What's a green revolution wiithout a massacre?
Armed groups in Colombia are driving peasants off their land to make way for plantations of palm oil, a biofuel that is being promoted as an environmentally friendly source of energy.Surging demand for "green" fuel has prompted rightwing paramilitaries to seize swaths of territory, according to activists and farmers. Thousands of families are believed to have fled a campaign of killing and intimidation, swelling Colombia's population of 3 million displaced people and adding to one of the world's worst refugee crises after Darfur and Congo.
[...]
"As a consequence of the development of palm by secretive business practices and the use of threats, people have been displaced and [the businesses] have claimed land for themselves," he said. His claim was backed up by witnesses and groups such as Christian Aid and the National Indigenous Organisation of Colombia.
The revelations tarnish what has been considered an economic and environmental success story. The fruit of the palm oil tree produces a vegetable oil also used in cooking, employs 80,000 people, and is increasingly being turned into biofuel.
"Four years ago Colombia had 172,000 hectares of palm oil," President Alvaro Uribe told the Guardian. "This year we expect to finish with nearly 400,000."
"Four years ago Colombia didn't produce a litre of biofuel. Today, because of our administration, Colombia produces 1.2m litres per day." Investment in new installations would continue to boost production, he added.
However the lawlessness created by four decades of insurgency in the countryside has enabled rightwing paramilitaries, and also possibly leftwing rebels, to join the boom. Unlike coca, the armed groups' main income source, palm oil is a legal crop and therefore safe from state-backed eradication efforts.
Before you chime in with kneejerk outrage, think of the big picture, not to mention the opportunities.
Dead Peasant Carbon Credits.
It could work.
(h/t reader Karl.)
What's the difference between a 'right wing paramilitary' and a 'left wing rebel'?
Palm oil is the stuff they put on your popcorn in the theatre. Not so good for you but it still tastes great! All hail palm oil!
From almost any point of view, low-sulphur petroleum is the best fuel.
"When will they ever learn ...?"
What's the difference between an "activist" and a "left wing rebel?"
Old Malthus was ahead of his time but, he knew what he was talking about. However, before we reach the point where there's no room left to stand in the habitable portions of the planet,(an absurdity of course)the problem will be solved, as he predicted, by war and pestilence.
The Suzukians will have the wonderful primative world they yearn for, and those still standing can start over with whatever is left to work with.
The Islamists will inherit most of the earth since they are the principal offenders in the addition of warm bodies whereas people in the civilized world have pretty well stopped breeding.
Cheers,
Zog
It all comes in the results. Right Wing: Freedom and Liberty and Free Markets result. Left Wing: Totalitarianism, Communist central government, controlled markets and no individual freedoms or liberties.
So, now choose.
maybe palm oil will push out coca for cocaine as the plant of choice. At least until the market reasjusts and the price of coke goes through the roof....which will dampen demand.
Interesting unintended consequences everywhere
doug - I don't think that either of the results you mention have any chance of existence; both the right wing and the left wing in Colombia are primarily involved in the drug trade. They are simply two vicious gangs of drug runners.
Hi, it's me, Vitruvius. You know how I always argue that you have to scale numbers to relevant context before you can interpret them? Well, here we go again.
400,000 hectares of palm tree plantations is about 1,600 square miles (the area of a square 40 miles long on each side). Colombia's land area is about 440,000 square miles. So the palm tree plantations account for 0.36% of the area of Colombia.
Colombia's population density is about 100 people per square mile. Wikipedia says: "Colombia's population is not evenly distributed with most Colombians living in the mountainous western portion of the country as well as the northern coastline, most living in or near the capital city of Bogotá. The southern and eastern portions of the country are mostly sparsely inhabited tropical rainforest and inland tropical plains containing small farming communities and indigenous tribes".
So if we assume that, say, the population density of the 0.36% of Colombia where the plantations are is 10 persons per square mile, then the number of persons displaced by the plantations would be 16,000.
