Palm Oil Named a Model Crop by Wall Street Journal
Some folks can’t handle this
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Image Credit: Borneo Bulletin-Malaysia plants hope for palm oil’s future
In monitoring internet content on palm oil as highlighted by search engines, it is always interesting to note which groups hope to make money off palm oil. With an anti-palm oil stance, that is.
Internet savvy websites count on bashing palm oil for a good pay day from revenue from increased traffic to their websites.
One of the more disingenuous is Palm Oil Detectives, owned and operated by Athena Dennis from Australia which has no qualms about blaming all the ills of the planet, on palm oil.
Profiting From Anti-Palm Oil Sentiments
Athena is not the first to attempt to make a good living off her keyboard by taking on an anti-palm oil marketing front. Her brand as “Palm Oil Detective” is a blatant poaching of another Australian project, “Palm Oil Investigations” which whimpered into obscurity when they failed to monetize the project.
Regardless of the failure of these individuals to make money off plugging an anti-palm oil media project, other platforms are more than happy to reshare anti palm oil content. Green Queen, based in Hong Kong, picked up on such a piece and republished it on their website. Warning to photosensitive readers, there’s a lot of flashing ads on the Green Queen website.
The piece that Green Queen picked up, was originally published by a Jen Kaplan on Substack, titled An Open Letter To The WSJ: Indonesia’s Deforestation Policies Are Far From A Model Of Success.
Kaplan questioned the WSJ report filed by Jon Emont, who “covers global topics related to economics, politics, and technology, often through the lens of Southeast Asia, where I am currently based.”
In her piece, Kaplan wrote in a fashion similar to Athena Dennis, where half truths and falsehoods were presented in the hope that the reader would not cross check.
For example, Kaplan wrote “Indonesia remains one of the world’s largest carbon emitters,” with the link pointed at a REUTERS report on Indonesia that actually talked about how Indonesia was increasing its climate targets:
“The government has set a new target to cut emission levels by 31.89% on its own or 43.2% with international support by 2030. That is more ambitious than its Paris Agreement pledge, which was to cut emissions by 29% or 41% with international help, its chief economic minister Airlangga Hartarto said.”
If one were to dig for more facts, one would find the truth that Indonesia barely made it to the Top 10 List of Polluters worldwide. According to Climate Trade:
“However, most of this pollution comes from just a few countries: China, for example, generates around 30% of all global emissions, while the United States is responsible for almost 14%.In the ranking below you can find the 10 countries that produce the most emissions, measured in millions of tons of CO2 in 2019.
What this should mean to Jen Kaplan, is that the average US citizen like her, has a per capita carbon dioxide emissions of 14.7 metric tons in 2019, compared to the per capita carbon dioxide emissions of the average Indonesian at 2.3 metric tons.
Kaplan tried to fear-monger by providing a link to a Global Forest Watch report on Indonesia which said:
In 2001, Indonesia had 93.8Mha of primary forest*, extending over 50% of its land area. In 2021, it lost 203kha of primary forest*, equivalent to 157Mt of CO₂ emissions.
Comparing apples to apples by using information from the same website
As of 2001, < 0.1% of United States's total tree cover was primary forest. In 2021, it lost 1.71Mha of natural forest, equivalent to 775Mt of CO₂ emissions.
Kaplan then brings up Indonesian wildfires in her anti palm oil diatribe.
Forest clearing mega-fires continue to destroy irreplaceable biodiversity and contribute to climate change, which carries a heavy burden on the population of the region and the world.
Are Indonesian wildfires responsible for the heavy burden on American health and biodiversity? Or is it possibly the many wildfires in the US as reported in The changing risk and burden of wildfire in the United States, ‘Dramatic’ rise in wildfire smoke triggers decline in US air quality for millions, Increasing Wildfires Are Causing Greater Air Pollution ?
As for biodiversity and extinctions, there are no shortages of scientific reports on US biodiversity and their threats of extinctions due to wildfires and the overall threat of wildlife extinctions in the US.
