Recently, there have been a lot of posts on the blog about renewable energy, its merits, and various forms. My awesome mom sent me a link to an article that appeared in the New York Times business section today. It is about palm oil and how it had once been thought to be about the best of biofuels and quite heavily used in Europe. Now there seems to be recent studies showing that plantation practices could heavily offset the carbon savings that the fuel has created for its users. A very good lesson for approaching things in a more w-holistic manner.

when scientists studied practices at palm plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia, this green fairy tale began to look more like an environmental nightmare.

Rising demand for palm oil in Europe brought about the clearing of huge tracts of Southeast Asian rainforest and the overuse of chemical fertilizer there.

Worse still, the scientists said, space for the expanding palm plantations was often created by draining and burning peatland, which sent huge amounts of carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

Become enlightened here!