My question is, how can 16,000 people swell the number of displaced people to 3,000,000? If the number before was 2,984,000, that's hardly a swell, it's more of a blip.
I suspect that the answer is that you can't trust anything in that article. I'm not saying it's all wrong, I'm just saying that once you see how fast that article is spinning, you can't tell what to trust.
Every litre of palm oil produced is one less litre of Persian Gulf oil imported. Yes rattfuc, all hail palm oil indeed.
Interesting that Colombians - net exporters of $70/bbl petroleum - find it more profitable to cater to guilt-driven bio-diesel nuttiness in wealthy countries than to develop more production of the "good stuff".
Doug: I've worked in the boonies of Colombia and other Latin countries where there were right wing paramilitaries, and they're a hell of a lot more dangerous than leftist guerrillas, who generally have a few scruples. The para's are partly mercenaries, partly criminals and all nasty. Definitely not in the business of creating "Freedom, Liberty and Free Markets"!
I suppose it had to happen. The day was bound to come when SDA would discover the Belfast Telegraph. I had forgotten about it, you know, like nightmares you have when you are a child long forgotten as you grow up. Was there ever anything a bad as the Belfast Telegraph? The noisy triumphalism of that bloody awful place, That blaring, aggressive mean spirited voice of the most primitive westerners in the whole world, furiously blaming others, eager to beat up on someone, attack,curse, push down. Eager to get out the finery and the big drums, march past where the Catholics are and push them down. Make really big fires, talk menacingly about what they intended to do.
Yes it had to happen, I mean if that sound is still blaring in
Belfast, sooner or later SDA would respond to voice of one of its own.
So here we are, and what is the topic? Why population, what else. The Telegraph fronts for those who say there are too many Catholics, they breed like rabbits something has
to be done. The telegraph comes very close with its article, which reads like the private comments of a conference attendee musing to himself about die backs. But we do not hear the words pronounced out loud: how about a die back. Wouldn't that be fun. Lets talk about that, but not out loud. Let us not talk about civilized solutions, step by step,to a planetary problem having its most urgent need for change right here in the advanced west. No let us sort of sneak up to something that suits us much better. There are too many people, they are starving and they are dark and yellow and black. Something should be done about them (But we won't say what, not out loud, no siree).
And where are the most racist attacks on people in the UK happening? Gosh, it wouldn't be Northern Ireland now would it. Hey, don't try to rent a place in Belfast, they might throw rocks at you if your are one of the above mentioned "persons".
Now that SDA and the Unionist Telegraph have discovered each other, we shall, doubtless, see a mutual admiration society develop comprising the people who would now, if they were not present then, throw out Tommy Douglas, and the people who have closed the doors on history and are getting more paranoid by the minute. Hey I know, the population of Saskatchewan is going down isn't it? Why don't you spearhead a movement to bring Unionists out of Ireland and into Saskatchewan. You can drive along the roads in the winter and not pick up people in trouble who are "coloured".
So exactly what is it about these para-militaries that makes them so "right wing"? Are they fanatical catholics forcing everyone they capture to take the sacraments? Do they recite chapter and verse of "The Wealth of Nations" before de-collectivising communities? Or are they simply greedy thugs with no particular ideology at all?
Hey, Zog, this is an honest question, not an attempt to disagree with you: based on your experience, in what way are the paramilitary right wing? I'm not saying they're not, for some value of right wing, I'd just like to better understand what that value is.
Well, it's the Grauniad, so they must obviously be right-wingers.
Perhaps, though, it is just the invisible hand. Artificially raise the price of corn and sugar cane, and people will go grab.
Thanks for the bait, Garhane, it was yummy, but I've got better things to do than entertain incoherent trolls, so here's your empty hook back.
I don't mean to "get all religious" on this thread, but in my mind the rise of biodiesel/crops-for-fuel/food-sources-as-a-commodity is the foundation of Revelation 6:5,6. "... Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, 'A quart of wheat for a day's wages, and three quarts of barley for a day's wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!'"
