|
View PDF | Print View
|
Palm Oil and the Girl Scout Cookies: Sacrificing truth on the altar of sensationalism
| As more information continues to be revealed about the phone hacking scandal surrounding the News of the World, and as Rupert Murdoch closed down the nearly 2 century old newspaper, the revelations about the British newspaper revealed that it had hired investigators to actually hack cellphones and intercept voice messages of various celebrities, and even in one case the voicemail of a girl that had been murdered. The tabloid was famous for underhanded tactics in obtaining the latest juicy gossip about celebrities, but the phone hacking scandal set citizens, politicians and other authorities hot on the heels of the beleaguered newspaper. However, as far as underhanded tactics go, few can match those employed against palm oil by "civil society" and green groups like the oddly named Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth (FOE), the Rainforest Action Network and even zoos like Melbourne and Auckland Zoo. One favored tactic is the use of satellite imagery by these green groups, especially in Indonesia, with the full knowledge that it is easy to capture an isolated pocket of rainforest clearance, say by timber logging companies and give the impression that the forest had been cleared by palm oil companies and worse that the entire country had been devastated by deforestation. Convincing as what can be more authoritative as satellite imagery, and unfortunately the world's media buys into the fiction and run commentaries condemning the "wanton deforestation" and "destruction"? Lately, the anti-palm oil lobby has even stooped to exploiting young, impressionable and innocent girl scouts like Rhiannon Tomtishen, 15, of Ann Arbor and Madison Vorva, 16 of Plymouth to further their sly agenda. Claiming to have learned that Indonesian and Malaysian plantations destroy the rain forests that orang utans call home to grow the ingredient that is used in 16 varieties of the girl scouts cookies that they sell by the millions during a study on these great apes Bronze Badge Award , Tomtishen and Vorva maintain that they have been campaigning against palm oil for the past 5 years, all a little far-fetched without the influence and management of adult activists. This would mean that Tomtishen had been an active political campaigner since the age of 10 and Vorva since she was 11. Claiming to have had minimal feedback from Girls Scouts of the USA since they first brought it to the organization's attention, but they scored a meeting in May with national Girl Scout leadership in New York. The teens said they are to have a follow-up phone call next month. Palmhugger.org can now reveal that the adults pulling the strings and orchestrating the entire covert girl scout cookie campaign against palm oil is the Rainforest Action Network (RAN). This is a sad reflection of the devious strategic thinking of one of the planners of the anti-palm oil crusade. Other than the orangutan, how better to introduce an emotive element into the anti-palm oil cissue and to tug at the heart-strings of consumers than to use 2 bright eyed, innocent and young girl scouts? This is the same organization that had to sheepishly remove from their website their wild allegation that palm oil cultivation would lead to the extinction of the orang utan by 2011. Well 2011 is now upon us and the orang utan population in the wild has grown instead of going extinct when new tribes of more than 2000 wild apes were found in the East Kalimantan province of Indonesia, as reported by National Geographic. With roughly 50,000 orangutans thought to remain in the wild, the new find could add 5 percent to the world's known orangutan numbers, said Erik Meijaard, senior ecologist for the Nature Conservancy in Indonesia. Perhaps, the Girls Scouts should give RAN a merit badge for spin...spin on behalf of the anti-palm oil lobby! It is well known that palm oil is grown on only 0.22% of the world's agricultural land and yet is the world's leading supplier of edible oil, supplying an incredible 30% of the world's edible oil. This fact alone should alert any objective observer that something does not jive with all the palm oil and deforestation hype. Green groups regularly trundle out wild and unsubstantiated claims against palm oil, but we all know that these kinds of covert operations against palm oil are well documented. For instance, In 2005, the oddly named Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) published a "report" called "Cruel Oil: How palm oil harms health, rainforest and wildlife" in which they made wild and unsubstantiated claims that palm oil cultivation was causing massive deforestation and threatening the extinction of biodiversity such as the orang utan. The report was prepared with the assistance of Aid Environment listed as partners with Hivos — a Netherlands based civil society group with direct links to campaigns in Indonesia. Hivos, in turn, is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs for up to two-thirds of its annual 100m Euro budget. A recent report by researchers Caroline Boin and Andrea Marchesetti entitled "Friends of the EU." (see policynetwork.net/accountability/publication/friends-eu)showed that the EU, through its environmental ministries and commissions is involved in funding up to 70% of the operating budgets of FOE EU. The main drivers for these covert anti-palm oil campaigns are governments desperate to protect their indigenous edible oil producers who cannot compete on a level ground with the hyper yielding palm oil. However, in the view of Palmhugger.org, the Rainforest Action Network has gone too far this time in trying to exploit impressionable young minds like these 2 innocent girl scouts to further their sly agenda, sacrificing truth at the altar of child exploitation and sensationalism! THE END |
About the Author
Palm Hugger is a palm oil advocacy site that makes no apologies for exposing the lies, untruths and equivocations on palm oil spewed by a coterie of environmental morons against the world's most sustainable edible oil and biofuel feedstock. We are part of a collective group of palm oil sympathizers that have grown tired of the blatant untruths, spin, lies and unfair trade bloc promoting activities of green NGOs like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth (FOE) against palm oil.
Rating: Not yet rated
Comments
No comments posted.Add Comment
You do not have permission to comment. If you log in, you may be able to comment.