@*&!# (ancient Gaulish swear words)

[watervole]

Heathrow is already the UK's biggest carbon emitter.   The third runway has just been approved...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/01/high-court-dismisses-attempt-to-block-third-heathrow-runway

Comments

[igenlode]

That doesn't sit very well with the whole "We need to cut aerolane traffic down drastically NOW" message (and to be honest cutting aeroplane traffic ought to be an easy win, since it's an expensive way to move things and doesn't carry much freight)

[watervole]

We have to slash aviation, but it's a very tough sell.

People are remarkably reluctant to give up their overseas holidays.

Do you fly overseas? Or indeed anywhere?

It's cheaper than it should be as aviation fuel is tax-exempt (and the power of the aviation lobby is such that no one seems able to break that long standing international tax agreement). Thus, people flying by plane often pay less (sometimes a lot less) than those travelling by greener methods, such as rail.

Also, want to bet that you buy things that are air-freighted without even realising it? Cut flowers, green veg grown overseas? Short shelf-life, so usually imported by air.

I never buy cut flowers... I also read country of origin labels on everything I buy. (Or rather 'don't buy')

Aviation is also exempt from the carbon cuts that individual countries are agreeing to in the Paris agreement (I only discovered that last week) - which means governments have less incentive to tackle it as it won't show in their CO2 reduction figures. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/16/how-airlines-can-fly-around-new-carbon-rules

[igenlode]

Me personally? No, I never fly overseas, or indeed anywhere -- so it's easy for me...

And I never buy cut flowers (I don't like the 'artificial' arranged bouquets, which are nothing like a posy out of the garden), so that's easy for me to say too. I have occasionally bought [fresh] herbs that said they were grown abroad, which I know because I too read the labels on things ;-D

I try not to buy out-of-season food or prepacked Kenyan beans, etc., but I do get through a lot of oranges, which definitely don't grow in this country.
Most of my veg comes from the greengrocer, and I don't know where he gets it from; I have my suspicions about the sweet peppers.

[watervole]

Clearly my long lost twin :)

Have you considered Riverford? https://www.riverford.co.uk/

We've been getting an organic veg box from them for a very long time.

One of the things I like about them is that they do carbon calculations on everything. If it uses less carbon to bring early veg from France, then they do that. If growing them under glass in the UK is lower carbon, then they do that.
They never air freight, but do use oranges and bananas (fair trade) shipped by sea.

[igenlode]

We had an organic box for years (Abel & Cole), but I had to give it up for financial reasons. Their fruit tended to be very unsatisfactory anyway; I think the basic problem was that there really isn't much local fruit in season for a large chunk of the year, but modern customers expect it all year round. We ended up with an awful lot of rather tasteless kiwi fruit... I didn't particularly like their apples and oranges, either.

It's still more expensive to buy from the greengrocer than to get fruit & veg at the supermarket, and there is a more limited selection, but it saves an awful lot of heavy carrying and I've known him for about thirty years. He too has to stock out-of-season produce because the customers demand it, but he always knows what's in season and what tastes good at the moment (since he eats out of his own stock!) and gets his food at market daily.

(I was very much taken aback at the supermarket a couple of weeks ago to hear a woman wanting to know why they didn't have any cherries; cherries -- in April! But of course they've been selling strawberries and raspberries on special offer for months, and grapes and melons all year round; there's precious little that is seasonal these days, but cherries happen to grow on trees and are thus much harder to produce hydroponically. It's ironic that people can gush over cherry-blossom in the spring and yet totally fail to make the connection between flowers and fruit.)

An interesting ethical dilemma is whether it is all right to buy imported food that is on sale because it is date-expired (and thus is no longer a wasteful luxury but something that needs rescuing from being wasted ;-p) My instinct is that it's better to eat it than let it be thrown away, thus causing all the emissions generated in its production to be doubly futile; like fur coats disinterred from the attic, which should be used for their proper purpose (keeping warm), rather than being dumped in landfill or daubed in piant in revenge for the deaths of animals whose natural lifespan expired generations ago...

[watervole]

Riverford now have very larger cool stores that keep UK fruit in season much longer. I Like their apples, they use a range of varieties to expend the season.

totally understand your greengrocer. Personal service, and less weight to carry, and an excuse for a walk, are all good reasons to shop there.

Yes, I would happily buy date-expired fruit - waste is worse.

With you on old fur coats as well.

[igenlode]

Well, I didn't buy the date-expired fruit because I reckoned somebody else would, but that's ethically a bit confused, really...