PLANET PALM by Jocelyn C. Zuckerman (Kenya)
A truly wonderful book. Go Jocelyn!
Planet Palm: How Palm Oil Ended Up in Everything–and Endangered the World
by Jocelyn C. Zuckerman (Kenya 1991-93)
The New Press
328 pages
May 2021
$14.57 (Kindle); $21.49 (Hardcover); $18.49 (Audio CD)
Over the past few decades, palm oil has seeped into every corner of our lives. Worldwide, palm oil production has nearly doubled in just the last decade. Oil-palm plantations now cover an area nearly the size of New Zealand, and some form of the commodity lurks in half the products on U.S. grocery shelves. But the palm oil revolution has been built on stolen land and slave labor; it’s swept away cultures and so devastated the landscapes of Southeast Asia that iconic animals now teeter on the brink of extinction. Fires lit to clear the way for plantations spew carbon emissions to rival those of industrialized nations.
Jocelyn C. Zuckerman (Kenya 1991-93)
James Beard Award–winning journalist Jocelyn C. Zuckerman spent years traveling the globe, from Liberia to Indonesia, India to Brazil, reporting on the human and environmental impacts of this poorly understood plant. The result is Planet Palm, a riveting account blending history, science, politics, and food as seen through the people whose lives have been upended by this hidden ingredient.
This groundbreaking work of first-rate journalism compels us to examine the connections between the choices we make at the grocery store and a planet under siege.
POSSIBLE PEACE (morning/ mourning jingle) PERHAPS
I’d asked if peace was possible, not “were” it possible.
I asked where’s a pulse for peace fearing there was none.
Eva and Al, dear friends, said peace—she wrote “pulse”—
is often hard to find and you had to keep feeling around,
gently. Then feel some more. Never give up on the double P.
Victoria, dear niece, says be realistic about your seeing,
trying accepting, understanding even when not agreeing.
(C) Copyright Edward Mycue July 14, 2022
A truly wonderful book. Go Jocelyn!