Seriously, this is all a load of Bahroeny.

The health insurance cartels — surely by any standard among the the most rapacious and abominable of the rogue conglomerates that plague us — massively fund lifestyle-control projects, like cigarette and trans-fat bans, while simultaneously opposing preventative health measures that are at least as much in the public interest but not nearly as much in their own.

Basically they make astroturf out of ostensibly independent civic-minded public health organizations, and we all go along with it because, you know, just because they're basically tearing this country apart doesn't mean we can't ally with them whenever it's the tobacco companies on the firing line.

And yet when someone comes along and suggests that predominantly American green advocacy organizations are being manipulated into opposing certain forms of biofuel that threaten the interests of predominantly American biofuel producers, that's crazy talk?

Let's put it this way: what recession-parched wildlife preservation organization is going to look that closely at a donation from Iowa Citizens Against Rainforest Exploitation (or whatever) to make sure that the money isn't being funneled from Iowa biofuel interests?

I'm not saying this guy who's doing the complaining is some kind of saint — just that, since what he alleges is the norm rather than the exception, why should we be so quick to dismiss him?

Principally, supporting the coal industry over the many better baseload power alternatives.

Ram those damn boats and sink them. Where is French intelligence now that we ned it?

. . . is no more an environmentally positive thing in SE Asia than growing corn for ethanol is in the U.S. In fact, it's probably worse as a lot of the acreage brought under cultivation for palm oil was once forested land.

Unlike temperate forests, it's not really possible to recreate tropical forests. Once they are gone, they can't be remade. At least not in our lifetime.

I attended a symposium on biodiversity back in October. The one thing every speaker agreed on was that palm oil farms were destroying more rain forest than anything else is currently.

It is mostly European cars that are running on palm oil, which means it is, ironically, also expanding the carbon footprint by needing to be shipped.

The impulse toward biofuel is a good one. Sadly, the implementation has not lived up to the impulse.

Go nuclear, like the French. Allow the spent fuel to be reprocessed to make it less radioactive and get more energy out of it. Electrify all transportation--well we can't do this with jet engines yet, but with trains, trucks and autos we can. We have the technology for all of this, why don't we use it? Because Greenpeace and other enviromental groups pull the 3 mile island/Chernobyl bogie man out on us. We have 21st century technology, why are we using 19th/20th century tech?

Yeah we can use wind/wave/solar power too where practical, but come on, it's not practical everywhere. Go nuclear, cut carbon dioxide emissions by huge amounts. And don't tell me that mining uranium is so carbon intensive. Electrify the trucks and mining equipment too.

Palm trees are basically a craptacular souce of fuel. While the fuel is reasonably good, most the the plant's growth goes into producing fibrous 'wood', making it a fast growing but resourse intensive fuel source. It's pretty damn accurate to say it's no better than growing corn fields for ethanol.

Claiming that's a massive corporate conspiracy is like claiming people who don't want the rainforest burned to make coffe plantations are part of a conspiracy, rather than the obvious enough idea that they don't think the benefit is worth the cost.

The ideal for energy is to go nuclear (or fusion if we pull it off successfully in a controlled manner) combined with hydro/wind/solar and bio-diesel from algae 'factories'. An algal bio-diesel plant can produce the same level of fuel from a few hundred square foot modified greenhouse as corn can when grown across several hectares. Sure, not using chemical fuel at all is better...but electric airliners aren't exactly viable at the moment.

Can Salon truly be ignorant of how the palm plantations are affecting the rain forests and endangered species? This is truly an irresponsible post by Andrew Leonard and shame on the editors at Salon for giving it a pass.

"Bahroeny said his industry had been accused of killing orangutans, burning forests and selling a product high in cholesterol."

Great! All I need is a biofuel that will clog the arteries of my car engine.

Biodiesel can never be sustainable. If the entire surface of the earth was turned over to grow feed stock for biodiesel, there wouldn't be enough. Making biodiesel from virgin materials is destructive and polluting. These companies (and that trade organization) are taking advantage of ignorance and trendiness to sell a dirty product.

Stick to gimmicky used oil from doughnuts and french fries, have fun with it, but don't destroy forests or waste food to exploit the desire for alternative fuels.

I think Andrew stumbled upon a story that many non-Americans have been dealing with, quietly, for some time. What should be straight forward, scientific, debate and solutions about impacts on the environment have turned into a political tug of war between locals wanting to make an honest living (good guys) and interfering foreigners (preferrably American) who fly in their corporate jets and spew ideological platitudes ignorant of the locals needs (bad guys).

Case in point - The Pew Charitable Trusts and their international boreal conservation plan. You'd think a reputable organization like the Pew would be above all this. However, they have targeted Australia and Canada for their international environmental programs. Most urban Canadians haven't noticed or if they have, in general support the Pew's efforts to protect the boreal forest. Local Canadians in the boreal, including Canadian mining and timber firms also believe in conservation but are starting to make complaints that the Pew is advocating the privatization of public lands, selling those lands to private interests and in effect, creating a situation where Canadian firms can't compete with American counterparts under the North American Free Trade Agreement. Underlying all of this is a general sense of un-american sentiment that doesn't help their cause.

So, I feel for the Indonesians but I don't believe for a second this is anything but a political tug of war and the environment is a very distant second issue of importance.