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117-495: The charity is associated with long term partnerships with Indigenous villages, unconditional cash transfers and advocating for basic income as an effective conservation strategy. It shares many of its methods and values with organisations and networks, like Give Directly and the Basic Income Earth Network. It is supported by Professor James Lovelock and Professor Johan Rockstrom and a number of celebrities including

234-462: A Medical Research Council post, working on ways of shielding soldiers from burns. Lovelock refused to use the shaved and anaesthetised rabbits that were used as burn victims, and exposed his skin to heat radiation instead, an experience he describes as "exquisitely painful". His student status enabled temporary deferment of military service during the Second World War . Still, he registered as

351-618: A Quaker and imbued with the notion that "God is a still, small voice within rather than some mysterious old gentleman way out in the universe", which he thought was a helpful way of thinking for inventors, but he would eventually end up as being non-religious. The family moved to London, where his dislike of authority made him, by his own account, an unhappy pupil at Strand School in Tulse Hill , south London. Lovelock could not at first afford to go to university, something which he believed helped prevent him from becoming overspecialised and aided

468-493: A conscientious objector . He later abandoned his conscientious objection in the light of Nazi atrocities and tried to enlist in the armed forces but was told that his medical research was too valuable for the enlistment to be approved. In 1948, Lovelock received a PhD degree at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine . He spent the next two decades working at London's National Institute for Medical Research . In

585-488: A 2007 report, Greenpeace was critical of RSPO-member food companies saying that they are "dependent on suppliers that are actively engaged in deforestation and the conversion of peatlands". Following a contribution of $ 1 billion from Norway, in May 2010, Indonesia announced a two-year suspension on new agreements to clear natural forests and peatlands. Additionally, Indonesia announced plans to create its own organization similar to

702-537: A NASA consultant, Lovelock developed the Gaia hypothesis , for which he is most widely known. In early 1961, Lovelock was engaged by NASA to develop sensitive instruments for the analysis of extraterrestrial atmospheres and planetary surfaces. The Viking program , which visited Mars in the late 1970s, was motivated in part to determine whether Mars supported life, and some of the sensors and experiments that were ultimately deployed aimed to resolve this issue . During work on

819-587: A cacao and coffee producers association, provide mosquito nets for every villager, build medical outposts and improve primary schools. The partnership with the Awajún villages in Northern Peru, near the Ecuadorian border is aiming to protect 56,000 acres of forest. The key activities being supported are the development of cacao production, fish farms and traditional jewellery. The jewellery producers use seeds harvested from

936-427: A claim for inventing the microwave oven . He later explained this claim in an interview with The Manchester Magazine . Lovelock said that he did create an instrument during his time studying causes of damage to living cells and tissue, which had, according to him, "almost everything you would expect in an ordinary microwave oven". He invented the instrument to heat frozen hamsters in a way that caused less suffering to

1053-433: A feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while. Statements from 2012 portrayed Lovelock as continuing his concern over global warming while at the same time criticising extremism and suggesting alternatives to oil, coal and the green solutions he did not support. In a 2012 interview aired on MSNBC , Lovelock stated that he had been "alarmist", using

1170-403: A minimum of 50 percent of its total land area as forests. As of 2010, 58 percent of Malaysia was forested. Palm oil cultivation has been criticised for: In some states where oil palm is established, lax enforcement of environmental legislation leads to encroachment of plantations into riparian strips, and release of pollutants such as palm oil mill effluent (POME) into the environment. POME

1287-468: A net reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. However, research by Malaysia's Tropical Peat Research Unit has found that oil palm plantations developed on peatland produce lower carbon dioxide emissions than forest peat swamp. However, it has been suggested that this research unit was commissioned by politicians who have interests in the palm oil industry. In 2011, eight of Malaysia's Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA) plantations were certified under

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1404-451: A normal and inevitable part of the environment. Our prokaryotic forebears evolved on a planet-sized lump of fallout from a star-sized nuclear explosion, a supernova that synthesised the elements that go to make our planet and ourselves. In The Revenge of Gaia (2006), where he put forward the concept of sustainable retreat , Lovelock wrote: A television interviewer once asked me, "But what about nuclear waste ? Will it not poison

1521-455: A pickle factory. She was described by Lovelock as a socialist and suffragist , who was also anti-vaccine , and did not allow Lovelock to receive his smallpox inoculation as a child. His father, Tom, was born in Fawley, Berkshire , had served six months hard labour for poaching in his teens, and was illiterate until attending technical college, later running a bookshop. Lovelock was brought up

1638-525: A poster of a wind turbine to remind himself how much he detested them. In Novacene (2019), Lovelock proposed that benevolent superintelligence may take over and save the ecosystem and stated that the machines would need to keep organic life around to keep the planet's temperature habitable for electronic life. On the other hand, if instead life becomes entirely electronic, "so be it: we played our part and newer, younger actors are already appearing on stage". In 2007, Lovelock and Chris Rapley proposed

1755-470: A precursor of this program, Lovelock became interested in the composition of the Martian atmosphere , reasoning that many life forms on Mars would be obliged to make use of it (and, thus, alter it). However, the atmosphere was found to be in a stable condition close to its chemical equilibrium , with very little oxygen , methane , or hydrogen , but with an overwhelming abundance of carbon dioxide . To Lovelock,

