Friday, October 28, 2011

Worst Food Additive Ever? Production Destroys Rainforests / Enslaves Children.


The production of this ingredient causes jaw-dropping amounts of deforestation (and with it, carbon emissions) and human rights abuses. 
On August 10, police and security for the massive palm oil corporation Wilmar International (of which Archer Daniels Midland owns a majority share) stormed a small, indigenous village on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. They came with bulldozers and guns, destroying up to 70 homes, evicting 82 families, and arresting 18 people. Then they blockaded the village, keeping the villagers in -- and journalists out. (Wilmar claims it has done no wrong.)

The village, Suku Anak Dalam, was home to an indigenous group that observes their own traditional system of land rights on their ancestral land and, thus, lacks official legal titles to the land. This is common among indigenous peoples around the world -- so common, in fact, that it is protected by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Indonesia, for the record, voted in favor of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007. Yet the government routinely sells indigenous peoples' ancestral land to corporations. Often the land sold is Indonesia's lowland rainforest, a biologically rich area home to endangered species like the orangutan, Asian elephant, Sumatran rhinoceros, Sumatran tiger, and the plant Rafflesia arnoldii, which produces the world's largest flower.

So why all this destruction? Chances are you'll find the answer in your pantry. Or your refrigerator, your bathroom, or even under your sink. The palm oil industry is one of the largest drivers of deforestation in Indonesia. Palm oil and palm kernel oil, almost unheard of a decade or two ago, are now unbelievably found in half of all packaged foods in the grocery store (as well as body care and cleaning supplies). These oils, traditional in West Africa, now come overwhelmingly from Indonesia and Malaysia. They cause jawdropping amounts of deforestation (and with it, carbon emissions) and human rights abuses.




"The recipe for palm oil expansion is cheap land, cheap labor, and a corrupt government, and unfortunately Indonesia fits that bill," says Ashley Schaeffer of Rainforest Action Network.


The African oil palm provides two different oils with different properties: palm oil and palm kernel oil. Palm oil is made from the fruit of the tree, and palm kernel oil comes from the seed, or "nut," inside the fruit. You can find it on ingredient lists under a number of names, including palmitate, palmate, sodium laureth sulphate, sodium lauryl sulphate, glyceryl stearate, or stearic acid. Palm oil even turns up in so-called "natural," "healthy," or even "cruelty-free" products, like Earth Balance (vegan margarine) or Newman-O's organic Oreo-like cookies. Palm oil is also used in "renewable" biofuels.


A hectare of land (2.47 acres) produces, on average, 3.7 metric tons of palm oil, 0.4 metric tons of palm kernel oil, and 0.6 tons of palm kernel cake. (Palm kernel cake is used as animal feed.) In 2009, Indonesia produced over 20.5 million metric tons, and Malaysia produced over 17.5 million metric tons. As of 2009, the U.S. was only the seventh largest importer of palm oil in the world, but as the second largest importer of palm kernel oil, it ranks third in the world as a driver of deforestation for palm oil plantations.


Indonesia has lost 46 percent of its forests since 1950, and the forests have recently disappeared at a rate of about 1.5 million hectares (an area larger than the state of Connecticut) per year. Of the 103.3 million hectares of remaining forests in 2000, only 88.2 million remained in 2009. At that time, an estimated 7.3 million hectares of oil palm plantations were already established, mostly on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo. Indonesia plans to continue the palm oil expansion, hoping to produce an additional 8.3 million metric tons by 2015 -- this means a 71 percent expansion in area devoted to palm oil in the coming years.

At stake are not only endangered species and human lives, but carbon emissions. One of the ecosystems at risk is Indonesia's peat swamps, where soil contains an astounding 65 percent organic matter. (Most soils contain only two to 10 percent organic matter.) Laurel Sutherlin of Rainforest Action Network describes the draining and often burning of these peat swamps as "a carbon bomb." Destruction of its peat swamps as well as its rainforests makes Indonesia the world's third largest carbon emitter after the U.S. and China.

