The real price of that imported kiwi
Interesting article in the New York Times this morning, about a subject we’ve all been hearing about a lot: the environmental effects of global food shipping. Not only are we eating food imported from far away places when it’s unavailable or not in season here, but we’re actually shipping lemons from Argentina to the citrus-rich south of Spain, sending Norwegian cod to China to be made into fillets and shipped back to Norway again. And we’re starting to pay the cost in terms of global warming from the carbon emissions from all that shipping.
So maybe it’s time to pay the financial cost as well, some economists say, in the form of taxes and carbon offsets for shippers and shoppers alike. While neither airplanes or ocean freighters are currently taxed for fuel used for international travel and transport of good, many people think it’s time to end these tax breaks.
Well, that doesn’t sound like a bad plan to me, but the question of imported foods and carbon emissions still present a conundrum for those of us who really love to eat (I don’t know about you, but I’m not interested in any 100-mile diet that doesn’t involve chocolate or coffee) and care about the environment. How do you green foodies out there deal with this issue?
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Tags: environment, Imported Food, Local Eating, shipping