1872-469: A project launched in 2015 to preserve and promote forested areas throughout the Commonwealth. Cool Earth has been supported by notable people and ambassadors including Professor James Lovelock , Dame Vivienne Westwood , Pamela Anderson , Kate Moss , Professor Lord Stern , Dr Tony Juniper , Kelly Hoppen , Leah Wood, Nick Baker , Gillian Burke and Dr John Hemming . In 2015, it was named Charity of

1989-464: A religion. It just so happens that the green religion is now taking over from the Christian religion. I don't think people have noticed that, but it's got all the sort of terms that religions use   ... The greens use guilt. That just shows how religious greens are. You can't win people round by saying they are guilty for putting (carbon dioxide) in the air. In this 2012 MSNBC article, Lovelock

2106-762: A wooded valley on the Devon – Cornwall border in South West England. In 1988 he made an extended appearance on the Channel 4 television programme After Dark , alongside Heathcote Williams and Petra Kelly , among others. On 8 May 2012, he appeared on the Radio Four series The Life Scientific , talking to Jim Al-Khalili about the Gaia hypothesis. On the programme, he mentioned how his ideas had been received by various people, including Jonathon Porritt . He also said how he had

2223-476: Is a basic source of income for many farmers in South East Asia , Central and West Africa , and Central America . It is locally used as cooking oil, exported for use in much commercial food and personal care products and is converted into biofuel. It produces up to 10 times more oil per unit area than soybeans , rapeseed or sunflowers . Oil palms produce 38% of the world's vegetable-oil output on 6% of

2340-407: Is a goner and moving the people to cities better positioned for the future. Most of all, he says, it's about everybody "absolutely doing their utmost to sustain civilization, so that it doesn't degenerate into Dark Ages, with warlords running things, which is a real danger. We could lose everything that way." Social and environmental impact of palm oil Palm oil , produced from the oil palm ,

2457-525: Is a waste product created during the final stages of palm oil extraction. The process of waste management can be highly difficult and costly. As a result, one common method of disposal involves discharge into nearby water reservoirs. POME contains high nutrient concentrations and can foster the growth of algae blooms , which deplete oxygen levels and can have negative implications for aquatic life, and consequently alter ecosystems. More environment-friendly practices have been developed. Among those approaches

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2574-569: Is anaerobic treatment of POME, which might allow for biogas (methane) production and electricity generation, but it is very difficult to maintain optimum growth conditions for the anaerobic organisms that break down acetate to methane (primarily Methanosaeta concilii , a species of Archaea ). Damage to peatland , partly due to palm oil production, is claimed to contribute to environmental degradation , including four percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and eight percent of all global emissions caused annually by burning fossil fuels, due to

2691-449: Is bees, which Liow et al 2001 find lose abundance but gain species diversity in oil palm. The process of removing existing flora and planting palm oil trees is detrimental for the quality of the soil in the ground. When the existing flora is removed to make way for the new plants, the soil surrounding it is often eroded away. When palm oil trees are planted, large amounts of fertilisers and pesticides are used to ensure rapid growth and

2808-628: Is currently working alongside 13 partners to protect nearly 100,000 hectares of rainforest across 3 continents. The organisation is currently active in Papua New Guinea, Peru, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon; and has previously finished work in Brazil and Ecuador. In Peru the charity is working with two Indigenous communities at the frontline of deforestation, the Ashaninka and

2925-465: Is done by concentrating on three key areas, these are: The provision of resources for these areas enables the building of sustainable livelihoods, better schools, better clinics and the empowerment of partner villages to monitor their forest and secure it from illegal logging . This basic model used by Cool Earth has been described as "simple but so intelligent" by the Times journalist Deborah Ross. Cool Earth

3042-441: Is encouraging small farmers across Africa to grow palm oil, because the crop offers opportunities to improve livelihoods and incomes for the poor. Food and cosmetics companies, including ADM , Unilever , Cargill , Procter & Gamble , Nestlé , Kraft and Burger King , are driving the demand for new palm oil supplies, demand was partly driven by a need for a replacement for high trans fat content oils. Although palm oil

3159-529: Is expected to climb further. Between 1967 and 2000 the area under cultivation in Indonesia expanded from less than 2,000 square kilometres (770 sq mi) to more than 30,000 square kilometres (12,000 sq mi). Deforestation in Indonesia for palm oil (and illegal logging ) is so rapid that a 2007 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report said that most of the country's forest might be destroyed by 2022. The rate of forest loss has declined in

3276-493: Is in Papua New Guinea and was launched in September 2015. It is working with three Indigenous and rainforest coastal villages on the edge of the palm plantation frontier. They are aiming to build sustainable livelihoods to enable the villagers to halt the advance of the palm plantations from the east and protect the pristine rainforest behind. One of Cool Earth’s most recent campaign was supporting The Queen's Commonwealth Canopy ,

3393-571: Is left to act, and then each community and nation must find the best use of the resources they have to sustain civilisation for as long as they can." He further predicted in 2007 that the temperature increase would leave much of the world's land uninhabitable and unsuitable for farming, with northerly migrations and new cities created in the Arctic; furthermore that much of Europe will have turned to desert and Britain will have become Europe's "life-raft" due to its stable temperature caused by being surrounded by

3510-577: Is melting faster than the models predict. He suggested that we may already have passed the tipping point of terrestrial climate resilience into a permanently hot state. Given these conditions, Lovelock expected that human civilisation would be hard-pressed to survive . He expected the change to be similar to the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum when the temperature of the Arctic Ocean was 23 °C. Lovelock became concerned about