Among the horror stories coming out of Southeast Asian palm oil plantations are accounts of child slave labor. Ferdi and Volario, ages 14 and 21, respectively, were each met by representatives of the Malaysian company Kuala Lampur Kepong in their North Sumatra villages. They were offered high-paying jobs with good working conditions, and they jumped at the opportunity. According to an account by Rainforest Action Network: "The two worked grueling hours each day spraying oil palm trees with toxic chemical fertilizers, without any protection to shield their hands, face or lungs. After work, Ferdi and Volario were forced inside the camp where they'd stay overnight under lock and key, guarded by security. If they had to use the bathroom, they'd do their best to hold it until morning or relieve themselves in plastic bags or shoes." They escaped after two months and were never paid for their work.


What is the industry doing about such horrific claims? It has established the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). Kuala Lampur Kepong, Wilmar International, and Archer Daniels Midland are all members, and so are their customers, Cargill, Nestlé and Unilever, as well as environmental groups like the World Wildlife Fund and Conservation International. But, according to Sutherlin, membership in RSPO means nothing -- other than that an organization paid its dues. "That's the first level of greenwash," says Sutherlin.

RSPO certifies some products and companies, and Sutherlin says that does have some meaning, but leaves major loopholes open. For example, there are no carbon or climate standards, and there have been problems with the implementation of social safeguards. "It's been a spotty record about their ability to enforce the standards for how people are treated and how communities are affected," notes Sutherlin. Yet, he says, RSPO is "the best game in town."

Rather than simply relying on RSPO's certification, Rainforest Action Network has focused its campaign on the U.S. agribusiness giant Cargill, which has a hand in fully 25 percent of palm oil on the global market. Rainforest Action Network is asking Cargill to sign on to a set of social and environmental safeguards and to provide public transparency on its palm oil operations. If Cargill cleans up its act, perhaps it will help put pressure on other major multinationals like Unilever, Procter & Gamble, and Nestlé, which also source palm oil from unethical suppliers like Wilmar International.
Journalists have also criticized environmental groups for "cozy relationships with corporate eco-nasties." The World Wildlife Fund has come under attack for its partnership with Wilmar, the corporation that attacked a Sumatran village. Its involvement in RSPO serves as a reminder of the accusations in a 2010 Nation article, which claimed that "many of the green organizations meant to be leading the fight are busy shoveling up hard cash from the world's worst polluters--and burying science-based environmentalism in return." (WWF says it received no payment from Wilmar in this particular case.)

The ugly issue of palm oil even touches the beloved American icon, the Girl Scout cookie. When Girl Scouts Madison Vorva and Rhiannon Tomtishen began a project to save the orangutan for their Bronze Awards, they discovered the link between habitat loss and palm oil. Then they looked at a box of Girl Scout cookies and found palm oil on the list of ingredients. The two 11-year-olds -- who are now ages 15 and 16 -- began a campaign to get the Girl Scouts to remove palm oil from its cookies.


It took five years to get a response from the supposedly wholesome Girl Scouts USA (whose 2012 slogan is "Forever Green"). While the organization ignored its own members for several years, it was unable to ignore the coverage the girls received from Time magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and several major TV networks. Once the story was so well-covered by the media, Girl Scouts USA responded, promising it would try to move to a sustainable source of palm oil by 2015. In the meantime, it would continue buying palm oil that could have come from deforested lands or plantations that use child slave labor, but would also buy GreenPalm certificates, which fund a price premium that goes to producers following RSPO's best practice guidelines.

So what should consumers do? For the time being, avoiding products containing palm oil is probably your best bet. Since palm oil is so ubiquitous this will likely mean opting to buy fewer processed foods overall. Don't forget to check your beauty and cleaning products, too. In a handful of cases, such as Dr. Bronner's soaps, palm oil comes from fair trade, organic sources. But this is hardly the norm, and with the immense amount of palm oil used in the U.S., it's unlikely that sustainable sources could cover all of the current demand.
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Jill Richardson is the founder of the blog La Vida Locavore and a member of the Organic Consumers Association policy advisory board. She is the author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System Is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It..

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Goebbels' secretary, 100, breaks vow of silence.


He got away lightly with suicide': Goebbels' secretary, 100, breaks vow of silence to reveal secrets of Hitler's propaganda minister.


From:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2031365/Goebbels-secretary-100-breaks-silence-cold-distant-monster-Germans-hate-Jews.html


By Allan Hall, In Berlin

The former secretary of Hitler's propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels has broken a 66-year vow of silence to talk about her service for the man who made Germans hate the Jews.


Since the end of World War II, Brunhilde Pomsel, now 100, has refused all requests for interviews and offers to publish her memoirs.

