
Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S. - Thorondor
http://qz.com/528160/indonesias-palm-oil-fires-are-emitting-more-greenhouse-gases-every-day-than-the-entire-us/
======
IkmoIkmo
Sliiightly misleading headline, although not incorrect in some ways.

For about a quarter of the year there are virtually no fires, another quarter
(we're there now), there are a lot. Further, in most years the fires are much
fewer than they are now, and we're now in a record year.

So the headline is true, but only for the worst part of a record breaking
year. You can't extrapolate it. In general, say per year or per decade, the
headline is false, and CO2 emissions are a topic that is spoken about in the
context of such timeframes, not 'who emitted the most in a 30 day period in
one particular year'.

Further, the comparison itself is misleading as the CO2 figures for the US
(and all other countries, for that matter), only count burning fossil fuel
(and producing cement). Not capturing emissions when fracking? Not counted.
Millions of cows farting all over the place? Not counted. Agriculture? Not
counted etc. That's why if you compare Indonesia to the US, Indonesians emit
about 6 times less CO2 per capita. That's why it's a bit of a weird
comparison. You're comparing one country's emissions within limited
parameters, to another country's emissions from phenomena that fall outside of
those parameters.

Anyway obviously it's a big concern nonetheless and a better comparison would
probably be that this single industry approximately doubles Indonesia's fossil
fuel burning CO2 output on average every year. That's quite excessive for just
one industry (last I checked ~8% of exports, with exports at $200b on a GDP of
$870b) and it doesn't have to be that way, palm oil can be grown (slightly
more expensively) by simply clearing a forest rather than burning it and all
the peat underneath. (the peat is really the issue, forest burning itself is
often in large part compensated by regrowth)

~~~
fredkbloggs
> Further, the comparison itself is misleading as the CO2 figures for the US
> (and all other countries, for that matter), only count burning fossil fuel
> (and producing cement).

Some of the things you note that aren't counted should be counted. But burning
trees should not. Those trees removed the same amount of CO2 from the
atmosphere while they were growing that is given off when they are burned; it
will eventually be absorbed by whatever is then grown there afterward. The
same thing goes for most (but not all) agricultural processes.

The real problem is not the CO2 that's given off, but the CO, soot, and
various other organic and nitrogen compounds. Better known as smoke, which
fouls the air for critters, like humans, that breathe it. Any change in the
greenhouse effect is incidental and temporary. That doesn't mean that
Indonesia should not be required to compensate those whose air is fouled, if
they wish to continue allowing this. My guess is that if they were forced to
do so, they would suddenly find it much easier to enforce their existing law
against this type of burning.

~~~
gmac
I call 'denier' on this.

The greenhouse effect is 'incidental and temporary' in the same way as a
pandemic or nuclear war: if you're thinking in geological timescales and have
no particular interest in the wellbeing of human beings.

Trees that are cut down (and their predecessors) may have been storing carbon
for a long time, and whatever comes next may not store anything like as much
carbon (or may be continually harvested and used).

~~~
fredkbloggs
I'm not denying the greenhouse effect, nor that most if not all of its modern
increase is anthropogenic.

You need to go back and actually read what I wrote. The greenhouse effect, if
any, induced by _burning non-fossil plant matter_ is incidental and temporary.
In other words, on those geological time scales you cherish, as well as a
human time scale, the net change in CO2 from burning such material is _zero_.
The only way to make it not-zero is to render that land permanently unusable
by any type of plant. Which is certainly possible, but not a side effect of
slash-and-burn "farming". There's also the very strong possibility that
whatever replaces that vegetation is actually going to grow faster, and
thereby remove more carbon from the atmosphere than what was there before.
Mature trees, in particular, don't grow very quickly.

This is simply a fact. One of us is in denial, all right, but it's not me. You
need to get over your excessive fear-mongering; it's not helpful to the cause.
Stick to the facts if you want people to believe you.

------
nostromo
So interesting to follow the chain unintended consequences.

Trans fats make great muffins. But, oops, they happen to kill humans. So we
ban them. Turns out palm oil also makes great muffins and doesn't kill humans.
So, we burn down the ecosystem in Indonesia to make more of those delicious
muffins and contribute to global warming.

Maybe we can just go back to using butter?