The rest of what Jen Kaplan wrote is drivel. For example:
The Indonesian government continues to be a vocal opponent of new deforestation efforts. Just look at their opposition to the new EU Deforestation regulations. The country argued that it would put undue burden on smallholder farmers, but backed off that position in the face of the support of the Indonesian palm oil smallholders union. The country is also openly angered by the new rules and even sent envoys to the EU to defend its policies. Since then the country has continued to resist the new measures by imposing export bans and pledging to fight.
How on earth would Indonesia “back off” opposition to the EUDR while sending envoys to the EU to “defend its policies?” This makes no sense. Contradicting herself so obviously shows Kaplan has not put enough thought into what she is doing.
The link she used in "imposing export bans" has absolutely nothing to do with the EU's Deforestation Regulations. The news there was a report that "Indonesia will suspend some palm oil export permits to secure domestic supply amid rising cooking oil prices ahead of Islamic festivals."
As she fumbled through anti palm oil rhetoric like “Many - the majority, in fact - of the largest Indonesian palm oil operators also have mining or timber interests and most no-deforestation commitments only apply to the palm oil supply chain rather than the entire corporate entity” she should have known that this is not unique to Indonesian palm oil. In fact, Latin American soy is notorious for claiming cleared lands as “deforestation free.”
Global Forest Watch has enough data on the negative environmental impact of soy that it would have made more sense for C16 Biosciences to try and find a laboratory replacement for soybean. After all, soy is more ubiquitous in consumer products in the US than palm oil.
Well, maybe C16 Biosciences didn’t feel comfortable with reports that the soybean is bad for human health and planet.
Hard facts aside, what makes it impossible for Kaplan to admit that palm oil is not as bad its made out to be, is that C16 Biosciences makes money off its promise to make a palm oil alternative in New York.
It is impossible to say whether technology will ever replace natural sources but for now, there is no doubt that Jon Emont was right to highlight Indonesian palm oil as a “turnaround with lessons for policy makers, businesses and environmentalists around the world who are concerned about the effects of rainforest loss.”
Published March 2023. CSPO Watch
Internet savvy websites count on bashing palm oil for a good pay day from revenue from increased traffic to their websites.
One of the more disingenuous is Palm Oil Detectives, owned and operated by Athena Dennis from Australia which has no qualms about blaming all the ills of the planet, on palm oil.
Profiting From Anti-Palm Oil Sentiments
Athena is not the first to attempt to make a good living off her keyboard by taking on an anti-palm oil marketing front. Her brand as “Palm Oil Detective” is a blatant poaching of another Australian project, “Palm Oil Investigations” which whimpered into obscurity when they failed to monetize the project.
Regardless of the failure of these individuals to make money off plugging an anti-palm oil media project, other platforms are more than happy to reshare anti palm oil content. Green Queen, based in Hong Kong, picked up on such a piece and republished it on their website. Warning to photosensitive readers, there’s a lot of flashing ads on the Green Queen website.
The piece that Green Queen picked up, was originally published by a Jen Kaplan on Substack, titled An Open Letter To The WSJ: Indonesia’s Deforestation Policies Are Far From A Model Of Success.
Kaplan questioned the WSJ report filed by Jon Emont, who “covers global topics related to economics, politics, and technology, often through the lens of Southeast Asia, where I am currently based.”
In her piece, Kaplan wrote in a fashion similar to Athena Dennis, where half truths and falsehoods were presented in the hope that the reader would not cross check.
For example, Kaplan wrote “Indonesia remains one of the world’s largest carbon emitters,” with the link pointed at a REUTERS report on Indonesia that actually talked about how Indonesia was increasing its climate targets:
“The government has set a new target to cut emission levels by 31.89% on its own or 43.2% with international support by 2030. That is more ambitious than its Paris Agreement pledge, which was to cut emissions by 29% or 41% with international help, its chief economic minister Airlangga Hartarto said.”
If one were to dig for more facts, one would find the truth that Indonesia barely made it to the Top 10 List of Polluters worldwide. According to Climate Trade:
“However, most of this pollution comes from just a few countries: China, for example, generates around 30% of all global emissions, while the United States is responsible for almost 14%.In the ranking below you can find the 10 countries that produce the most emissions, measured in millions of tons of CO2 in 2019.
