By now, you may have heard about palm oil: it's a substance used in many products as a preservative, appearing in everything from foods to bath soaps. Unfortunately, the way we farm it is rife with environmental and animal abuses. That's why it's so disheartening to learn that a brand like Earth Balance that produces vegan products and claims to be both environmentally and animal friendly actually uses it in their products.
Sign now to tell Earth Balance to stop using palm oil now!
Palm oil is a vegetable oil made from the fruit of an African oil palm tree and it's the leading cause of orangutan extinction. That's because these primates' habitat is being cleared rapidly to make room for palm oil plantations. And when their habitat disappears, they are forced into spaces where they come into more conflict with humans and are poached.
Even worse: farmers often set fire to the orangutans' forest homes, causing whole animal communities to go up in flames. Just in the past few years, wildlife sanctuaries have seen huge increases in the number of horrifically burnt orangutans needing immediate life-saving care.
But not only are orangutans threatened by palm oil plantations, so is the broader environment. The palm oil tree can only grow in extremely humid conditions, but that's where tropical forests are that act as a carbon sink for us. Carbon sinks are important because they absorb greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, and when they're upended, all of that stored carbon is released -- making things that much worse. So every time another forest is bulldozed to plant palm oil trees, we are inching closer to both devastating climate change and the loss of the entire orangutan species!
Palm oil is found in somewhere around 50% of western products. While it's good for individual consumers to try not to buy products with palm oil, that's not possible for everyone to practice, nor does everyone know how bad it is to support this industry. That's why we need to keep the pressure on the companies that continue to use it, even though they know how bad it is!
Earth Balance says they use ethically sourced palm oil, but that's actually not something that exists. All the experts say we need to use other types of oil because this one is so destructive. If this vegan product company says it cares about animals so much, it needs to put its money where its proverbial mouth is!
Sign on if you want Earth Balance to stop using Palm Oil finally!