~~~
lisper
Except that cows are pretty environmentally-unfriendly too.

Sigh. There is no getting around the elephant in the living room: population.
Either we control it, or the laws of physics will do it for us.

~~~
moonchrome
I hate this sort of regressive thinking. We can just come up with more
reliable ways of producing food.

I expect food production to see a huge revolution in 10-20 years - think
something like genetically modified simple organisms that are designed to
produce specific nutrients - like specific protein or sugar or fat.

If you can design them to be energy efficient and work in low amount of space
in a controlled environment (say a shallow pool of water + UV lamps or
something like that) you can have huge factories that stack these "ponds" on
top of each other working 24/7 pumping out nutrients.

Then it's just a matter of combining them in to food.

~~~
Daishiman
What's regressive about admitting that it's literally impossible to maintain a
developed country standard of living for 7 billion people?

There are physical limits and laws of thermodynamics that no amount of
innovation will be able to fix.

What is the point of continued population explosion? Satisfying some people's
belief that reproduction is an inherent right?

~~~
moonchrome
>There are physical limits and laws of thermodynamics that no amount of
innovation will be able to fix.

People have been crying about overpopulation since forever - like the Pink
Floyd song goes "And if you survive till two thousand and five I hope you're
exceedingly thin" \- we have the least poverty in history and the population
is still growing. Sorry to burst your green bubble but we are nowhere near
close to thermodynamical limits of sustainability on earth

>What is the point of continued population explosion? Satisfying some people's
belief that reproduction is an inherent right?

Yes. This is the perverse reality that most of modern "environmentalist"
arguments come down to "what I see as preserving nature is more valuable than
people". Sorry buddy but if I had to chose between no more seals or not having
children - well at least we have video footage of seals.

~~~
lisper
OMG, you really don't get it. This isn't about seals.

There's a classic puzzle that goes like this: you have a jar full of growth
medium and a single bacterium of a species which divides twice an hour. One
week later the jar is full of bacteria. At what point was the jar half full?

The classical answer is: 30 minutes before the end of the week. But the _real_
answer is that this situation is impossible, because after a week of doubling
every 30 minutes the population would be about 10^232 bacterial cells, which
is more than the number of sub-atomic particles in the universe.

It's not about thermodynamics, it's about math: exponential growth cannot be
sustained in a finite universe (let alone a finite planet). Sooner or later we
will hit a limit. The only question is whether that limit will be imposed by
the laws of physics or whether we will choose to become the masters of our own
fate and impose it on ourselves. Personally I prefer the latter option because
the former will almost certainly be very, very unpleasant.

~~~
moonchrome
> Sooner or later we will hit a limit

Sooner or later sun will burn out, universe will expand in to nothingness,
etc.

Those arguments are pointless - we won't reach those limits within our
lifetime even with highest growth projections and who knows what happens after
that.

But that's not what OP is arguing - baby seals - ie. "bio diversity" and
"wildlife preservation" \- is more important to the modern green movement than
increasing the standard of living for a large part of human population and
hence the enlightened ideas such as forbidding reproduction and limiting
resource use.

~~~
lisper
> Sooner or later sun will burn out

Yes, in about 5 billion years.

> we won't reach those limits within our lifetime

Between "our lifetime" and 5 billion years there is still a very broad range
of possibilities. Maybe you don't care what happens to the next N generations,
but I do.

~~~
moonchrome
> Maybe you don't care what happens to the next N generations, but I do

It's not about not caring - it's about not knowing what will and will not be
relevant. As I've said before - people have been talking about population
explosion since forever - we should be starving from 80s. All these people
consistently ignore progress in their predictions.

You don't know what the dominant method for food production will be in 20
years or what will be the dominant energy source - as someone linked above the
things I'm talking about are already starting. How can you predict what will
be relevant in 100 years ? We should deal with problems coming in 10-20 years
- we don't have the tools to deal with the longer term than that.

~~~
lisper
> people have been talking about population explosion since forever

No, that's not true. Thomas Malthus wrote his famous essay less than 200 years
ago. The oldest human writings are only a few thousand years old. That's the
blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things.

