Palm oil is in our instant noodles and our chocolate bars, our lipsticks and our fuel tanks. But what is palm oil? Presented by author Jocelyn Zuckerman.
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How has this little-known commodity come to dominate our lives so completely? To find the answers to these questions, Jocelyn Zuckerman traveled across four continents and back in time two centuries. The obscure oil palm fruit, she discovered, has played an outsized role in history, from spurring the colonization of Nigeria and greasing the gears of the Second Industrial Revolution, to transforming the economies of Malaysia and Indonesia. But the palm oil revolution has been built on stolen land and slave labor; it’s swept away lives and cultures and so ravaged the landscapes of Southeast Asia that such iconic animals as the orangutan now teeter on the brink of extinction. Fires lit to clear the way for plantations. spew carbon emissions to rival those of entire industrialized nations. Combining history, travelogue, and investigative reporting, "Planet Palm" offers an unsettling, urgent look at the global palm oil industry and at our own unwitting role in fueling what has today become an environmental and public-health catastrophe.
Author and Presenter: Jocelyn Zuckerman
For most of her career, Jocelyn has worked as an editor, beginning at a little lifestyle magazine called "InFashion" and spending a few years at travel trades before landing at "Gourmet" in 1996.
In the years since "Gourmet" folded, Jocelyn has mostly freelanced, aside from shortish gigs as articles editor of "OnEarth," the now-defunct magazine of the Natural Resources Defense Council, or NRDC, and executive editor of "Whole Living," the now-also-defunct sustainability-focused magazine put out by Martha Stewart. She has also been an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and a contributing editor at both "Modern Farmer" and "Condé Nast Traveler." Her articles, which range from straight travel pieces to features on issues related to the environment, agriculture, nutrition, and the developing world, have appeared in "Audubon," "The American Prospect," "Fast Company," "The New York Times Magazine," and lots of other places. She has been the recipient of a James Beard Award for feature writing and of fellowships from the Alicia Patterson Foundation, the Carter Center, The Peter Jennings Project, and the New York Times Company Foundation.
Along the way, she has studied French literature at the Sorbonne and English literature at Hamilton College, and she received a Master’s from Columbia’s Journalism School. She has also spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer, teaching English and math in a little village in western Kenya. These days she is based in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, where she lives with her husband, two daughters, and dogs.
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