It has been a hazy past couple of weeks or so in Singapore. Or at least so i heard. Thankfully (for me, at least), the haziest period this year (so far) coincided with the June holidays, so there was practically no chance that i would still be in Singapore by the time the smokiest and most suffocating days came by. I was very shocked when, while on holiday i came to hear of PSI readings of more than 300 - i distinctly recall the 200-ish readings back in 1997 when i was still in school and thinking that it couldn't get much worse than that, so it must have been really bad.
Long before this haze outbreak i had been critical of the increased usage of biofuels in general, and specifically in the Southeast Asian context, with palm oil. The trend towards their increased use for fuel has undoubtedly further fueled the problem, regardless of which countries the firms are from. As a result, i have, half-heartedly, been trying to avoid consuming products with palm oil for quite some time already. It's not easy though, given the ubiquity of the darn thing nowadays in all sorts of food and other products. Earlier today when i was just reading a post encouraging people to boycott palm oil products i felt a sudden burst of inspiration to do so, but then i realised that at that moment, i was munching on a cadbury bar that of course had to contain palm oil. Oh the irony.
I will continue to try to avoid palm oil products in any case, though not religiously. However, i've often wondered about the effectiveness of boycotts, especially if the company you're boycotting is not aware that you're boycotting them - how would that have any effect on what they do then? Then there also is the matter of ethically-sourced palm oil versus the other stuff, though here in Singapore i've yet to encounter the former labelled explicitly, so i assume only the latter is around.
