For the last thousand years, the occupants of this planet have been pursuing a weird form of self-adulation. They have created gods in their own image, imagined these gods to be benevolent parents conferring the goods and benefitrs of the planet upon them, and believed that their own self-generated impulses to be absolute truth. The planet begs to differ.
Today, we see the planet start to reassert itself. Our religions may tell us we are a god's special creation, and we may be egotistic enough to want to believe it, but in fact this god we have created did not create us. The planet did. If a god created anything, it was the conditions out there in the universal void that allowed a round piece of rock to develop an atmosphere and water and top soil enough to generate some form of what we call life. In other words, us. We are no special creation. We are just as subject to weather, earthquake, fire and famine as any other living form.
If I look at us from the planet's point of view, we--and the economic theory of endless consumption we promote--are the most dangerous thing that the planet has created. In terms of nuisance value, we reign supreme. Ungrateful, polluting, greedy, hell bent on overpopulating and stressing this planet, talking about space travel so we can do it to other planets, why ever would this planet want to put up with us?
When we were fewer, nomadic, and technologically ignorant, we could be tolerated because we did little harm and the earlier people at least made some show of being grateful for the life the planet sustained. Now we are inflated with our egos, grateful only when we are given the funds to consume more of the planet's resources. Money is not the root of all as wits like to say, it's us believing we are entitled to it that is.
Well, the planet is telling us several things: resources are not endlessly renewable and there are consquences to our greediness. We are already starting to see food shortages, and these will continue. The Middle East uprisings are not the glorious push for freedom that Americans (particularly conservatives) like to believe; they are a push for food and the other basic necessities of life. When these are not forthcoming, all the fancy constitutions in the world will be worth nothing.
Down in Arizona, people wear guns on their hips in the grocery stores. There is something profound about this, even if the gun bearer doesn't look as if he has pondered the meaning of what he is doing beyond exercising his rights, because the next civil war in this country will be over food and the unequal distribution of the nation's resources. The wealthy one percent will hire guards to protect their food supply. The rest of us will be left to flight over scraps until we too have a revolution.
Special creation indeed. This planet gives and takes. Right now, it is restless and probably quite sick of us. It got rid of the dinosaurs. It can get rid of us. Yet, we go around flattering one another that whatever we do to the planet is fine as long as there is money to be made.
Money means nothing to the planet. It couldn't care less if we have the latest i-pad or cheap airline tickets. It also couldn't care less if we kill eachother over food and oil. It would, in fact, be happier with the human species gone. A million years from now, who will be left to care if we annhilate ourselves? If there is anyone, we will be a mere footnote in their history telling a cautionary tale about a barbaric time when politics and religion conspired to overpopulate the planet, exhaust the resources, and nearly wipe out the human race.
We ought to be directing our thanks to the planet for what it has given us instead of filling the coffers of some church that merely flatters us and some politician who appeals to our ignorance because that is all we have and want to hear about.
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DO WE WANT PALM OIL OR OXYGEN, CAN'T HAVE BOTH!
(Q 1)What kind of grocery products will I find palm oil in?
If your shopping list includes packaged products like: bread, biscuits, chocolate, chips, sandwich spreads, ice cream, shower cream and shampoo, then its likely you are buying palm oil.
Palm oil and its derivatives are present in 50% of all packaged foods on our shelves. It is stable at room temperature and has a longer shelf life than other vegetable oils.
Palm oil is used as a shortening in bakery to make biscuits and breads etc. It is also used for deep fat frying. Palm oil derivatives can be used in cosmetics as it makes things like shampoo creamier.
(Q 2)What is the problem with Palm Oil?
Palm oil only grows in the tropics, where, if cultivated in an unsustainable way can have negative impacts on people and the environment. These include indiscriminate forest clearing, habitat loss of threatened and endangered species, poor air quality from burning forests and peatlands, and disregard for the rights and interests of local communities. A report published in 2007 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) acknowledges that palm oil plantations are now the leading cause of rainforest destruction in Malaysia and Indonesia. Of even more concern is the fact that demand for palm oil is predicted to increase, and most of the remaining suitable areas for plantations are forests
Deforestation, Land Clearing & Orangutans Habitat
In Southeast Asia alone the equivalent of 300 football fields are deforested every hour. During 1998 and 1999, loss of orangutans reached a rate of about 1,000 per year. 80% of orangutan habitat has been altered or lost already and it's forecast that at the current rate of deforestation, orangutans could be extinct in the wild in as little as 20 years. (make that 10 years)
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