This maxim is consistent with Murphy's law and serves as a warning against the belief that we can control the world around us. In other words, each cause has more than one effect, which will invariably include at least one side effect. The side effect can potentially be more unpleasant than any of the intended effects.

Deforestation Watch has always taken the view that responsible environmental activism must always be tempered with an awareness of the consequences of such activism.  However, environmental organizations such as Greenpeace, the Friends of the Earth (FOE), Wetlands, and the more esoterically and arcanely named Treehugger  and Mongabay can claim almost exclusive proprietary rights to this unfortunate maxim of unintended consequences, wreaking momentous but grave and severe consequences on the world’s economy and progress.  

Palm oil, of course has not been spared their irrational activism. Greenpeace, FOE, Wetlands, Treehugger and Mongabay have been falling over each other to pin all manner of accusations against this poor third world crop, each more ridiculous than the other, ranging from deforestation to threatening the extinction of pygmy elephants and the orang utan right up to global warming!

In the wake of their activism, they leave behind a trail of the mother of all unintended consequences with the world facing a serious global oil and food crisis.

Around the world, rising food prices have made basic staples like rice and corn unaffordable for many people, pushing the poor to the barricades because they can no longer get enough to eat. But the worst is yet to come.

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) addressed this global crisis at a joint meeting recently. World Bank President Robert Zoellick warned that exploding food prices threaten to cause instability in at least 33 countries, including regional powers like Egypt, Indonesia and Pakistan, where the army has had to be brought in to protect flour transports. There has been unrest in recent weeks in Mauritania, Mozambique, Senegal, the Ivory Coast and Cameroon, where the violence has already claimed about 100 lives. (i)

Crude oil prices in July skyrocketed to an unheard of level of US$145 per barrel from just US$45 per barrel in July 2004.  The aforementioned environmental organizations were conspicuous by their strange reticence over the issue. For once, the world was spared the histrionics and frothing-from-the-mouth from these purveyors of the melodramatic and the theatrical as they fell into an embarrassed- silence, very much like kids caught with their hands in the cookie jars!

In the continental USA, gas shot past $4 a gallon. Oil had risen to record levels and threatened to continue rising. The USA currently imports two-thirds of their oil. Yet due to the lobbying of the environmental Svengalis, the USA had voluntarily prohibited itself from even exploring huge domestic reserves of petroleum and natural gas in the Arctic Circle.

At a time when U.S. crude oil production had fallen 40 percent in the last 25 years, 75 billion barrels of oil have been declared off-limits, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That would be enough to replace every barrel of non-North American imports (oil trade with Canada and Mexico is a net economic and national security plus) for 22 years.

That's nearly a quarter-century of energy independence. Fortunately, the average American is waking up to the absurdity of the situation. To which Republican Presidential nominee, John McCain is urging Congress to responding with a partial fix: Lift the federal ban on Outer Continental Shelf drilling, where a fifth of the off-limits oil lies.  (ii)
 
It is estimated that the Arctic Circle holds an estimated 90 billion barrels of recoverable oil, and 1,670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, enough supply to meet current world demand for almost three years, the U.S. Geological Survey said recently.

The Arctic accounts for about 13 percent of the world's undiscovered oil, 30 percent of the undiscovered natural gas and 20 percent of the undiscovered natural gas liquids, the agency said in the first publicly available petroleum resource estimate of the entire area north of the Arctic Circle.

More than half of the undiscovered oil resources are estimated to occur in just three geologic provinces: Arctic Alaska (30 billion barrels), the Amerasia Basin (9.7 billion barrels) and the East Greenland Rift Basins (8.9 billion barrels).

More than 70 percent of the undiscovered natural gas is likely to be in three provinces: the West Siberian Basin (651 Tcf), the East Barents Basins (318 Tcf) and Arctic Alaska (221 Tcf), the USGS said.

"Before we can make decisions about our future use of oil and gas and related decisions about protecting endangered species, native communities and the health of our planet, we need to know what's out there," said USGS Director Mark Myers.

"With this assessment, we're providing the same information to everyone in the world so that the global community can make those difficult decisions," he said.  (iii)

In the view of Deforestation Watch, much as we subscribe to the tenets of good and sustainable environmental practices, the decision is not a difficult one.  When push comes to shove, environmental niceties necessarily have to take a back seat to the feeding of the world’s poor and global economic stability!  THE END.

References
(i)  The Fury of the Poor  (http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,547198,00.html)
(ii) MaCain’s Oil Epiphany  (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/06/mccains_halfhearted_oil_soluti.html)
(iii) Yahoo News  (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080723/ts_nm/arctic_oil_dc)