3627-543: Is often very fragile and easily affected by deforestation. Animal wildlife has been most affected in areas where significant amounts of land, for commercial palm oil purposes, have been cleared to allow the trees to be planted. Animals have been forced to relocate and have increasingly come into contact with humans as they have started to roam around the surrounding villages in search for food. Some animals have not been able to adapt and relocate elsewhere, leading to their populations decreasing significantly and this has disrupted

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3744-405: Is put to work a massive amount of research is needed – research which will take 20 to 30 years". Other researchers claimed that "this scheme would bring water with high natural p CO 2 levels (associated with the nutrients) back to the surface, potentially causing exhalation of CO 2 ". Lovelock subsequently said that his proposal was intended to stimulate interest and that research would be

3861-407: Is quoted as saying: The problem is we don't know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn't happened. The climate is doing its usual tricks. There's nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now. The world has not warmed up very much since

3978-685: Is used in the production of biofuels and proposals have been made to use it in large installations, a 2012 report by the International Food Policy Research Institute concluded that the increase in palm oil production is related to food demands, not biofuel demands. Biodiesel made from palm oil grown on sustainable non-forest land and from established plantations reduces greenhouse gas emissions. According to Greenpeace, clearing peatland to plant oil palms releases large amounts of greenhouse gasses , and that biodiesel produced from oil palms grown on this land may not result in

4095-605: The Awajún . Cool Earth has been partnered with villages in the Asháninka community since 2008, after they contacted the charity desperate to be able to turn loggers away despite living below the poverty line. The project has expanded to 14 other Asháninka villages and the support from Cool Earth has enabled the villages to carry out activities such as strengthen register community associations, demarcate their community borders, carry out voluntary patrols, enable emergency evacuations, establish

4212-557: The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil , Rainforest Alliance , and organic . The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), founded in 2004, works to promote the production of sustainably sourced palm oil through involvement with growers, processors, food companies, investors and NGOs. Beginning in 2008, palm oil that meets RSPO introduced standards has been designated "certified sustainable palm oil" (CSPO). Within two years of implementation, CSPO-designated palm oil comprised 7 percent of

4329-510: The electron capture detector , which ultimately assisted in discoveries about the persistence of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and their role in stratospheric ozone depletion . After studying the operation of the Earth's sulphur cycle , Lovelock and his colleagues, Robert Jay Charlson , Meinrat Andreae and Stephen G. Warren developed the CLAW hypothesis as a possible example of biological control of

4446-495: The scientific community as a whole. Among its most prominent critics were the evolutionary biologists Richard Dawkins , Ford Doolittle and Stephen Jay Gould , a convergence of opinion among a trio whose views on other scientific matters often diverged. These (and other) critics have questioned how natural selection operating on individual organisms can lead to the evolution of planetary-scale homeostasis . In response to this, Lovelock, together with Andrew Watson , published

4563-685: The British security service, for decades. Bryan Appleyard , writing in The Sunday Times , described him as "basically Q in the James Bond films ". James Lovelock was born in Letchworth Garden City to Tom Arthur Lovelock and his second wife Nellie. Nell, his mother, was born in Bermondsey and won a scholarship to a grammar school but was unable to take it up, and started work at thirteen in

4680-552: The CFC–ozone depletion hypothesis for several years, calling the US ban of CFCs as aerosol propellants in the late 1970s arbitrary overkill. Drawing from the research of Alfred C. Redfield and G. Evelyn Hutchinson , Lovelock first formulated the Gaia hypothesis in the 1960s resulting from his work for NASA concerned with detecting life on Mars and his work with Royal Dutch Shell . The hypothesis proposes that living and non-living parts of

4797-482: The Earth form a complex interacting system that can be thought of as a single organism . Named after the Greek goddess Gaia at the suggestion of novelist William Golding , the hypothesis postulates that the biosphere has a regulatory effect on the Earth's environment that acts to sustain life. While the hypothesis was readily accepted by many in the environmentalist community, it has not been widely accepted within

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4914-573: The Earth's climate. Lovelock was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1974. He served as the president of the Marine Biological Association (MBA) from 1986 to 1990 and was an Honorary Visiting Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford (formerly Green College, Oxford ) from 1994. As an independent scientist , inventor and author, Lovelock worked out of a barn-turned-laboratory he called his "experimental station" located in

5031-630: The Indigenous Peoples occupying the land. This has occurred in Papua New Guinea , Colombia , and Indonesia . In the Sarawak state of Malaysian Borneo , there has been debate over whether there was an appropriate level of consultation with the Long Teran Kanan community prior to the development of local land for palm oil plantations. Appropriation of native lands has led to conflict between

5148-573: The Indonesian province of Riau on the island of Sumatra , home to 25 percent of Indonesia's palm oil plantations. Greenpeace claims this would have devastating consequences for Riau's peatlands, which have already been degraded by industrial development and store a massive 14.6 billion tonnes of carbon, roughly one year's greenhouse gas emissions. Environmentalists and conservationists have been called upon to team up with palm oil companies to purchase small tracts of existing palm plantation, so they can use

