many environmental implications as well...

------
thehappypm
I've been to Malaysia and seen this. It's interesting -- just row after row
after row of palm trees. Otherwise it would all be jungle, but are jungles
useful for local Malaysians? They're full of mosquitos and too dense to even
really walk through.

~~~
ascotan
Rainforests not jungles. Gotta talk the talk.

~~~
thehappypm
The people in Malaysia who I talked to used the word jungle.

~~~
mythrwy
I think poster means "saving the Jungle!" just doesn't have same appeal as
"saving the Rainforest!"

------
clSTophEjUdRanu
Why is it on me, the consumer, to worry about unethical palm oil sourcing?

~~~
tenebrisalietum
um, because you buy it, you're a typical price-sensitive non-1%er and
companies produce it in response to your demand?

~~~
lowtto
how the hell do you not buy palm oil?

~~~
maccard
The only really safe bet is to avoid purchasing pre-made items, and make your
own sauces/treats/cakes etc. We cook all our own meals at home, but buy
shampoo + cookies + cakes + chocolate bars (as normal people do). We try to
stick to brands we _know_ don't have any palm oil, but I'd wager that almost
all our produce doesn't have any in it.

Except I just checked and my peanut butter (whole earth) _does_ contain it,
even though I thought it didn't... You might have a point.

~~~
logfromblammo
I have been checking every time for several years now.

If, for instance, the jar that says "peanut butter" on the front does not say
"Ingredients: peanuts" on the side, I put it back on the shelf and pick up the
next one.

You can't trust brands any more, and it makes shopping an arduous and time-
wasting chore. Not to mention the stupid little games manufacturers play with
the ingredient list for obfuscation's sake, like adding three distinct kinds
of sugar so "sugar" doesn't show up as the first ingredient. Or adding 12
different kinds of filler to a crab cake, so that "crab" shows up as the first
ingredient.

~~~
maccard
If you're looking for an alternative to your known goods on occasion (not at
home, store stopped stocking it or even just not necessarily knowing that
peanut butter can be made from just peanuts), it's easy to get stuck looking
for options.

It's easy to be dismissive of the problem and say "just get X", buy you need
to know that exists, but you can make the argument for cookies, chips, sauces,
dips, soaps...

~~~
logfromblammo
Before checking every time, I only read the ingredient list occasionally,
usually at home when eating it. I started to notice things, like this
progression:

Ingredients: peanuts.

Ingredients: peanuts, peanut oil, salt.

Ingredients: peanuts, hydrogenated vegetable oil (one or more of: peanut oil,
palm oil, rapeseed oil, soybean oil, cottonseed oil), salt.

The company might run up against a supply problem, where they have to choose
between a bad batch of peanuts or nothing at all, and they choose to remain in
business by "remediating" that bad batch. But maybe their sales actually go
up, so instead of going back to basics, they keep doing the same thing, but
with cheaper oil. I get it. I don't like it, but I get it. You can make more
money by trying to eat Jif's or Skippy's lunch than by catering to purity
snobs.

Repeat similar scenarios for other brands of other products, every year,
across the whole grocery store. Products try to stay competitive by masking
inferior base ingredients with added fat, salt, and sugar, then go on to game
the ingredients list, to obfuscate the fact that they replaced expensive
ingredients with cheaper ones, while simultaneously reducing the package
weight and upping the unit price. Those oil palm farmers don't need to worry;
peak capitalism has their back. Palm oil use will continue to increase,
because the marginal cost of production currently makes it the cheapest of all
plant-based oils, at least until oil-algae farming technology matures.

------
arminiusreturns
I realized a few years when I started habitually reading ingredients lists
that palm oil was showing up in more and more foods, but it wasn't till I
correlated it with an upset stomach that I purposefully stopped buying food
products with it. I've been trying to cut my sugar intake, so I don't get
these anymore, but one major place you might notice a difference is if you use
coffee creamer. Most of the cheaper ones have palm oil. The good ones don't,
and the differences on the body are noticeable to me at least.

Sometimes pragmatic choices can lead to ethical results.

------
justlexi93
he World Wildlife Fund writes "The (palm oil) industry is linked to major
issues such as deforestation, habitat degradation, climate change, animal
cruelty, and indigenous rights abuses in the countries where it is produced.

------
JackPoach
Palm oil is a convenient scape goat.

------
m3kw9
Or oil on your palm.

------
SubiculumCode
I

~~~
SubiculumCode
My apologies. There was a posting snafu, and all that came out was an I.

------
frandroid
> 92 to 184 teragrams of carbon dioxide

Usually emissions of CO2 are measured in tons... This is a sneaky measurement
change. wtf is a teragram? Okay, turns out it's a million tons, or as we used
to call it, a megatonne. WHYYY

~~~
Mirioron
Because grams, kilograms, megagrams, gigagrams, teragrams, petagrams, exagrams
etc.

------
lowtto
> environmental health and the well-being of poor and marginalized communities
> in pursuit of profits

Heh. Isn't that too dramatic. So SEA countries are suppose to sit down and not
able to sell anything? How bad is this too bad of a situation? The article
failed to highlight this.

To me it feels like someone just doesn't like someone else getting too much
money at selling palm oil for some reason. I wonder which other industry that
benefits from boycotting palm oil.

~~~
mc32
It sounds a lot like politics.

They’re against something but provide no suitable alternatives. Even if they
provided an acceptable alternative to them, someone else would pipe up and
mention a lot of problems with the alternative. On the end we’re supposed to
somehow achieve the impossible.

These things are lose-lose.

The only real answer is to lower ave standard of living (in other words a
western lifestyle needs to be recalibrated downward) and to lower total
population via slowed growth -at least in high growth areas... but none of
that is palatable to anyone.

~~~
christiansakai
I like the idea of lowering standard of living. Can you give me some examples?

~~~
mc32
Probably something akin to the ex-Yugoslavia with less repression. Though I
suspect some repression would be necessary to achieve that. I don’t say that
in a positive way —but I don’t think people would volunteer for such a state.

