
One Casualty of the Palm Oil Industry: An Orangutan Mother, Shot 74 Times - pseudolus
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/29/world/asia/orangutan-indonesia-palm-oil.html
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wpq0
This sad story reminds me of this excerpt from the novel Ishmael by Daniel
Quinn: “You may compete to the full extent of your capabilities, but you may
not hunt down your competitors or destroy their food or deny them access to
food. In other words, you may compete but you may not wage war.”

We are waging a war on our brothers and sisters. Our collective humanity
deteriorate for each and every soul that we trample upon for the sake of
economic progress.

~~~
negamax
This is so well put. Also waging war part or politics or nepotism in
competing, corrupts the spirit of competition and hence the human spirit
itself.

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Bakary
Tragic as it is I feel this piece illustrates the idea of bourgeois
sentimentalism quite well.[0]

Some animals get a ton of support and money thrown at them while less
marketable animals tend to produce no reaction when treated horrifically.

Whenever there is a tension between a group of poor locals and first world
emotional interest around ecological conservation, the problem is that the
locals can sense quite clearly (as the father does at the end of the piece)
how little their lives are valued compared to that of animals. You can have a
non-human species get a Swiss surgeon flown in, while they would never
experience this level of medical care of attention themselves.

I'm certainly not condoning the horrific actions towards those animals, but
underneath that tragedy there is a bigger issue at hand and a big reason why
certain ecological projects fail due to zero interest in incentivizing locals.
The best conservation programs tend to involve the entire community.

In the end you have frustrated first worlders wondering why the locals won't
cooperate and do as they are told, even though the reason for this lack of
interest is precisely the barely concealed contempt that emanates towards
them. Sending trash in the guise of recycling, pollution and outsourcing
negative externalities their way such as the palm oil industry while
forbidding them from doing whatever might have a negative externality on first
worlders.

[0]
[https://www.marxists.org/archive/lafargue/1881/12/25.htm](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lafargue/1881/12/25.htm)

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
Environmentalism and endangered species protection is the new colonialism.
Rich white people impose their values on poor brown people and try to prevent
them from doing the same things that they did to develop, and rather try to
keep them as the “noble savages” living in a “pristine wilderness.”

~~~
sho
The "brown" owners of these palm oil plantations, sitting in their luxury
condos and villas in Jakarta and KL, are much richer than you, believe me.

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howlin
Palm oil became a thing when cheap, shelf stable fats in the form of partially
hydrogenated oil were realized to be unhealthy. Instead of the world giving up
the eternally fresh package of Oreos, we move to massive production of
tropical oils which are also shelf stable. It's probably time to reevaluate if
we can sustain our appetite for snacks using a very small amount of precious
land in the tropics that can grow palm oil.

There are alternatives to Palm oil. The most straightforward is replacing it
with rendered fat from pigs or cows (lard or tallow). This has its own ethics
and environmental concerns. Another solution is to revisit oil hydrogenation.
We can fully hydrogenate oils such as soybean into a saturated fat very
similar to that found in tallow. The resulting fat is healthier than partially
hydrogenated oil, and arguably healthier than unprocessed soy oil too. It is
not difficult to work with and has a neutral flavors, which is desirable for
the processed food industry. We just need to get over our fear of this
process.

~~~
rayiner
Just go back to lard and tallow. McDonalds French fries are still a shadow of
their former selves.

~~~
howlin
A significant fraction of the population has a religious or moral objection to
eating lard. A smaller but still substantial part of the population objects to
tallow based on vegetarianism or the terrible environmental impact of cattle
raising.

~~~
rhino369
That would make sense for a chain that otherwise served vegetarians. But does
McD's even have a single item that is vegetarian?

I googled it, some breakfast items (egg mcmuffin, panckages) and apple pie.

It's probably just a money saving feature. I'm already old (34) and I've only
ever eaten the veggie oil McD's fries.

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gambiting
To everyone commenting how we should stop using palm oil - please be reminded
that just 20 years ago the international community was banding up to urgently
encourage switching from other types of vegetable oils to palm oil, as it is
the most efficient type of vegetable oil to produce(per hectare of land used).
Yes, the situation in those countries sucks and should be stopped - but we
have a need for vegetable oils, and they all have a cost associated with them.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
I don't remember a concerted push outside industry to switch, more a push by
the multinationals. Mainly because it's so cheap. Historically it was usually
used in soap and lubricants rather than food as it has the distinctive
texture.

I do remember that environmental groups have been complaining of its impact
since the 90s - maybe far longer.

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pergadad
I find it hard to impossible to avoid palmoil in food. I eat vegetarian/vegan,
which makes it even more difficult. To just mention the most
frustrating/difficult to avoid one: to find margarine that doesn't use palmoil
seems near impossible.

And it's in everything 'ready' \- cookies, bread, chocolate, curry sauce, any
ready meal, any fastfood you buy, ...

Alternative oils such as sunflower or rapeseed oils should be able to (and
used to!) cover most of these use cases, but sadly our food industry seems to
choose palmoil despite the ecological damage (rainforest destruction,
monocultures, erosion, ...) and the widely reported slavery and social harm.
Some companies (such as Ferrero) slap 'certificates' of non-harm on the
package, which have little evidence behind them and, if anything, will still
mean that the demand for palm oil keeps increasing.

Really disappointing. Hope companies become more conscious rather than just
cost-conscious.