5265-819: The International Sustainability and Carbon Certification System (ISCC), becoming part of Asia's first ISCC certified supply and production chain for palm biodiesel. This certification system complies with the European Union's Renewable Energy Directive (RED). In 2012, the European Commission approved the RSPO's biofuel certification scheme allowing certified sustainable palm oil biofuel to be sold in Europe. At least 17.4% of palm oil fruit produced globally in 2016 complied with voluntary sustainability standards such as

5382-589: The RSPO, which, as a government certification system, will introduce mandatory regulation for all Indonesian palm oil producers. In 2011, Malaysia began developing a national certification, the "Malaysia sustainable palm oil" (MSPO) certification, to improve involvement in sustainable palm oil production nationwide. The certification program, aimed at small and medium-sized producers, is expected to be launched in 2014. Malaysia has initiated its own environmental assessment on oil palm industry based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approaches. LCA has been applied to assess

5499-865: The Second World War. Wild plants and animals do not perceive radiation as dangerous, and any slight reduction it may cause in their lifespans is far less a hazard than is the presence of people and their pets   ... I find it sad, but all too human, that there are vast bureaucracies concerned about nuclear waste, huge organisations devoted to decommissioning power stations, but nothing comparable to deal with that truly malign waste, carbon dioxide. In 2019 Lovelock said he thought difficulties in getting nuclear power going again were due to propaganda, that "the coal and oil business fight like mad to tell bad stories about nuclear", and that "the greens played along with it. There's bound to have been some corruption there – I'm sure that various green movements were paid some sums on

5616-532: The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals . For a more detailed explanation of assessment scores, click here Policies and pledges made by the company may not be carried out effectively on the ground. Although the media monitor on each company's page may provide some insight, independent due diligence should include measures to analyze implementation levels. The World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) publishes an annual report on

5733-674: The United States, he conducted research at Yale , Baylor College of Medicine and Harvard University Medical School . In the mid-1950s, Lovelock experimented with the cryopreservation of rodents, determining that hamsters could be frozen and revived successfully. Hamsters were frozen with 60% of the water in the brain crystallised into ice with no adverse effects recorded. Other organs were shown to be susceptible to damage. A lifelong inventor, Lovelock created and developed many scientific instruments, some of which were designed for NASA in its planetary exploration program. While working as

5850-585: The Wall Street Journal stating that Malaysia was aware of the need to pursue a sustainable palm oil industry. Since then the Malaysian government, along with palm oil companies, have increased production of certified sustainable palm oil (CSPO). Malaysia has been recognized by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil as the largest producer of CSPO, producing 50% of the world's supply, and accounting for 40% of CSPO growers worldwide. Indonesia produces 35% of

5967-757: The Year in its category at the Civil Society Media Charity Awards and best International NGO at the PEA Awards. In 2016, a detailed external evaluation of Cool Earth undertaken by Giving What We Can found Cool Earth to be the most cost-effective charity working on mitigating climate change through direct action. The report concluded: "Cool Earth is overall the most cost-effective climate change charity which can reliably reduce emissions without risk." James Lovelock James Ephraim Lovelock CH CBE FRS (26 July 1919 – 26 July 2022)

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6084-416: The animals, as opposed to the traditional way, which involved putting red-hot spoons on the animals' chests to heat them. He believed that, at the time, nobody had gone that far and made an embodiment of an actual microwave oven. However, he did not claim to have been the first person to have the idea of using microwaves for cooking. After developing his electron capture detector, in the late 1960s, Lovelock

6201-517: The backdrop of renewed UK government interest in nuclear power , Lovelock again publicly announced his support for nuclear energy , stating, "I am a Green, and I entreat my friends in the movement to drop their wrongheaded objection to nuclear energy". Although those interventions in the public debate on nuclear power were in the 21st century, his views on it were longstanding. In his 1988 book The Ages of Gaia , he stated: I have never regarded nuclear radiation or nuclear power as anything other than

6318-420: The breakdown of CFCs in the stratosphere would release chlorine that posed a threat to the ozone layer , concluded that the level of CFCs constituted "no conceivable hazard". He later stated that he meant "no conceivable toxic hazard". However, the experiment did provide the first useful data on the ubiquitous presence of CFCs in the atmosphere. The damage caused to the ozone layer by the photolysis of CFCs

6435-577: The charity include Charity of the Year Civil Society Media Charity Awards and best International NGO at the PEA Awards. The organisation is funded by over 70,000 individuals as well as foundations and businesses in the USA, UK and Europe. Moreover, Cool Earth is ranked “highly effective” by multiple charity evaluators. For example, it has received a top rating from GiveWell, which is a leading independent evaluator of charities. Cool Earth

6552-456: The clearing of tropical forest land in Indonesian national parks . According to a 2007 report published by UNEP , at the rate of deforestation at that time, an estimated 98 percent of Indonesian forest would be destroyed by 2022 due to legal and illegal logging, forest fires and the development of palm oil plantations. Malaysia, the second largest producer of palm oil has pledged to conserve

6669-455: The clearing of large areas of rainforest for palm oil plantations. Many Indonesian and Malaysian rainforests lie atop peat bogs that store great quantities of carbon . Forest removal and bog drainage to make way for plantations releases this carbon. A study reveals that the conversion of peatlands contributes between 16.6 and 27.9 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions from Malaysia and Indonesia combined. The process of draining peatlands and

