Oil For Food Or Fuel

Oil for food or fuel?

The oil issue has taken its part in affecting every area of the world, some worst then others. For us in the United States it’s not as big of an issue as some other parts of the world yet, considering a majority of our population doesn’t rely on oil as heavily as nations to survive and the fact that we have more money than other nations. Although this issue has not affected me a great deal I feel something should be done and the direction headed for biofuels and higher demand for palm oil should be slowed down.

The higher demand recently for the palm oil has increasingly negative effects on our eco-system. The oil palm tree can only grow in tropical environments and the expansion of palm oil farms are destructing parts of the rainforest and more specifically the habitat for endangered types of Orangutans. Some project that at the current rate of the spread of palm oil plantations that these animals could become extinct in ten years. Although one of the goals for biofuel is to decrease greenhouse gasses and slow down global warming, it is also knocking out parts of the rainforest which remove carbon dioxide from the air. Also when the palm oil is produced, while burning peat soil combined with loss of rainforest can increase greenhouse gasses. There’s also concern that biofuel production could come at the expense of food production, since palm oil is the world’s most important edible oil. Indonesia has overtaken Malaysia as the largest oil palm producing country and has reported to the Indonesian Forest Ministry and EU states that to meet worldwide demand for palm oil which is going to double by 2020, they will need to increase plantations a great deal which will end up in wetlands since other areas are already occupied. These expansion plans are largely in part to the demand for biofuel in rich nation. Early last year, the European