Environmental Blackmail

NGOs like Greenpeace have understood that cultural weakness of industries can be exploited in order to gather funds to sponsor dangerous campaigns against science. They are a threat to economic prosperity as well as environmental sustainability.

Here we go again. When Greenpeace needs financial resources, it always finds a way to fuel pretentious campaigns. Today, palm oil is the easiest target. Greenpeace accuses producers but never acknowledges merits and not under any condition proposes ways to improve the current outlook. They are extremely good in tailor-making fake-news of all kinds, as long as it results in resources for the organization.

They are just like militants, with a natural talent for shouting. Businesses are afraid, and fall – deliberately – into their trap. Listening to Greenpeace is important, submitting to them is wrong. It does not portray that companies cheat with improper practices. It simply shows a lack of consistency in business models and  middle management.Science, facts and reality show that, at the moment, there is not a single alternative to palm oil. Moving away from palm oil would mean total chaos: impoverishment of local population and environmental disaster. The latest UNIC report clearly backs up this assertion. We must therefore work to achieve greater sustainability of the supply chain.

It’s not easy. But it is the only way to pursue. Results, slowly and with many difficulties, are coming. It’s not a perfect world, we have to cope with it. It is the reality of the facts. Even Pope Francis in his encyclical explains that the relationship between man and the environment survives on a delicate balance. Palm oil currently manages to balance this relationship that would otherwise fall from either side.

On the contrary, these are Greenpeace’s proposals:

• Complete stop to all types of activities in the forest. A dive into the past of about 500 years. An interruption in the production of palm oil in the region would of course cause less deforestation, but would also deprive thousands of families of a job, throwing them into the streets. Going back years, slowing economic growth and promoting poverty is not a winning recipe.

• Migrate to another type of culture. Leaving palm oil for another ingredient would only lead to more deforestation, since more land would be necessary to generate the same amount of profit.In other words,  asking for an exit from palm oil means asking for chaos. A clear lack of responsibility that would push millions of consumers towards more dangerous ingredients. No one wants to to argue that uncontrolled deforestation is not a dangerous phenomenon. The only solution is to continue to move more and more towards sustainability, reducing the impact of deforestation and contributing to the economic development of local populations.

Greenpeace is a professional blackmailer: “If you do not do as we tell you – and sustain us economically – we will tell everyone that you pollute, cheat and destroy everything”. It is a model that is very popular among  NGOs nowadays. It is a model that feeds on ideology and avoids the experimental method of science. It is a model that aims to impose a type of development that denies free choices for citizens. It is a model to which we oppose. Industries must open their eyes.