... by feeding carbon sinks to our cars, trucks, and buses.
My wife pointed me to an article on biodiesel in the business section of the Seattle Times yesterday. I discussed this issue once before. But hey, if the Times can repeat the same story over and over, why can't I?
Let me parse this article out.
Plaza says Imperium's contract provides palm oil exclusively from sustainable farms, and it plans to perform audits to make sure that proviso is honored.
You can't possibly verify where a given gallon of palm oil came from, especially in a third world nation where graft and bribes are still standard operating procedure. What would you do if the person you send to Indonesia on a verification mission discovers that your competitors have hogged up all the palm oil from the "sustainable" plantations (whatever those are supposed to be) and that they are sending you oil from newer plantations (ones that more recently usurped rainforests)? Try to envision how effective this strategy will be.
"Quick! Shut down the refinery and lay everyone off! Recall that last shipment! We are using palm oil being grown on recently cleared rainforests!" Spare me. Had he said, "We will not be using oil imported from third world tropical countries because the incentive to destroy rainforest carbon sinks is just too great and there really is no effective way to verify sustainability," I would have been deeply impressed. You will also note that nowhere in this article was global warming mentioned.