6786-453: The companies that purchase these exports. Environmental groups such as Greenpeace claim that this deforestation produces far more emissions than biofuels remove. Greenpeace identified Indonesian peatlands—unique tropical forests whose dense soil can be burned to release carbon emissions—which are being destroyed to make way for palm oil plantations. Greenpeace argues the peatlands represent massive carbon sinks , and they claim

6903-458: The computer model Daisyworld in 1983, which postulated a hypothetical planet orbiting a star whose radiant energy is slowly increasing or decreasing . In the non-biological case, the temperature of this planet simply tracks the energy received from the star. However, in the biological case, ecological competition between "daisy" species with different albedo values produces a homeostatic effect on global temperature. When energy received from

7020-424: The construction of ocean pumps to pump water up from below the thermocline to "fertilize algae in the surface waters and encourage them to bloom". The basic idea was to accelerate the transfer of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the ocean by increasing primary production and enhancing the export of organic carbon (as marine snow ) to the deep ocean. A scheme similar to that proposed by Lovelock and Rapley

7137-501: The cultivation of food and timber. Local villagers are now inclined to find new sources of food and materials for shelter. As a result, local villagers have been indirectly forced to move out and relocate depending on the extent of the loss of the plants and animals native to the area. This has led to economic complications as governments now need to reallocate their resources to support these typically marginalised communities. In Indonesia, rising demand for palm oil and timber has led to

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7254-587: The cultivation of oil palm has replaced traditional practices, often due to the higher income potential of palm oil. The modernisation of cultivation practices has led to issues including food insecurity. This issue stems from the intensive use of land which leads to soil degradation . As a result, the ability for locals to produce their own food has dwindled and they are having to look for food in other areas as they can no longer rely exclusively on their land. However, in some cases, land has been developed by oil palm plantations without consultation or compensation of

7371-446: The day. Palm oil plantations that are geographically located close to rivers have exacerbated impacts on surrounding local communities. This is due to the increased use of fertilisers and pesticides which has led to higher amounts of both being washed away by the frequent rain into rivers. This is an issue because rivers are central to the daily lives of local villagers. They use water from the river for personal consumption and also use

7488-738: The destruction already accounts for four percent of annual global CO₂ emissions. However, according to the Tropical Peat Research Laboratory, at least one measurement has shown that oil palm plantations are carbon sinks because oil palms convert carbon dioxide into oxygen just as other trees do, and, as reported in Malaysia's Second National Communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change , oil palm plantations contribute to Malaysia's net carbon sink. Greenpeace recorded peatland destruction in

7605-507: The development of Gaia theory. After leaving school Lovelock worked at a photography firm, attending Birkbeck College during the evenings, before being accepted to study chemistry at the University of Manchester , where he was a student of the Nobel Prize laureate professor Alexander R. Todd . Lovelock worked at a Quaker farm before a recommendation from his professor led to him taking up

7722-421: The effects of the addition of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. This eliminates the planet's negative feedbacks and increases the likelihood of homeostatic positive feedback potential associated with runaway global warming . Similarly, the warming of the oceans is extending the oceanic thermocline layer of tropical oceans into the Arctic and Antarctic waters, preventing the rise of oceanic nutrients into

7839-609: The environment and developers have failed to come to fruition except in limited cases. In Africa, the situation is very different compared to Indonesia or Malaysia. In its Human Development Report 2007-2008, the United Nations Development Program says production of palm oil in West Africa is largely sustainable, mainly because it is undertaken on a smallholder level without resorting to diversity-damaging monoculture . The United Nations Food and Agriculture program

7956-484: The environmental impact of production of oil palm seedlings, oil palm fresh fruit bunches, crude palm oil, crude palm kernel oil and refined palm oil. The assessment on downstream industries such as bio-diesel, was also conducted. In July 2020 scientists show via detailed analysis of satellite images that certified "sustainable" palm oil production resulted in deforestation of tropical forests of Sumatra and Borneo and endangered mammals' habitat degradation in

8073-410: The exploitation of child labor have also been a major concern. The production of palm oil requires intensive deforestation and this has led to a gradual loss of flora and fauna in the areas where land is cleared for the cultivation of palm oil. Tropical rainforests in countries including Malaysia and Indonesia have been the most ideal countries to have large palm oil plantations as they provide

8190-399: The future. Of the claims "the science is settled" on global warming, he stated: One thing that being a scientist has taught me is that you can never be certain about anything. You never know the truth. You can only approach it and hope to get a bit nearer to it each time. You iterate towards the truth. You don't know it. He criticised environmentalists for treating global warming like

8307-418: The global palm oil market. As of October 2012, 12 percent of palm oil has been certified by the RSPO. However, in the first year of CSPO certification only 30 percent of sustainable oil was marketed as CSPO. In The Economist in 2010, the RSPO was criticized for not setting standards for greenhouse-gas emissions for plantations and because its members account for only 40 percent of palm oil production. In

8424-421: The growth of young palms results in 50 percent greater greenhouse gas emissions when compared to mature plantations. This is a growing concern among ecologists and environmentalists as more tropical peatlands are being converted into plantations due to land shortage, in order to meet the increasing demand for palm oil. Researchers are looking for possible, more environmentally friendly, solutions and ways to help

8541-540: The health of each tree. Younger palm oil trees absorb more valuable nutrients from the soil which degrades the quality of the soil. As the nutrients are absorbed by the young trees, there is a depletion in nutrients and consequently, there is a lower level of remaining nutrients for other trees. This problem is also another cause for the increased use of fertilisers during the palm oil production process. Distances between adjacent palm oil trees in plantations have also been designed to be very close in order to optimise use of

