Tim Worstall

Typical Guardianista

So Rebecca Front has decided to reduce the food miles that go into her family’s maw. Silly thing to do, if one really were worried about the effect of your eating habits upon climate change then one would look at total emissions from your food rather than the miles travelled.

Think, for example, of that rather lovely DEFRA report that shows that 48% of food miles are bringing the stuff back from the shops, not getting it to them.

Anyway, she finds that she can’t in fact find anything to eat in the supermarket  in January, beyond some kale etc, that is both organic and UK (or even European) produced. Fair enough, that’s a pretty good description of how we are fed now. But this:

If our shopping habits are to adapt then it will have to come from
government pressure on food retailers, not from consumer pressure.

Isn’t that the most delighful example of Guardianista thinking? Because the supermarkets don’t sell what I want to buy then the Government must force them to? Further:

I can’t stop it single-handedly, but if we all use what little power we have as consumers, maybe it will make a difference.

Little power? Does this woman not realise that to a profit making business, the consumer is sovereign? If "we all use" then the supermarkets will have home grown, organic only, products on the shelves faster than you can get a bureaucrat to sharpen his pencil.

How in hell do you think the imported organic veggies got into the places in the first place? I don’t remember any edict going out from Whitehall, do you? Consumers asked for, by buying the things, so supermarkets stock them.

A question: just how foolish and unobservant to you have to be to get an article into The Guardian? Am I there yet?

In

8 responses

  1. Kit Avatar
    Kit

    Will the government also make vegetables grow out of season? If you want eat locally produced vegetables in January you had better buy a copy of “101 Ways to Cook a Turnip”.

    Reply
  2. Tristan Avatar
    Tristan

    I think she means that she as an individual has no power to force upon others what she believes…
    Thank the lord for that is all I can say.

    Reply
  3. JuliaM Avatar
    JuliaM

    “Isn’t that the most delighful example of Guardianista thinking?”
    It’s the only example you’ll ever need…
    I wouldn’t characterise it as ‘thinking’, though.

    Reply
  4. pete Avatar
    pete

    The Guardian whines about the ‘guilty’ people every so often to assure the readers that they are not personally responsible for all the CO2 produced by their affluent lifestyles.

    Reply
  5. james higham Avatar
    james higham

    Pretty pure example of leftist thinking. Government should do this and that. I agree with the above commenter that this is sufficient for their motto.

    Reply
  6. Jim Avatar
    Jim

    <moonbat>
    Will the government also make vegetables grow out of season?
    Interesting question. I have before me a copy of the Manchester Guardian from the 1930s, which contains an article showing how Soviet scientific leadership has discovered how you can grow cereals such as wheat in winter. The phenomenal yields promise to banish famine forever. Inexplicably, this article is not online.
    I imagine that corporate power has suppressed this discovery just as it did the car that ran on water.
    </moonbat>

    Reply
  7. sanbikinoriaon Avatar
    sanbikinoriaon

    The same Defra report, while concluding that food miles are not a useful measure, does outline the rough CO2 emission impact of food buying in the UK. Cars account for only 13% of the emissions of food transport, so your implied suggestion that she look at her own behaviour first is rendered slightly invalid.
    By entertaining numeric coincidence, 48% of the CO2 emissions are produced transporting food into the UK (that’s sea, air, overseas HGV & LGV), so buying UK-grown food due to its reduced food miles actually turns out to be a fairly good strategy for CO2 emission reduction, particularly since as a consumer one has little idea by which method one’s food has been transported, but the country of origin is usually present. With the information available, how else would you suggest she attempt to reduce the CO2 emissions from her food?
    Of course, even better would be to buy local (knocking out the 33% internal HGV emissions).
    Other than that, I agree that the supermarkets clearly are providing what people want in terms of more organic lines without government intervention, and that’s a good thing, in my book.

    Reply
  8. dodgy geezer Avatar
    dodgy geezer

    “With the information available, how else would you suggest she attempt to reduce the CO2 emissions from her food?”
    Umm…
    Your problem has a host of ramifications. If you want to reduce the CO2 emmissions from food (whatever that means – perhaps transport?) you should grow in a local garden or alottment within walking distance.
    However, you will find that you cannot grow the quantity or quality required if you follow this route. So you may find that you need to add fertiliser and greenhouse enclosures. Supporting millions of these small holdings are going to add huge amounts of transport CO2 to the mix, as well as being hopelessly inefficient.
    So maybe you bring the smallholdings together in one place. Now the growing is efficient, but you need to distribute the food. Of course, this is what already happens.
    What a strange idea to think there is an answer! There are a multiplicity of answers, depending on how you like your politics. But whatever this is, it isn’t science.

    Reply

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