Asia's growing oil palm farms seen as climate change threat

With 35 scientific flaws identified in Al Gore's global warming documentary, the failure of their predicted extreme hurricane season to make an appearance either in 2006 or in 2007, and serious questions about the validity of their climate model, the global warmists have developed a new more defensive strategy by dismissing their critics as "industry representatives" and by claiming that errors in their model do not detract from the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions because the reduction can only do good and can do no harm (Realistically it's too late, Bangkok Post, December 10, 2007). Both of these arguments are flawed. All critics are not industry representatives and even if they were, it is the substance of their argument and not their affiliation that needs to be addressed; and history has shown that environmental extremism is not costless to society. The worldwide ban on DDT in the hysterical aftermath of the book "Silent Spring" has made possible the resurgence of malaria and dengue fever and has cost millions of lives. The error has been recognized. The ban on DDT was lifted last year as a way of containing these deadly diseases once again. Closer to home, the global warmists themselves are now crying foul at the environmental devastation being caused by the rapid expansion of the palm oil biodiesel industry in Southeast Asia (Asia's growing oil palm farms seen as climate change threat, Bangkok Post, November, 2007), an expansion that is in fact part of their prescription to fight global warming with renewable energy. The global warmists' charge against the biodiesel industry is an unwitting admission that their fight against global warming has gone wrong. The assumption that environmentalists do good by definition even if their science is flawed is false.


Cha-am Jamal
Thailand
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