8658-469: The impact the expansion of oil palm plantations has had on tropical rain forests, but according to the South East Asian CDM development company YTL-SV Carbon , many CDM projects in the palm oil sector focus on improving use of waste products to reduce gas emissions and do not contribute to the establishment of new oil palm plantations. Palm oil output has been gradually increasing since the end of

8775-529: The late Dame Vivienne Westwood , Pamela Anderson and Ricky Gervais . Professor James Lovelock, was quoted in the Guardian saying, “You're far better off giving to the charity Cool Earth, which gives the money to the Indigenous peoples to not take down their forests.” Professor Johan Rockström, a world leading climate scientist, and Cool Earth Trustee has also shared his opinions on the charity, “Cool Earth has one of

8892-403: The limited space available. This has further impacted soil quality because as the trees grow, they require more minerals and water from the soil. Due to the close distances between trees, there is a limited supply of nutrients that the trees can depend on which leads to the plantation workers supplying the trees with higher amounts of fertilisers, pesticides and water. This process further harms

9009-413: The middle of this century, with a massive extension of tropical deserts . In 2012, Lovelock distanced himself from these conclusions, saying he had "gone too far" in describing the consequences of climate change over the next century in this book. In his 2009 book, The Vanishing Face of Gaia , he rejected scientific models that disagree with the findings that sea levels are rising and Arctic ice

9126-505: The millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time   ... it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising – carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that. In a follow-up interview also in 2012, Lovelock stated his support for natural gas; he favoured fracking as a low-polluting alternative to coal. He opposed the concept of " sustainable development ", where modern economies might be powered by wind turbines , calling it meaningless drivel. He kept

9243-470: The most effective means of showing that conservation of rainforests can go hand in hand with community development. In 2016, a detailed external evaluation of Cool Earth was undertaken, showing that Cool Earth was the most cost-effective charity working on mitigating climate change through direct action. The report concluded: "Cool Earth is overall the most cost-effective climate change charity which can reliably reduce emissions without risk". Awards made to

9360-402: The most suitable climate with ample rainfall and sunshine throughout the year. Between the years 1990 and 2005, the total land in Malaysia used for palm oil cultivation increased by 2.4 million ha and reached 4.2 million ha. During that period, over 1.1 million ha of tropical rainforest was lost. The diverse biodiversity that each rainforest possesses has been diminishing at a rapid rate as fauna

9477-515: The nation's land, the growth of new palm oil plantations has slowed in recent years. According to Malaysia's Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Bernard Dompok , significant expansion of palm oil is no longer possible, therefore Malaysian farmers are now focusing on increasing production without expansion. In January 2008, the CEO of the Malaysian Palm Oil Council wrote a letter to

9594-512: The next step, and several research studies were published in the wake of the original proposal. However, these estimated that the scheme would require a huge number of pipes, and that the main effect of the pipes may be on the land rather than in the ocean. Sustainable retreat is a concept developed by Lovelock to define the necessary changes to human settlement and dwelling at the global scale to adapt to global warming and prevent its expected negative consequences on humans. Lovelock thought

9711-523: The ocean. He was quoted in The Guardian in 2008 that 80% of humans will perish by 2100, and this climate change will last 100,000 years. In a 2010 interview with the Guardian newspaper, he said that democracy might have to be "put on hold" to prevent climate change. He continued: Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have

9828-1175: The palm oil industry). This number was obtained by tracking the number of nests over this 16 year study period. Results show that nests declined from 22.5 nests per kilometer at the start of the study, to 10.1 nests per kilometer by the end of the study. On the other hand E. guineensis cultivation also helps to push species invasions further, e.g. Anoplolepis gracilipes in southeast Asia . Biodiversity suffers in almost all taxa – Room 1975 and Fayle et al 2010 find so for ants , Danielsen and Heegaard 1995 for bats and primates , Liow et al 2001 for bees , Chung et al 2000 for beetles , Peh et al 2006 for birds , Davis and Philips 2005 for dung beetles , Hassall et al 2006 for isopods , Glor et al 2001 for lizards , Chang et al 1997 for mosquitoes , Chey 2006 for moths , and Bernard et al 2009 for small mammals. Almost all taxa also suffer loss of abundance but there are exceptions, species which increase abundance but still lose species richness – Davis and Philips 2005 find so in dung beetles , Hassall et al 2006 in isopods , Glor et al 2001 in lizards and Danielsen and Heegaard 1995 in bats. The very unusual exception

9945-471: The past 30 years. Oil palm producers are eligible to take part in Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) programs in which developed nations invest in clean energy projects in developing nations to earn carbon credits to offset their own greenhouse gas emissions and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Investors have been cautious about investing in palm oil biofuel projects because of

10062-439: The past decade. Global production is forecast at a record 46.9m tonnes in 2010, up from 45.3m in 2009, with Indonesia providing most of the increase. Oil palm is a valuable economic crop and provides a source of employment. It allows small landholders to participate in the cash economy and often results in improvements to local infrastructure and greater access to services such as schools and health facilities. In some areas,

