I repeat

Biofuels are wiping out rainforests 5

Almuth Ernsting over at Biofuel Watch has been working hard to get the word out on a small problem: a billion tons of carbon going into the air annually, with the potential of about fifty billion more on the way. People are deliberately setting Southeast Asia's rainforests and peatlands on fire to convert the land into something they can sell to countries striving to meet their Kyoto obligations -- palm oil. To put this into perspective, there are about 8 billion metric tons of carbon being dumped into the atmosphere by people annually, 6.5 billion tons from fossil fuels and 1.5 billion from deforestation. This is much worse than just dumping carbon from a tailpipe because it also simultaneously destroys entire ecosystems. You get two disasters for the price of one.

Take two minutes to write and send an email. It doesn't matter that nobody will read it. What counts is how many get sent. At some point a pee-on will inform his boss that they have been hit with five million emails. His boss will then tell his boss and up the chain it will go. The boss will want to see a few and something will happen as a result because receiving a few million emails is a scary thing for anyone clinging to a position of power. This email will be sent to 47 big shots recipients.

Go here, scroll to the bottom, and read the email that's been created for you. Change the message title and don't even bother to sign it (done automatically). Hit submit and go back to work or whatever you are supposed be doing. Me, I just erase the whole thing and write one or two sentences that will sting on the off chance it will ever get read:

"How will you answer if your granddaughter, sitting on you knee, asks why you let the orangutan go extinct? Will you go down in history as just another person who could have done something but didn't?"

These things actually work. Go for it and send a link to a friend or two or three. Get the word out about this biofuel situation.

My real name is Russ Finley. I live in Seattle, married with children. Suffice it to say that although I am trained and educated as an engineer, my passion is nature. I very much want my grandchildren to live on a planet where lions, tigers, and bears have not joined the long and growing list of creatures that used to be. In an attempt to minimize the workload on Grist editors responsible for turning my submissions into intelligible articles, I will also be posting on a seperate blog called Biodiversivist, which will contain articles in addition to those submitted to Grist.

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  1. caniscandida Posted 4:47 pm
    13 Oct 2006

    orangutanWell done, Biodiv.  I just sent my letter, and already got three automatic responses, apparently.  If they are interesting, I shall report.
    Aside from the orangutan, which is arguably Indonesia's most famous vertebrate -- or is that the Komodo dragon? -- , the gibbons are also affected.  And my guess is, so is the Malaysian tapir, a very beautiful perissodactyl which lives on Sumatra.  Could you perhaps name some other examples of threatened wildlife?

    Chickens are our cousins!

    So are other sensitive animals!

    Enough is enough!

    No more factory farms!

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  2. Biodiversivist's avatar

    Biodiversivist Posted 12:35 am
    15 Oct 2006

    Good work there CanisHow about this?
    http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KLR127372.htm

    In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com

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  3. Ana Unruh Cohen Posted 5:36 am
    16 Oct 2006

    not just biofuelsAt the moment Europe still eats more palm oil than it uses for industrial uses, like biofuels. (See page 13 of this pdf.) So we need to make sure that all palm oil regardless of final use is produced in a sustainable way. Work towards that goal is already occuring through the Roundtable on Sustainable Palmoil. The Netherlands, which import the most palm oil for non-food use in the EU and primarily for use in their electricity sector, are working on adopting sustainability criteria that will apply to all biomass used for bioenergy. I got a copy of their report, Criteria for Sustainable Biomass Production, in English at a recent conference on sustainable biomass. Unfortunately, I can't find the English version on the web, but if you read Dutch you can download the report here.

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  4. Biodiversivist's avatar

    Biodiversivist Posted 11:22 am
    16 Oct 2006

    They had better get a move onI wonder though, if other consumers will just buy the oil grown unsustainably, letting the Netherlands buy that which is (squeezing the water to the other end of the balloon).

    In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com

    Permalink

  5. caniscandida Posted 4:15 pm
    17 Oct 2006

    balloonThanks, Biodiv, for the reference on Malaysian fireflies, etc.  Yes, ironic, isn't it, that the Dutch are up there among the most vulnerable to the effects of global warming in the developed world (my heart is in my mouth regarding Venice: the Italians will not let it be lost, but the price for its salvation and maintenance will be very very high; and they know, Venice is such a treasure, they will be able to ask from the international community whatever they want, in order to save it), and yet the Dutch have a hand in this palm oil industry.
    The water does indeed slosh from one end of the world's balloon to the other.

    Chickens are our cousins!

    So are other sensitive animals!

    Enough is enough!

    No more factory farms!

    Permalink

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