- China, with more than 10,065 million tons of CO2 released.
- United States, with 5,416 million tons of CO2
- India, with 2,654 million tons of CO2
- Russia, with 1,711 million tons of CO2
- Japan, 1,162 million tons of CO2
- Germany, 759 million tons of CO2
- Iran, 720 million tons of CO2
- South Korea, 659 million tons of CO2
- Saudi Arabia, 621 million tons of CO2
- Indonesia, 615 million tons of CO2
What this should mean to Jen Kaplan, is that the average US citizen like her, has a per capita carbon dioxide emissions of 14.7 metric tons in 2019, compared to the per capita carbon dioxide emissions of the average Indonesian at 2.3 metric tons.
Kaplan tried to fear-monger by providing a link to a Global Forest Watch report on Indonesia which said:
In 2001, Indonesia had 93.8Mha of primary forest*, extending over 50% of its land area. In 2021, it lost 203kha of primary forest*, equivalent to 157Mt of CO₂ emissions.
Comparing apples to apples by using information from the same website
As of 2001, < 0.1% of United States's total tree cover was primary forest. In 2021, it lost 1.71Mha of natural forest, equivalent to 775Mt of CO₂ emissions.
Kaplan then brings up Indonesian wildfires in her anti palm oil diatribe.
Forest clearing mega-fires continue to destroy irreplaceable biodiversity and contribute to climate change, which carries a heavy burden on the population of the region and the world.
Are Indonesian wildfires responsible for the heavy burden on American health and biodiversity? Or is it possibly the many wildfires in the US as reported in The changing risk and burden of wildfire in the United States, ‘Dramatic’ rise in wildfire smoke triggers decline in US air quality for millions, Increasing Wildfires Are Causing Greater Air Pollution ?
As for biodiversity and extinctions, there are no shortages of scientific reports on US biodiversity and their threats of extinctions due to wildfires and the overall threat of wildlife extinctions in the US.
The rest of what Jen Kaplan wrote is drivel. For example:
The Indonesian government continues to be a vocal opponent of new deforestation efforts. Just look at their opposition to the new EU Deforestation regulations. The country argued that it would put undue burden on smallholder farmers, but backed off that position in the face of the support of the Indonesian palm oil smallholders union. The country is also openly angered by the new rules and even sent envoys to the EU to defend its policies. Since then the country has continued to resist the new measures by imposing export bans and pledging to fight.
How on earth would Indonesia “back off” opposition to the EUDR while sending envoys to the EU to “defend its policies?” This makes no sense. Contradicting herself so obviously shows Kaplan has not put enough thought into what she is doing.
The link she used in "imposing export bans" has absolutely nothing to do with the EU's Deforestation Regulations. The news there was a report that "Indonesia will suspend some palm oil export permits to secure domestic supply amid rising cooking oil prices ahead of Islamic festivals."
As she fumbled through anti palm oil rhetoric like “Many - the majority, in fact - of the largest Indonesian palm oil operators also have mining or timber interests and most no-deforestation commitments only apply to the palm oil supply chain rather than the entire corporate entity” she should have known that this is not unique to Indonesian palm oil. In fact, Latin American soy is notorious for claiming cleared lands as “deforestation free.”
Global Forest Watch has enough data on the negative environmental impact of soy that it would have made more sense for C16 Biosciences to try and find a laboratory replacement for soybean. After all, soy is more ubiquitous in consumer products in the US than palm oil.
Well, maybe C16 Biosciences didn’t feel comfortable with reports that the soybean is bad for human health and planet.
Hard facts aside, what makes it impossible for Kaplan to admit that palm oil is not as bad its made out to be, is that C16 Biosciences makes money off its promise to make a palm oil alternative in New York.
It is impossible to say whether technology will ever replace natural sources but for now, there is no doubt that Jon Emont was right to highlight Indonesian palm oil as a “turnaround with lessons for policy makers, businesses and environmentalists around the world who are concerned about the effects of rainforest loss.”
Published March 2023. CSPO Watch
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