> How can you predict what will be relevant in 100 years?

Because I can do math. So I can understand that exponential growth cannot be
sustained in a finite universe, let alone a finite planet. I can calculate how
long we can continue at current (or historical) growth rates before we run
into various limiting factors.

For example: the carbon biomass of earth is ~10^15 kg. The carbon mass of homo
sapiens is about 10^11 kg. Our current doubling time is about 60 years. That
works out to about 600 more years of growth at current rates before the
biomass of earth consists entirely of homo sapiens. That's a hard upper bound
on how long we have left if we don't slow our growth rate.

~~~
moonchrome
600 years to figure out space colonization with efforts under way already and
likely to happen in a 100 years ... I see that you're trying to make a point
it's just not making any sense.

Honestly we have no idea how society will look like in 50 years with the
advent of AI and such nobody knows what close future holds let alone 100 years
- this "we're doing it to save the future" is like people talking how there's
going to be unsustainable urban problems in 100 years with horses before the
cars were invented - you think that limits you think matter (like biomass, or
planet size, or w/e) are somehow intrinsically relevant and unsolvable - sorry
but as far as problems go those are fairly straightforward on such a long
timescale.

~~~
lisper
> space colonization

That won't help.

Suppose we manage to completely terraform Mars (extremely unlikely in just 600
years) and suppose that the biomass of Mars can be made equal to that of
earth. It will only be one more doubling time (i.e. 60 years) before Mars is
completely full as well. Then what?

> you think that limits you think matter (like biomass, or planet size, or
> w/e) are somehow intrinsically relevant and unsolvable

No. I don't know what the limiting factor will ultimately turn out to be. It
may be that we will eventually succeed in transmuting matter and turning the
entire mass of the universe into homo sapiens. You can do the math on that
too. That will get you out to a couple of thousand years. After that we would
need to find a way to get around the law of conservation of mass. You have to
be a pretty extreme optimist to believe we'll have that figured out by then.

~~~
moonchrome
I think we've gone so far from what I was arguing - we can talk hypothetical
500 year future - but that has no bearing on what we should do _right now_. We
still have more than enough resources even with current technology to sustain
current population growth for the foreseeable future - suggesting that we
should start population control is just green bullshit these so called
environmentalist bring up because they are afraid that their favorite animal
is going extinct.

I'm not much in to that "native American wisdom" about how we should be one
with nature and how we can't eat money - money = resources + capital + labor =
solution to whatever problem you're facing given enough time. As far as I'm
concerned we should be working on solutions to reduce our dependence on the
ecosystem - climate change is just an a symptom of a bigger problem - the
environment we depend on is fragile - the solution isn't praying that
everything stays the same and maiming ourselves so we stay within some magical
limit they think is going to "appease" the "balance of nature" \- we should be
working towards replacing it with a more robust systems (eg. like
controlled/engineered food production instead of relying on weather,
pesticides, herbicides, etc. and hoping all goes well). This is what I mean by
regressive thinking - instead of focusing on how these eventual problems could
be solved trough innovation their solution is "stop doing whatever we beleive
might cause that and hope for the best".

------
siilats
The article title is misleading though. It was for 1 day that they emitted
more. So overall about 1% of us emissions if you average for the year or 100
times less.

~~~
mikeash
How is it misleading? The title seems to be saying exactly that. Or was it
edited?

~~~
masklinn
The title implies continuous superiority of indonesian emissions, not that
they out-produced the US emissions for a peak day (or 20, out of 365)

~~~
mikeash
I don't see it. Maybe because I already knew that the fires aren't a
continuous thing?

~~~
paublyrne
Title says 'per' day, meaning each day, implying continuity.

~~~
mikeash
I guess it depends on what the complaint is about it being misleading. I
thought the complaint was that the headline somehow implied they're _always_
emitting more, year-round. But maybe it's something else? Note that the
original correction is _also_ completely wrong, as it says the fires emitted
more for one day, while it's actually for a total of 26 days so far and
probably set to increase further.

------
noobermin
My SO is in Singapore, and she complains almost everyday about the smog.

While we in the US and other 1st worlders could do much to stem our pollution
especially given our ability, the fight against climate change has to be a
global fight, and not just the acts of a few willing nations.