But after five months of negotiations she has given a single interview to Bild, Germany's biggest newspaper, in which she describes her four years as the chief secretary of the man closest to Hitler.


Hitler's master propagandist Joseph Goebbels rabble-rousing a crowd. His secretary Brunhilde Pomsel, who has given her first interview, was employed by Goebbels from 1942 until the end of the war in May 1945.

Frau Pomsel describes how Goebbels' children - the children he and his wife Magda would murder with cyanide in Hitler's bunker in April 1945 - used to play with her typewriter on Sunday afternoons.


She reminisces about eating goose with the Reich's propaganda minister at his island home outside of Berlin and of receiving dresses from Magda because Allied bombs destroyed her own home and everything in it.


More...

She took down every word that Goebbels uttered, both his private correspondence and his official orders, including those ordering round-ups of Jews in Berlin to please Hitler that the capital was becoming 'Jew-free'.


Frau Pomsel was employed by Goebbels from 1942 until the end of the war in May 1945. But while his propaganda presented himself to the German people as a jovial fellow Nazi, she remembers him as a cold and distant monster.

'You couldn't get close to him,' said Frau Pomsel. 'He never once asked me a personal question. Right up until the end I don't think he knew my name.

'He got away lightly with suicide. He knew he would be condemned to death by the Allies. His suicide was cowardly, but he was also smart because he knew what was coming if he didn't take that way out.


Joseph Goebbels, his wife Magda and three of their children with Adolf Hitler in the Bavarian Alps.

The children would all be murdered by Magda in Hitler's bunker in the final days of the war. She and Joseph then committed suicide.
'I was working as a typist at the propaganda ministry, and his radio station, and was the fastest. It was an order to be transferred to work for him. You couldn't refuse.

'I didn't know about the Holocaust. I was a stupid, politically uninterested little sausage of simple means. I only learned about the Jewish extermination programme after the war. Goebbels never mentioned it in his correspondence.

'I joined the party in 1933 - why not? Everyone did. I worked with three other secretaries in a wonderful library in a palace on the Wilhelmplatz in Berlin.

'A lot of the stuff I did was somewhat boring. But I gradually became his chief stenographer, recording everything that gushed out from him and from his chief aides.

'I wanted to live up to this ideal that if a boss trusted me, then I mustn't disappoint him.'

Frau Pomsel recalls how Goebbels ordered her and three junior secretaries on February 18, 1943, into the Sportspalast Stadium in Berlin. It was shortly after the defeat of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad, the turning point of the war from which there was no way back.

  The Berlin Sportspalast filled to capacity for Goebbels' 'Total War' speech on February 18, 1943.

It was given shortly after the defeat of Germany's Sixth Army in Stalingrad, a turning point in the war.
On this day Goebbels delivered his infamous 'Total War' speech to the German public, exhorting them to heights of frenzied sacrifice as he warned of a wave of vengeful, barbaric Russians bearing down on the Fatherland.

She recalled: 'This was a service order, we had to attend. Magda Goebbels sat directly behind me as he raged.


'The photos show the crowd going wild as he asked them if they wanted total war and springing to their feet to give the Hitler salute. I wasn't as jubiliant as them. I knew what was coming...'

As chief secretary, Frau Pomsel had access to top-secret papers which showed how badly the war was in fact going for Germany.

She spent the last 10 days of the Third Reich in the cellars of the propaganda ministry. Russian artillery and American bombers flattened the city by day, RAF aircraft by night.

In this troglodyte world she pumped out the orders from Goebbels exhorting more and more resistance to a people crushed under the weight of the lost war.

'On May 1 the news came that The Boss - Hitler - had committed suicide the day before. The Russians came shortly afterwards and dragged me from the cellar. I spent the next five years as a prisoner of the Russians in special camps,' said Frau Pomsel.

It was only after the war that she learned Goebbels and his wife killed their six young children by breaking cyanide vials in their mouths.

Goebbels then shot his wife before shooting himself. Aides poured petrol on the corpses but the remains were only partially burned and found by the Red Army.

'I will never forgive Goebbels for what he brought into this world,' said Frau Pomsel. 'And the fact that he could murder his innocent children in this way.

'I never believed also that I would have a happy life after working for him. But I found a way somehow.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2031365/Goebbels-secretary-100-breaks-silence-cold-distant-monster-Germans-hate-Jews.html#ixzz1YaJT6hne