~~~
spockz
In Italy, there seems to be a whole campaign against palm oil. Many product
wrappers, including those of margarine, claim to be free of palm oil in quite
a big font. So at least in Italy there is awareness. I do not know what
prompted this.

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fnord77
> When the air-gun pellets pierced Hope’s eyes, blinding her, she felt her way
> up the tree trunks, auburn-furred fingers searching out tropical fruit for
> sustenance.

> By the end, Hope’s torso was slashed with deep lacerations. Multiple bones
> were broken. Seventy-four pellets were lodged in her body. Her months-old
> baby had been ripped away.

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xenocyon
There's also the little matter of the sheer magnitude of the threat to the
species:
[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/15/dramatic...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/15/dramatic-
decline-in-borneos-orangutan-population-as-150000-lost-in-16-years)

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ossie
When Malaysia and Indonesia overtook West Africa in producing palm oil due to
an "efficient" focus on large scale plantations, we decried it as another sign
of Africa's regression, and in Nigeria's specific case, a sign of petro-
dollar's damaging impact on a previously robust agro-economy.

Holistic Progress = Undefined.

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asokoloski
It's more of a desire for oils than a need. Humans don't need to eat processed
oils at all. We can get all the essential fatty acids we need from regular
food -- even without eating fish. Oils are not even healthy, they're just
concentrated calories. It's just that they taste good.

As far as for other uses of vegetable oils, I can't really comment.

~~~
erikpukinskis
What is are examples of cuisines that use no oils?

~~~
asokoloski
Hmm, you know what, I've been researching this a bit more and it seems like I
was wrong. Apparently many cultures did boil seeds to produce oils for cooking
or other purposes. I expect that they probably didn't eat as much oil as we
do, given that this would have been more labor intensive than what we can do
with modern farming and factories. But it makes sense to try to get your
calories any way you can.

~~~
arcticbull
We’ve been making animal fats (butter), rendered animal fats (lard, tallow)
and pressed fats (coconut, olive, seed) forever.

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digitalni
Are we the baddies?

~~~
dang
Probably, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

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wolco
Palm oil tastes awful and its not the healthiest choice.

~~~
chewz
It is used as biofuel..

~~~
Railsify
As well as many other things, have you heard of Nutella?

~~~
chewz
> have you heard of Nutella?

Always wonder who's buying Nutella. Sugar and palmoil.

~~~
chrisseaton
You can make any food sound ridiculous by reducing it to its ingredients.

~~~
chewz
Nutella started as mix of hazelnuts and chocolate (to save on chocolate in
Piedmont Italy) now more then 50% of its content is palmoil and sugar. What
happend?

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutella](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutella)

~~~
simias
I mean it's not really a big mystery, I'm not sure where this discussion is
going. A ton of super popular food is ridiculously unhealthy. Coca Cola is
basically super-sweet water. Jams don't usually have added fats but they do
have a ton of sugar. Cotton Candy is literally only sugar (and some colorant I
suppose).

Clearly the incentives here are simple, you want to make a product that people
like as much as possible while making it as cheaply as possible. Health is not
really a factor, insofar as not too many people don't drop your product
because they see it as unhealthy (ads will help with that, all Nutella ads
I've seen in France focus on "giving energy to children for their activities"
or some bullshit like that).

So that's how you end up with something that's mainly palm oil and sugar. The
market has spoken. I'm sure that if they reverted back to their original
recipe they'd lose a significant amount of clients.

~~~
improbable22
You can buy spreads which are just hazelnuts and chocolate. But they cost
several times as much as nutella, unsurprisingly.

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rolltiide
wow they can take 74 shots and live

It would be interesting if humans could have tougher skin layers like many
mammals do

~~~
fnord77
they were airgun pellets which embedded into her body as shown by the x-rays
in the article

~~~
rolltiide
oh, whoops!

I had only read the part at the beginning that made it clear she was alive

~~~
raws
She's alive, her baby died. :/

