Big Foot revisited

Just when you thought going green couldn't get any more complicated along comes the New Yorker magazine with "Big Foot," an article by Michael Spector that raises questions about the assumption that eating locally produced food is always better, in climate change terms, than stuff that's imported from a long distance away, even if it's shipped by air. It's generally assumed that greater distance means more greenhouse gas emissions. Spector argues that's not invariably the case. It's worth a read, although it doesn't deal with the issues raised in our Challenge 3, about the heavy impact of consuming animal products. Here's one example:

"Researchers at Lincoln University, in Christchurch, found that lamb raised in New Zealand and shipped 11,000 miles by boat to England produced 688 kilograms of carbon-dioxide emissions perton, about a fourth the amount produced by British lamb. In part, that is because pastures in New Zealand need far less fertilizer than most grazing land in Britain (or in many parts of the United States.)"

Nevertheless, that still leaves the choice of lamb or not lamb. 686 kilograms is a lot of CO2.

--Peter Gorrie