------
Alkim
I was just in Singapore for the past few days, after living there for several
years. It really is awful this year.

The haze did make the laser show from the top of the Marina Sands really
spectacular. ;-)

~~~
oberstein
Are there any engineering efforts[1] being proposed or actively worked on by
Singapore to solve this issue? Every now and again I hear about the hazes
forcing everyone in Singapore to wear masks and stay indoors as much as
possible until the hazes dissipate. That state should be unacceptable for a
first world city.

[1] Like, a giant sci-fi ocean-fan... Or a military solution of invading their
neighbors and running things better.

~~~
newman314
Do you understand how small Singapore is? (Not trying to be snarky)

But yeah, they are not invading anyone anytime soon.

~~~
oberstein
Yeah, but Israel is also tiny and can still kick the ass of everyone else in
the Middle East. Similar to Israel, Singapore has a lot going for it with
respect to modern warfare that makes up for its population and landmass
deficit. I agree that total invasion is probably very unlikely in the
foreseeable immediate future.

~~~
newman314
Israel - 8522 sq miles

Singapore - 278 sq miles

You are off by quite a bit there. Besides, whether you are willing to admit it
or not, a LARGE part of the Israeli swagger is the understanding that they
have the full might of the US army behind them (be it right or not). Singapore
does not have an equivalent relationship.

------
codecamper
palm oil is a terrible, terrible thing. If you have travelled at all to
central america or asia, you know what i mean. (ok yes, you got me...
traveling to asia isn't so hot for the environment either)

Wherever you think a jungle should be, you see palm trees. As far as the eye
can see.

If you care about this. And you probably should. Then have a look at the
ingredient list & don't buy products with palm oil.

~~~
flycaliguy
Don't forget that palm oil is sometimes used in animal feed and will not be
found on packaging.

A family member recently switched from buying margarine to butter after
reading about the environmental effects of palm oil. Our dairy farming uncle
then reminded us that they use palm oil in the feed for the animals to aid in
managing digestion and fat levels.

------
miles
And, though environmental groups are loathe to discuss it[1], animal
agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, more
than the combined exhaust from ALL transportation[2].

[1] [http://www.cowspiracy.com/](http://www.cowspiracy.com/)

[2]
[http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM](http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM)

~~~
cjensen
All animal-produced carbon came from the air. Converting CO2 into more
interesting greenhouse gasses generates a constant offset from the "natural"
state. It's irrelevant in the long term view.

~~~
scythe
Not all greenhouse gases are the same. One of the unfortunate things about
agriculture is that it's a major source of nitrous oxide, via fertilizer
decomposition, and methane, via mostly cattle. Both N2O and CH4 are
drastically more potent GHG than CO2, essentially because the atmospheric
concentration of those gases is already much lower, so the proportional impact
of N2O/CH4 emissions is much greater.

CH4 emissions from agriculture could be potentially reduced by improving
manure treatment on farms (because untreated manure releases CH4) and
regulating feed quality. Both have the side-effect of higher meat prices. N2O
emissions are harder: you'd have to stop using nitrate-containing fertilizer.

~~~
mrob
CH4 emissions could also be greatly reduced by switching from cows to
marsupials. Emissions are not zero as sometimes claimed, but research on
wallabies [1] found emissions "between 25 and 33% of what can be expected from
ruminants fed the same diet".

[1]
[https://www.animalsciencepublications.org/publications/jas/p...](https://www.animalsciencepublications.org/publications/jas/pdfs/90/4/1364)

------
scythe
Basically all vegetable oils are the same; palm oil is actually more efficient
than any other crop that grows in Indonesia. It would be clearer, in my
opinion, to say that Indonesia's vegetable oil fires emit [...], which
prevents the interpretation some people apparently take where they buy coconut
oil instead. Coconut is only better because it's expensive but if everyone
used coconut oil it would be way, way worse than palm oil, because it takes
three times the land area of coconuts to produce the same amount of oil as oil
palms! If they used soybeans, it would take _six times_ as much land to
produce the same amount of oil.