10179-471: The plantations and local residents in each of these countries. According to a 2008 report by NGOs including Friends of the Earth , palm oil companies have also reportedly used force to acquire land from Indigenous communities in Indonesia. Additionally, some Indonesian oil palm plantations are dependent on imported labor or undocumented immigrants, which has raised concerns about the working conditions and social impacts of these practices. Issues regarding

10296-414: The political bureaucracy. Cool Earth's ethos is that the most effective custodians of rainforests are the people who have lived there for generations as they have the most to lose from its destruction. Their approach is to work with Indigenous and rainforest-based communities to secure threatened rainforest. The charity provides local people with the support they need to keep their rainforests standing. This

10413-421: The profits to create privately owned nature reserves. It has been suggested that this is a more productive strategy than the current confrontational approach that threatens the livelihoods of millions of smallholders . Haze , a form of air pollution , is a major recurrent issue across Southeast Asia , partly linked to burning of rainforest and peat swamp forest to clear land for palm oil plantations. In

10530-680: The public disclosure of 100 palm oil producers, processors, and traders in terms of their organization, policies, and practices relating to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues. To track their growth over time, each company is given a percentage score. For palm oil, timber and pulp, and natural rubber companies, SPOTT assessments follow three complete frameworks of best practice indicators. Each framework includes precise scoring criteria for over 100 indicators that are grouped into ten categories. The SPOTT indicators were created by ZSL in consultation with technical consultants to ensure that they are closely matched with related programs such as

10647-595: The rainforest and their work has inspired Vivienne Westwood’s Gold Label Collection and featured in her Paris fashion show. In the Congo Basin, the charity has been partnering with local charities including OELO , CCREAD and GCE to help local communities protect their rainforest. So far Cool Earth has helped improve the villages rights over their forest through training of local people in GPS mapping and plotting 600,000 acres of community forest.[16] Cool Earth's youngest project

10764-504: The river as a source of food, which makes them vulnerable to the residue from fertilisers and pesticides. The untreated water that the local villagers are exposed to can potentially cause detrimental health effects, including diseases such as cholera , E. coli and lead poisoning . The damage from soil erosion and poor soil quality has also affected the livelihoods of many local villagers that live close to these palm oil plantations as they can no longer depend solely on their land for

10881-496: The sector in Malaysia, plus those connected with related industries. As of 2006, the cumulative land area of palm oil plantations is approximately 11,000,000 hectares (42,000 sq mi). In 2005 the Malaysian Palm Oil Association, responsible for about half of the world's crop, estimated that they manage about half a billion perennial carbon-sequestering palm trees. Demand for palm oil has been rising and

10998-515: The side to help with propaganda". Writing in The Independent in 2006, Lovelock argued that, as a result of global warming, "billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable" by the end of the 21st century. The same year he suggested that "we have to keep in mind the awesome pace of change and realise how little time

11115-414: The situation and have suggested that if enough land is conserved and there remain large enough areas of primary forest reserves, the effects of the palm oil industry may not have as much of an impact on wildlife and biodiversity. Environmental groups like Greenpeace, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil , and Amnesty International are also taking part in advocating bans on unsustainable palm oil crops and

11232-432: The star . Lovelock argued that Daisyworld, although a parable, illustrates how conventional natural selection operating on individual organisms can still produce planetary-scale homeostasis. In Lovelock's 2006 book, The Revenge of Gaia , he argued that the lack of respect humans have had for Gaia, through the damage done to rainforests and the reduction in planetary biodiversity , is testing Gaia's capacity to minimise

11349-437: The star is low, black daisies proliferate since they absorb a greater fraction of the heat, but when energy input is high, white daisies predominate since they reflect excess heat. As the white and black daisies have contrary effects on the planet's overall albedo and temperature, changes in their relative populations stabilise the planet's climate and keep the temperature within an optimal range despite fluctuations in energy from

11466-576: The stark contrast between the Martian atmosphere and chemically dynamic mixture of the Earth's biosphere was strongly indicative of the absence of life on Mars . However, when they were finally launched to Mars, the Viking probes still searched (unsuccessfully) for extant life there. Further experiments to search for life on Mars have been carried out by additional space probes, for instance, by NASA's Perseverance rover , which landed in 2021. Lovelock invented

11583-445: The state of the soil and makes it challenging for existing flora and fauna to survive in the area. Tuma et al 2019 find replacement of forest with oil palm plantations reduces the number of bioturbator species, although not the actual volume of bioturbation performed. In tropical countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia, where a majority of palm oil plantations are located, there are continual rain showers and sun exposure throughout

11700-420: The surface waters and eliminating the algal blooms of phytoplankton on which oceanic food chains depend. As phytoplankton and forests are the main ways in which Gaia draws down greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, taking it out of the atmosphere, the elimination of this environmental buffering will see, according to Lovelock, most of the Earth becoming uninhabitable for humans and other life-forms by

11817-506: The symbiotic relationships that the flora and fauna have with their habitat. Deforestation negatively affects biodiversity when forests are converted into plantations and leaves relatively low species richness in primary forests compared to undisturbed forests. One species of particular concern is the critically endangered Bornean orangutan . A notable study in 2018 showed that from 1999 to 2015, over 100,000 orangutans were lost due to unsustainable natural resource exploitation (including

11934-413: The theories of cryonics (the cryopreservation of humans). He invented the electron capture detector and, using it, became the first to detect the widespread presence of chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere. While designing scientific instruments for NASA , he developed the Gaia hypothesis. In the 2000s, he proposed a method of climate engineering to restore carbon dioxide –consuming algae . He