Yes, well, of course, Revelation was B.E. (before engineering).
Socialism has somehow determined BigOil to be more nefarious than rising food prices...
Well, it's the Grauniad, so they must obviously be right-wingers.
Perhaps, though, it is just the invisible hand. Artificially raise the price of corn and sugar cane, and people will go grab.
More likely it is the hand that appears invisible because people are paying attention to the other hand of the fraud artists who are assailing them to pay attention to the other hand. That's how magic works, sometimes for good entertainment, and sometimes for evil.
"Now that SDA and the Unionist Telegraph have discovered each other, we shall, doubtless, see a mutual admiration society develop"
Does this dipshit not understand the facetious nature of the link?
It's just Garhane, Ryan, nobody takes him seriously.
"So exactly what is it about these para-militaries that makes them so "right wing"? Are they fanatical catholics forcing everyone they capture to take the sacraments? Do they recite chapter and verse of "The Wealth of Nations" before de-collectivising communities? Or are they simply greedy thugs with no particular ideology at all?"
I second that wise notion...
I've done some further reading, and I think that the idea is that the paramilitaries support the atrocities of a cabal of oligarchists, and the rebels support the deprivations of totalitarian collectivism. If my understanding is correct, then in my opinion, they are both wrong.
If you have a chance to see today's Bizarro, have a look, he is onto something regarding the madness.
"Does this dipshit not understand the facetious nature of the link?"
Scratch a leftie and underneath you'll find a reading comprehension problem.
ahhhh the Opportunity Cost of the Best Intentions of the Kyoto Believer Cult.
How many will have to die do so the champagne socialists and latte Liberals can be feel smug & self-righteous ??
******Scratch a leftie and underneath you'll find a reading comprehension problem.******
I thinks it's more like an interpretation problemo, much like the good kristians and their bible nonsense. Both of these groups interpret to suit their belief system.
For future reference, Kate. What do you use to scratch a lefty? A long stick, a garden rake?
rebarbarian,
The veneer is so thin you can scratch it with Charmin toilet paper.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but, actually, everybody interprets according to their belief system. That's what belief system means: how you interpret the veracity of things.
Vitruvius,
Good catch. I haven't found any reliable numbers on the increase in coffee hectares (number one in land area) ... it could be in the order of 300-400k ... from 800k to 1.2M.
BTW: Won't publish all the math ... but when you add water, Columbia exports about 8,700,000 (8.7m) litres of coffee a day.
I once read somewhere, Ural, that caffeine accounts for the largest consumption of any recreational drug in the human species, with 97% of adult humans consuming coffee, tea, other caffeinated beverages, and/or chocolate on a regular basis. Don't tell ET though, she doesn't like recreational drugs ;-)
it brings on visions of all the lovely shades of soylent green
Sounds like what the eco-freaks want to do here only they want to drive the farmers off their land so they can return it to what they call pristine wilderness i mean they eco-freaks are all the same practicly just what ADOLPH HITLER wanted to do with north america reduce it to wilderness becuase HITLER WAS A BIG TIME ECO-FREAK and the poor peasents in SOUTH AMERICA are the victims of the eco-nazis under the green swastika
ET "What's the difference between a 'right wing paramilitary' and a 'left wing rebel'?"
A left wing rebel will kill you for YOUR own good, while a rightwing paramilitary will kill you for THEIR own good?
Biofuels aren't considered to be an environmental sucess story. Not unless you're talking to lobbyists working for Agribusiness.
ET: both the right wing and the left wing in Colombia are primarily involved in the drug trade. They are simply two vicious gangs of drug runners.
Dr. D: So exactly what is it about these para-militaries that makes them so "right wing"?...Or are they simply greedy thugs with no particular ideology at all?
If that's indeed the case (and I think it is), then one could also ask why the illegal actions of these paramilitary terrorists are being used in this post as an opportunity to slag off the "Y2Kyoto" "green revolution."
