One Size Fits All

I spent some time in the library today and read this interesting article in the New Yorker. The main topic was greenhouse  emissions. The article starts out by mentioning Tesco’s (Britain’s largest retailer) committment to reducing greenhouse emissions:

Tesco sells nearly a quarter of the groceries bought in the United Kingdom, it possesses a growing share of the markets in Asia and Europe, and late last year the chain opened its first stores in America. Few corporations could have a more visible—or forceful—impact on the lives of their customers. In his speech, Leahy, who is fifty-two, laid out a series of measures that he hoped would ignite "a revolution in green consumption." He announced that Tesco would cut its energy use in half by 2010, drastically limit the number of products it transports by air, and place airplane symbols on the packaging of those which it does. More important, in an effort to help consumers understand the environmental impact of the choices they make every day, he told the forum that Tesco would develop a system of carbon labels and put them on each of its seventy thousand products. "Customers want us to develop ways to take complicated carbon calculations and present them simply," he said. "We will therefore begin the search for a universally accepted and commonly understood measure of the carbon footprint of every product we sell—looking at its complete life cycle, from production through distribution to consumption. It will enable us to label all our products so that customers can compare their carbon footprint as easily as they can currently compare their price or their nutritional profile."

One of the things the article mentions is an exchange called the "Chicago Climate Exchange".

In most respects, the exchange operates like any other market. Instead of pork-belly futures or gold, however, CCX members buy and sell the right to pollute. Each makes a voluntary (but legally binding) commitment to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases—including carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide—and hydrofluorocarbons. Four hundred corporations now belong to the exchange, including a growing percentage of America’s largest manufacturers. The members agree to reduce their emissions by a certain amount every year, a system commonly known as cap and trade. A baseline target, or cap, is established, and companies whose emissions fall below that cap receive allowances, which they can sell (or save to use later). Companies whose emissions exceed the limit are essentially fined and forced to buy credits to compensate for their excess.

The article details the exchange’s activities in more detail and it would give anyone a headache. Why creative financing needs more areas to infiltrate is beyond me. Has it ever done anyone any good? Why not try a simplistic approach? Anyway…moving on…

The following para annoyed me…specifically Adrian Williams:

Yet the relationship between food miles and their carbon footprint is not nearly as clear as it might seem. That is often true even when the environmental impact of shipping goods by air is taken into consideration. "People should stop talking about food miles," Adrian Williams told me. "It’s a foolish concept: provincial, damaging, and simplistic." Williams is an agricultural researcher in the Natural Resources Department of Cranfield University, in England. He has been commissioned by the British government to analyze the relative environmental impacts of a number of foods. "The idea that a product travels a certain distance and is therefore worse than one you raised nearby—well, it’s just idiotic," he said. "It doesn’t take into consideration the land use, the type of transportation, the weather, or even the season. Potatoes you buy in winter, of course, have a far higher environmental ticket than if you were to buy them in August." Williams pointed out that when people talk about global warming they usually speak only about carbon dioxide. Making milk or meat contributes less CO₂ to the atmosphere than building a house or making a washing machine. But the animals produce methane and nitrous oxide, and those are greenhouse gases, too. "This is not an equation like the number of calories or even the cost of a product," he said. "There is no one number that works."

One reason I try to eat local food is for environmental reasons. However, its not the whole picture. I also eat locally to support the local economy, to do my part toward the trade deficit and other reasons. I also tend to have a doomsday view of thinking. What if New Zealand dissapeared tomorrow and I was addicted to kiwi eggs. I like to have contingency plans for everything (its how I keep myself entertained).  

The article is a good read. Check it out.