12051-459: The threat of global warming from the greenhouse effect . In 2004 he broke with many fellow environmentalists by stating that "only nuclear power can now halt global warming". In his view, nuclear energy is the only realistic alternative to fossil fuels that can both fulfil the large scale energy needs of humankind while also reducing greenhouse emissions . He was an open member of Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy (EFN). In 2005, against

12168-466: The time was past for sustainable development and that we had come to a time when development is no longer sustainable . Therefore, we needed to retreat. Lovelock stated the following to explain the concept: Retreat, in his view, means it's time to start talking about changing where we live and how we get our food; about making plans for the migration of millions of people from low-lying regions like Bangladesh into Europe; about admitting that New Orleans

12285-489: The twentieth century, with a 15-fold rise between 1980 and 2014. (IUCN, 2021). Aside from the main producing countries of Indonesia and Malaysia, Latin American countries are beginning to play a larger role in the global palm oil industry. SPOTT is a free, online platform that evaluates commodity producers, processors, and traders on their public disclosure on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues. SPOTT evaluates

12402-494: The two countries responsible for over 80% of world oil palm production, Indonesia and Malaysia, smallholders account for 35–40% of the total area of planted oil palm and as much as 33% of the output. Elsewhere, as in West African countries that produce mainly for domestic and regional markets, smallholders produce up to 90% of the annual harvest. As a result of Malaysia's commitment to retain natural forest cover on at least 50% of

12519-557: The use of sustainable palm oil by major corporations. In the 2011 report, 31 of the 132 companies surveyed received a top score for their use of sustainable palm oil. This represents an increase from 2009, the first year the report was issued, where no companies received top scores. The WWF reports that 87 companies have committed to using only sustainable palm oil by 2015, including Unilever and Nestlé , both of which committed to exclusively using sustainable palm oil following demonstrations and urgings from environmental organizations in

12636-470: The whole biosphere and persist for millions of years?" I knew this to be a nightmare fantasy wholly without substance in the real world   ... One of the striking things about places heavily contaminated by radioactive nuclides is the richness of their wildlife. This is true of the land around Chernobyl, the bomb test sites of the Pacific, and areas near the United States' Savannah River nuclear weapons plant of

12753-445: The words "All right, I made a mistake," about the timing of climate change and noted the documentary An Inconvenient Truth and the book The Weather Makers as examples of the same kind of alarmism. Lovelock still believed the climate to be warming, although not at the rate of change he once thought; he admitted that he had been "extrapolating too far." He believed that climate change is still happening, but it will be felt further in

12870-563: The world's CSPO. In Indonesia, the Indigenous Peoples' Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN) under the direction of Mina Susana Setra has fought for policies that find balance between economic need and indigenous people's rights. 99% of the palm oil concessions in the country concern land that is occupied by indigenous people. In 2012, AMAN led an advocacy team which won a Constitutional Court case recognizing customary land rights; however, implementation of programs that protect indigenous rights,

12987-462: The world's vegetable-oil farmland. Palm oil plantations, typically monoculture crops are under increasing scrutiny for their effects on the environment , including loss of carbon-sequestering, biodiverse forest land. There is also concern over displacement and disruption of human and animal populations due to palm oil cultivation. An estimated 1.5 million small farmers grow the crop in Indonesia, along with about 500,000 people directly employed in

13104-405: Was an English independent scientist , environmentalist and futurist . He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis , which postulates that the Earth functions as a self-regulating system. With a PhD in the chemistry of disinfection, Lovelock began his career performing cryopreservation experiments on rodents, including successfully thawing frozen specimens. His methods were influential in

13221-418: Was an outspoken member of Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy , asserting that fossil fuel interests have been behind opposition to nuclear energy , citing the effects of carbon dioxide as being harmful to the environment and warning of global warming due to the greenhouse effect . He wrote several environmental science books based upon the Gaia hypothesis from the late 1970s. He also worked for MI5 ,

13338-451: Was founded in 2007 by entrepreneur Johan Eliasch and MP Frank Field out of their common interest in protecting the rainforest. They argued that it was unacceptable that the 20% of carbon emissions created by tropical deforestation were ignored by the Kyoto protocol and that urgent, direct action was needed to put a stop to deforestation, lest it take up to twenty years to get an idea adopted by

13455-426: Was later developed independently by a commercial company. The proposal attracted widespread media attention and criticism. Commenting on the proposal, Corinne Le Quéré , a University of East Anglia researcher, said "It doesn't make sense. There is absolutely no evidence that climate engineering options work or even go in the right direction. I'm astonished that they published this. Before any geoengineering

13572-452: Was later discovered by Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina . After hearing a lecture on the subject of Lovelock's results, they embarked on research that resulted in the first published paper that suggested a link between stratospheric CFCs and ozone depletion in 1974 (for which Sherwood and Molina later shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Paul Crutzen ). Lovelock was sceptical of

13689-505: Was the first to detect the widespread presence of CFCs in the atmosphere. He found a concentration of 60 parts per trillion of CFC-11 over Ireland and, in a partially self-funded research expedition in 1972, went on to measure the concentration of CFC-11 from the northern hemisphere to the Antarctic aboard the research vessel RRS  Shackleton . He found the gas in each of the 50 air samples that he collected but, not realising that

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