Tim Worstall

Flower Miles

Gosh, this is interesting:

The Valentine’s Day bouquet — the gift that every
woman in Britain will be waiting for next week — has become the latest
bête noire among environmental campaigners.

Latest Government figures show that the flowers that make up the average bunch have flown 33,800 miles to reach Britain.

In
the past three years, the amount of flowers imported from the
Netherlands has fallen by 47 per cent to 94,000 tons, while those from
Africa have risen 39 per cent to 17,000 tons.

33,800 miles eh? As right round the world is 25,000 (nautical) niles, what do they do, take them sight seeing first? Or is this something of an exaggeration for rhetorical effect do you think?

In

6 responses

  1. Tristan Avatar
    Tristan

    Perhaps they mean the miles traveled by each flower in the bunch added together?
    Rediculous if you ask me, they don’t have 1 plane for each bunch.
    And its now bad we’re helping Africans earn a living by buying their produce… I despair of people.

    Reply
  2. dsquared Avatar
    dsquared

    the flowers in a typical bunch will usually have come from more than one location.

    Reply
  3. sanbikinoraion Avatar
    sanbikinoraion

    Tim, is a nautical mile the same as a regular mile, or is there a 10% difference between the two?
    Tim adds: There is a difference. 5%? 10%? Something like that. I used nautical miles simply because I can remember the circumference of the earth (to be tiresomely detailed, at the equator) in nautical miles and not in regular ones (what’s the correct name? Roman miles or something?)

    Reply
  4. dearieme Avatar
    dearieme

    Approx one seventh longer, isn’t it? Wasn’t the Roman mile a thousand “paces”, their pace being a double stride? If you assume that they were little eyeties, then that’s close enough to our mile. But someone must KNOW, rather than depending on vague recollections from primary school.

    Reply
  5. Sam Duncan Avatar
    Sam Duncan

    “I can remember the circumference of the earth (to be tiresomely detailed, at the equator) in nautical miles and not in regular ones (what’s the correct name? Roman miles or something?)”
    Statute miles. And 25000 nautical miles is around 29000 of ’em.
    http://www.boatsafe.com/tools/scale.htm

    Reply
  6. David Nelson Avatar
    David Nelson

    “Air freighting flowers half way round the world contributes to global warming,” Mr Andrew Sims, the policy director of the New Economics Foundation, is quoted as saying. “You can argue the planes would be flying anyway but the amount of greenhouse gases pumped out depends on the weight of the cargo.”
    Who is Andrew Sims and the “nef,” as they apparently call themselves? There is nothing on the nef website about the “Flower Miles Campaign” referred to by the Erastus Murthei of the Kenya Flower Council.
    “Mureithi said the new flower mile campaign was blind to the socio-economic benefits associated with trade in food and flowers from Africa.”
    “More than one million people are employed in the flower sector in Kenya and benefits rural economies in the continent. Mureithi pointed out that small-scale producers account for 90 per cent of fruits and vegetables exported to the UK.” From The East African Standard, 20 Feb.

    Reply

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