is anyone else considering their carbon footprint?

I travel to the UK twice a year,I fly because travelling from the country where I live by road, train, boat etc would take far too long.

So, notanan2, never mind about the orangutans then or the burning forests?

How on earth is that your interpretation of my posts?

Forests are burnt and eco-diversity is destroyed for all kinds of crops! Including commercial forests. And other oils.

The lower yield a crop is, the more deforestation it requires.

Palm oil is high yield, making it a "lesser evil" than alternative oil crops. It takes less space and resources and processing to produce the end product. It is the greener oil!

Palm oil is usually in convenience and non essential products. If you want to cut yiur impact, just stop buying those products, because continuing to buy those products, just switching to the green no palm oil version, is not actually being green. Its just greenwashing in a way that encourages people to keep on consuming at their current rate

The "slowness" of train travel is part if the appeal IMO. Make it part of the holiday. Break it up.

We’ve had two long haul plane flights this year (well, four - we came back again). One to Costa Rica and one recently to Borneo. Both were nature trips. We’ve also been to India and Africa on safaris. The conundrum is: If no one goes on nature watching trips to look for tigers, orangutans, elephants, etc as they feel guilty flying, why should these countries preserve them? Why not turn the jungles into palm oil plantations and intensive cattle rearing factories? Jungles don’t make money.

I have to also ask why a lot of people on the plane to Borneo just went to sit in a beach resort. Why, when Spain is just as hot and much closer.

One interesting thing we did discover. Costa Rica only has renewable palm oil plantations. The trees are planted quite close together and nothing apparently lives in them. We didn’t stop. Borneo also has only renewable palm oil plantations but the trees are further apart so stuff grows and creatures live in them. A good place to spot elephants (although we didn’t). They are now planting the trees further apart still so they can replant between the older palms. It seems a much better way to go and much more sustainable.

notanan2 my argument is not with you. You sound as though you have investigated the subject pretty well and drawn your own conclusions.
My point is that there is much, seemingly, confusing information out there and although you seem to have got to grips with it most haven’t. Including me.
IMO just because trees are felled and burnt to grow other cash crops it doesn’t make it right to upset our ecosystem in this way.
I haven’t got the answers only the questions.

BTW in my original post. I did say I try very hard not to buy anything with palm oil in it. That is confusing too when you see the names it goes under.

If it seems "confusing" then trust your instincts and don't fall for the "greenwash"

There are no convenient "swaps" that mean current lifestyles can be sustainable.

E.g. the beauty industry is never going to tell you to just stop buying so many beauty products. Instead they offer you "greenwash" alternatives to trick you into thinking you're doing something without really changing your habits.

The "confusion" is a helpful niggle telling you that it doesnt make sense! We cant make the amount we consume sustainable by just buying more but different stuff!

Keep flying, just also buy our offsetting package

Keep shopping: just buy our latest organic bamboo styles instead of wearing last year's outfits

Keep over eating: try our palm oil free choccies instead!

Keep trying to look younger/prettier/more primped and pruned, just replace all your existing make up with our new cruelty free vegan friendly green range

Keep driving! Just buy an electric car

Keep redecorating in this seasons in colour schemes: buy our low fume paints!

New baby! Here are 101 "green baby" "essentials" you should buy!

It's "confusing" because how can they makd you keep on replacing stuff you already have/don't need if they don't scape goat what you already have/use?

And next year they'll want you to go buy their newer "greener" version. So something else will be in/out.

This year it's palm oil. When you've bought all their "no palm oil" stuff instead it'll be another ingredient.

Its actually not at all confusing really. Just ignore the marketing. Buy what you need nit what you want. Use what you already have fully. And enjoy simple pleasures.

People make these switches, then find out that what they switched to is now "out" in eco-trend terms, then say "gosh! It's so hard to be green!"

Of course the switches arent as green as promised! It's still just more stuff and most of it is superfluous

Being frugle is green my default.

Eco/green industry is booming. It'll never tell you to be frugle though

Been press recently about the greenhouse gasses used as coolants for "green energy tarrifs"

People are all surprised!
As if you can just keep using the same amount of energy but make it all okay be switching to "green tarifs"

It still has an impact! Using less is the green thing to do but the way green tarifs are marketed its implied that the more you use the better because you are funding "green" industry!

there is a good, easy to understand article all about palm oil here

Palm oil is bad. There is no way you can be sure products contain sustainably produced palm oil because the certificates can be bought.

Stay away from palm oil wherever you can.

Slash and burn kills wildlife and is cruelly bad for human health in the area. Slash and burn happens. A lot.

Palm oil is bad. There is no way you can be sure products contain sustainably produced palm oil because the certificates can be bought.
This is however also the case for Palm Oil substitutes!

There is no single crop responsible for deforestation.

Whatever is in demand will be grown
Less demand for Palm oil just means deforestation continues but for the alternatives, which need even MORE physical space to grow

Forests are also destroyed for soybeans! Lots of Palm oil avoiders chose "green" products that include soy derivatives

Reducing demand/consumption all round us the only way to reduce deforestation. Boycotting one crop wont

Under current law palm oil has to be listed in 'ingredients'
as palm oil. It can't be called anything else.

Slash and burn kills wildlife and is cruelly bad for human health in the area. Slash and burn happens. A lot.

It does. To grow whatever will sell. If we keep consuming it'll keep happening at an increasing rate.

Switching to non Palm oil products can actually accelerate deforestation not decrease it as less efficient lower yeald oils are grown in its place.

Palm oil is the crop that be grown very easily in places like the Amazon. It thrives in those places. That's why they slash and burn to grow it - easy profits, on a huge scale.

It's in (almost) everything. Rapeseed or sunflower oil couldn't be grown in such huge quantities.

There IS no argument in favour of palm oil.

Yes, we need to consume less. That speaks for itself. But the palm oil business must be sorted out.

*
Palm oil is the crop that be grown very easily in places like the Amazon. It thrives in those places. That's why they slash and burn to grow it - easy profits, on a huge scale.

It's in (almost) everything. Rapeseed or sunflower oil couldn't be grown in such huge quantities.*

Exactly! The alternatives need more space, more irrigation, and more processing to produce lower yields.

The forests are being burnt to grow whatever crop is in demand. If you switch to palm oil free products those alternatives are not greener! They are more polluting and more resource heavy to grow and process, and the forests still burn!!

Continuing to buy heavily processed food just switching to "palm oil free" versions does not reduce your environmental impact, it can make it worse!

The forests must be managed sustainably, and certificates handed out by corruption free authorities.

I think they are working on it.

I don't think we will ever manage without palm oil. Like you say, buy less.

Who's arguing?

Yes, we need to consume less. That speaks for itself.

Clearly it doesnt with so many people falling for greenwash! Believing they dont need to fundamentally change their consumer habits so long as they switch to the green-wash version. Which are often as bad if not sometimes worse for the planet!

I think foodstuffs are the least part of the problem. Palm oil is in more than just food.

Palm oil is not an evil crop. It is a very good crop.

It has been scape goated.

Timber trees are planted in slash and burn areas causing just as much destruction of biodiversity and carbon release and devestation, do we boycott timber too? Soy?

The crops arent the problem. The rates of demand are.