It’s Girl Scout cookie time! I love Girl Scout cookies! My favorite is Thin Mint, with Somoas being a close second.

But I will not be buying any cookies this year – or any year – until palm oil is removed from the list of ingredients.

Palm oil is one of the main reasons the rainforests are being destroyed and driving orangutans to extinction. Child labor has also been exposed in connection with palm oil. Can we possibly condone these practices in the name of a cookie sale?

The Girls Scouts are powerful, creative and problem solvers. We can all certainly support that!

Perhaps instead of selling cookies, the Girl Scouts could sell something beneficial to us, the animals and the earth itself. Shade grown coffee.

Fairtrade chocolate. Sustainably grown and harvested nuts. Packets of pollinator garden seeds.

Imagine the Girl Scouts educating us! Empowering us to be our better selves. And to cherish the world we live in.

Ironically, it was from two Cadet Girl Scouts that I learned about the palm oil – orangutan connection. And today, some girl scout troops themselves are boycotting the cookie sales, and calling attention to the use of child labor in growing and harvesting of palm oil. Google ‘Girl Scouts & palm oil’ to learn more.

I won’t be buying any GS cookies this year. I will send them a generous donation and encourage them to step up to the plate and serve up some new life-giving and life-sustaining options.

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