The Great Grab

If oil is the blood of the devil, then palm oil is his piss.

KMO attended the Techno-Utopianism and the Fate of the Earth teach-in at Cooper Union this past weekend where he met and recorded conversations with Anuradha Mittal of the Oakland Institute and Helena Norberg-Hodge of Local Futures/International Society for Ecology and Culture. Anuradha describes how agricultural corporations who portray their actions in terms sustainable practices and taking the needs of all stake-holders into account are pulling off an enormous land-grab in Africa and Asia and how the policies of the World Bank tilt the field in their favor to the detriment of local people. Helena Norberg-Hodge takes on the idea that humans are so selfish and short-sighted that they deserve to go extinct. This attitude plays into the hands of transnational corporations who are more than happy to see the blame for climate change, inequality and injustice fall on individual actors and not to the policies that create a marketplace which favors short-term profits over long-term responsibility.

Music by East Forest.