In other words, the only way to lower demand for palm oil is to lower the
demand for _all_ oil. In my opinion, the best way to do that is to kill the
perception of biofuel as sustainable. Eating food is bad enough -- all
agriculture is bad for the environment -- but burning it is ridiculous. With
the exception of biofuel avgas (which is a tiny proportion of the market)
electricity is superior in every way.

------
cozzyd
I was just looking at [http://epic.gsfc.nasa.gov/epic-
archive/png/epic_1b_201510210...](http://epic.gsfc.nasa.gov/epic-
archive/png/epic_1b_20151021041711_00.png) and wondering what all that smoke
was.

------
contingencies
Fact: Singaporeans own and operate the burning palm oil plantations via
Indonesian shell companies and labor. (Source: Horse's mouth)

------
oneJob
Someone please come up with a butter that uses only algae produced inputs.
You'll save the world.

------
ck2
I find that hard to believe given that the way US farmers harvest sugar cane
is to burn the entire field off.

[https://google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=sugar+cane+burn+field](https://google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=sugar+cane+burn+field)

------
krisroadruck
Burning trees doesn't actually change the atmospheric balance at all. Every
tree releases its carbon, either by being burned or when it dies by rotting.
It's effectively a non-trapped part of the atmospheres circulatory system.
Remember trees breath the stuff in and eventually they exhale. The problems
only crop up when you extract trapped hydrocarbons from underground and burn
those. Oil and Coal bad, Tree's not so much.

~~~
dymk
Sort of. It would be nice if we could sequester the carbon already in the air
in trees. The benefit is two fold: More trees, and removal of carbon that is
already in the air from burning fossil fuels.

~~~
thrownaway2424
You cannot just infinitely accumulate trees. In a steady state, forests
neither sequester nor release carbon.

~~~
masklinn
> In a steady state, forests neither sequester nor release carbon.

In a steady state, forests are carbon stores, same as coal veins, oil
reservoirs or methane clathrate.

------
gsibble
This is why I don't buy into cap and trade and other expensive systems for the
US to reduce its emissions. Compared to emerging economies, our emissions are
already dramatically lower. It's the 2nd and 3rd world that needs to get in
line (China most of all).

~~~
Afforess
Yes, it would be terrible if we did all that work to improve the atmosphere
for nothing.

[http://i.imgur.com/kUCPeBo.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/kUCPeBo.jpg)

~~~
karl_gluck
Come on, that's incredibly disingenuous.

Of course it's not terrible to improve the atmosphere. But you're making it
sound like all methods are equivalent; when there are limited resources to
address the problem, they need to be allocated accordingly.

It's a similar situation to water in California -- yes, everyone should cut
down on consumption. But the single-family mega-mansions using as much as 90
normal residences [1] cutting 10% of their water usage has a much bigger
impact than an average residence cutting 10%.

Edited:

If a billion dollars spent in the US reduces US emissions by 5%, and US
emissions and emissions from these fires are equivalent, and it costs less to
incentivize Indonesian / Malaysian palm oil producers to stop burning peat
forest and reduce emissions by 5%, we should be doing that instead.

[1] [https://www.revealnews.org/article/the-wet-prince-of-bel-
air...](https://www.revealnews.org/article/the-wet-prince-of-bel-air-who-is-
californias-biggest-water-guzzler/)

Original before edit: If the US could spend a billion dollars to reduce our
carbon emissions by 5%, or could spend a billion dollars paying Indonesia &
Malaysia to stop setting palm oil on fire and reduce THEIR emissions, the
results are not equivalent. The latter is 200x more effective. [the 200x was
from a misreading of the article]

~~~
mikeash
How is it 200x more effective to reduce the emissions of Indonesia and
Malaysia by 5%? These fires exceeded the emissions of the US for 26 days and
otherwise the US far outweighs these countries when it comes to emissions. If
the choice is 5% of ours or 5% of theirs, surely 5% of ours produces a far
greater effect.

~~~
karl_gluck
You're right, I must have misread the original article while composing my
response. This is what I was remembering:

"Taken together, the impact of peat fires on global warming can be more than
200 times greater than fires on other lands."

~~~
mikeash
It sounds like the original article may have greatly overstated the emissions
from these fires. I came in after it got fixed so I don't know.

