Blog: Climate

Palm oil: once you pop, you can't stop

Posted by jamie — 8 November 2007 at 10:55am - Comments

Vast oil palm plantations are destroying rainforests and peatlands in South East Asia

KitKat, Flora and Pringles are among the brands linked to destruction of forests and peatlands for palm oil © Greenpeace/Oka Budhi

If, as you read this, you're tucking into a KitKat or dipping into a tube of Pringles, you might be interested to know that they feature in our new report about the impact of the palm oil industry on tropical rainforests and climate change. Along with Flora margarine, these products contain palm oil which is linked to the destruction of forests and peatlands in Indonesia. As the report shows, it's a recipe for disaster.

Article tagged as: biodiesel, biofuels, climate change, forests, indonesia, nestle, palm oil, rspo, unilever

10 reasons to stop Heathrow expansion

Posted by jossc — 2 November 2007 at 11:09am - Comments
  1. Heathrow is already Europe's largest airport [i]: adding a third runway will mean a 70 per cent[ii] increase in flight numbers and resulting rises in climate change pollution. It's crazy to be paving the way for such big increases in greenhouse gases when we should be doing all we can to reduce emissions.

Article tagged as: aviation, british airways, climate change, co2 emissions, heathrow

SOS Sumatra: saving the swamp forest from palm oil plantations

Posted by bex — 30 October 2007 at 1:25pm - Comments

Last week, Jamie wrote about our Forest Defenders Camp in Sumatra, Indonesia: the frontline of where peatland forest is being cleared for palm oil plantations.

Well, this week our volunteers out there are busy trying to stop the destruction of an area of swamp forest. Working with local communities, they're building dams across the canals that are used in logging and draining peatland.

From our international site:


Thick layers of peat underlie most of Indonesia's swamp forest. Over time, the peat layer has locked up millions of tonnes of carbon. Once forests are cleared, peat swamps are drained and decompose to release the stored carbon as carbon dioxide. Forests are often also burned, prior to the planting of palm oil saplings, further compounding the climate problem.

Article tagged as: climate change, forest defenders camp, forests, indonesia, palm oil, sumatra, videos

France ups the stakes with a green "revolution"

Posted by bex — 30 October 2007 at 11:49am - Comments

A tad belated but I just couldn't let this one pass. Last week, these words emerged from France's environmental policymaking forum:

"From now on, every major public project, every public decision will be judged on its effect on climate, and on its carbon cost. Each public decision will be judged on how it affects bio-diversity. The onus won't be on ecological decisions to prove their merit, but on non-ecological projects to prove they can't be done any other way. Non-ecological decisions must be taken as a last resort. It's a total revolution in the way we govern our country."

Article tagged as: climate change, france, GM food, nicolas sarkozy, precautionary principle
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