Blog for the environment day
Oct. 16th, 2007 02:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trixtahSo, today is apparently "blog for the environment" day. While it's something we should be considering constantly, raising the profile even more certainly can't hurt: some bandwagons you just need to jump on. Personally, I think that the environment is one of the most pressing issues facing us, in conjunction with the economic policies that make it more profitable to pollute and use up our environmental capital, rather than fixing it.
There are those, like Bjorn Lomborg, who believe that by over-emphasising the perils of global warming and so on, there is a risk that other crucial priorities for human well-being will be overlooked. Two immediate responses spring to mind: 1) if the world goes up in flames, other "priorities" will be moot; 2) since when has any group, such as the entire population of the world, been incapable of working on more than one objective at a time?
We do the things we can, and hope that all those small differences add up to enough. Now, I'm going to talk about "buy local". Worthy aim, when it doesn't fuck up something else. To all Tasman-ites, please, for god's sake, stop buying Australian rice. The Murray-Darling river system feeds those rice paddies. It is drying up. There have been droughts for years. They are selling Murray River salt in the supermarkets. The environmental cost of rice shipped in from Asia via cargo boat is negligible compared to the cost of Australia's largest river dying. Think about it. Cargo boats, while they pollute in their own way, can carry massive quantities of goods, so their carbon footprint is relatively low. Sure, consider food miles as part of the equation, but look at the cost to the local environment when it comes to trying to grow crops that are unsuitable for it, and check out the means of transport - trains vs trucks, boats vs planes, and so on. These equations are not simple, but at least try to consider the whole picture.
There are those, like Bjorn Lomborg, who believe that by over-emphasising the perils of global warming and so on, there is a risk that other crucial priorities for human well-being will be overlooked. Two immediate responses spring to mind: 1) if the world goes up in flames, other "priorities" will be moot; 2) since when has any group, such as the entire population of the world, been incapable of working on more than one objective at a time?
We do the things we can, and hope that all those small differences add up to enough. Now, I'm going to talk about "buy local". Worthy aim, when it doesn't fuck up something else. To all Tasman-ites, please, for god's sake, stop buying Australian rice. The Murray-Darling river system feeds those rice paddies. It is drying up. There have been droughts for years. They are selling Murray River salt in the supermarkets. The environmental cost of rice shipped in from Asia via cargo boat is negligible compared to the cost of Australia's largest river dying. Think about it. Cargo boats, while they pollute in their own way, can carry massive quantities of goods, so their carbon footprint is relatively low. Sure, consider food miles as part of the equation, but look at the cost to the local environment when it comes to trying to grow crops that are unsuitable for it, and check out the means of transport - trains vs trucks, boats vs planes, and so on. These equations are not simple, but at least try to consider the whole picture.