(By the way, ET, any thoughts on this?)
A*dam,
Right you are, and that two warring *drug-gangs* thing applies to Mexico in spades. Mexico, our local Afghanistan...
Heads up = Ottawa = Toronto
Canada's terror risk *elevated*
Ottawa, Toronto face greatest danger, but report has no specific data on any pending attack.
Professional insurance risk rating firm:
http://tinyurl.com/yojamu
========================= Ottawa Citizen / TheCanadianSentinel.blogspot.com
= TG
Green Revolution - with demand at 85 million barrels a day and climbing the greenies have actually lost before they start. whilst the MSM goes on about biodiesal and how to make fuel from your chip fryer, China has quietly and deliberately slipped into first place of the green house gas emmitters and done so all under the Kyoto accord.
Interestingly palm oil can be harvested/cultivated in most of the equatorial belt and parts south...which strangely enough holds the world's worst 3rd world dictatorships...who were happy to vote for kyoto...and will be just as happy to turn their population into slaves supplying western needs for alternate fuels.
UN-CFR Agenda 21 chapters 32&34
BTW Viv and others, there is not left right paradigm where mercenaries are concerned.....the thugs in question are hirelings....blood money goons, there's plenty of these banditos around to supply the statist left as well as the statist right.
Doug, "no individual freedoms or liberties"?
Think about that for a second. Was it Diefenbaker Mulroney or Trudeau that has his signature on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? Face it, many on the right despise that document because in their thinking it gives people too many rights.
If you are free then you can thank a liberal, it was liberal thinking that gave you your freedom.
" liberal thinking that gave you your freedom."
This is what will always gall me about the Charter: a large percentage of dimwits who think this document - and Trudeau - "gave" us rights.
We had these rights from common law. the charter simply listed them and carefully included a section to limit them at the behest of liberally appointed judges. And liberals cheer about this. Too dumb for words.
Nobody "gave" us this, you cretin.
John Lewis 5:17 3rd from top, said. . .
**
From almost any point of view, low-sulphur petroleum is the best fuel.
**When will they ever learn ...? **
==============================
Compressed air! John:
Just run a compressor at night, as you would a battery charger and drive clean and free all day.
Taxis in Paris run on it. Now Tata motors India, [not as limp-wristed as it sounds], are providing vehicles that run on compressed air. Ideal for India,. . . eh?
Bio-fuels are not practical. Consider all the energy for farming machines, trucking, refining, re-trucking and distribution.
Almost as impractical as petroleum.
Take heart however. . .
While bio-fuels are a petroleum buffer, they are also only an interim fuel.
Advances in battery and fuel cell design will eventually make bio-fuel, gasoline and diesel obsolete.
In time we will be drinking Bio-stuff as Vodka and gin, and using petroleum for plastics and chemicals. Life as it should be. = TG
Lancer sez: "many on the right despise that document because in their thinking it gives people too many rights.
If you are free then you can thank a liberal, it was liberal thinking that gave you your freedom."
Your thinking is so dylexic and compartmentalized I don't know where to begin in deprogramming you.
Deifenbaker made the Canadian bill of rights which is a superior document to the charter where individual rights and freedoms are concerned the billof rights enumerated near absolute rights...Trudeau (a statist socialist BTW and not a Liberal democrat) removed many of the rights we had previous to 1982 by putting section one in this charter which essentially makes all the so called rights in it nothing more than state dispensed privileges.
Maybe some day you dogmatic partisans will hear a "pop" when your head emerges from the warm moist stinky place partisan politics have placed it....it's amazing the freedom you gain thinking outside the partisan box.
BEWARE ECO-WACKOS THE RARE AND DANDEROUS QUILL BIRD ID HIDING OUT THERE IN THE RAINFORESTS AND THEY WILL PERFORTAE YOUR HIDES WITH THEIR QUILLS AND THEN THERES THE CARVIVEROUS QUETZALS THEIR MAN EATERS