Sometimes the strain to go greener just gets plain ridiculous.Changing from green house gas producing energy sources to more green and renewable energy source alternatives seems to be just moving the global problem from one country to another as big corporations always just are big corporations and that even in the Finland.
The major Finnish oil company plans to open two new bio-diesel refineries abroad and is also currently negotiating in several countries on palm oil and might soon become the world's biggest buyer of palm oil. This according to one of the major newspapers here in Finland.
Okay, palm oil for sure is a renewable source of energy so where lies the problem?
It is better to use bio diesel yes, but this bio diesel in question is made of palm oil, palms that more often than you would like to know about, is grown on land that used to be rain forests. Rain forests are felled for the palms to grow with the obliteration of the forests making about a fifth of the green house emissions.
Is this what they call globalization, shuffling the problem around?
Posts
I was just thinking about this, I guess since its been in the news recently. The Greens pushed for increased use of biodiesel years back. Now they are opposing the clear-cutting of rainforest for palm plantations.
ReplyDeleteI wish that we had some sort of process for thinking these things through well in advance.
There was a documentary on Finnish fish farms on FST the other night. Finnish fish farmers are denied permits to expand on environmental grounds, yet Finnish fish consumption is rising. The result is farmed fish from Chile are transported to China for processing and then to Finland for consumption. More environmentally sound than extra fish poop in the Baltic?
Dear Willie,
ReplyDeleteI unfortunately missed the program you mention, but yes, it sounds really ridiculous to get fish to Finland from South America via China!!! Even the salmon imported from Norway is better. The closer from home we get our food, the better it must be as it cuts emissions.