> Certainly it matters, and I agree that food-miles are a
> over-simplified metric. My problem is that if the critique is on
> target -- I recall similar ones, though I haven't read the report
> itself -- it sounds like they were gaming the analysis for a bit of
> national advocacy instead of an objective examination of food miles.
> For example, overland transportation is well understood to be much
> more carbon intensive than sea freight. Why take their hydroelectric
> production vs. coal into account and leave that out? And does Britain
> really have to go to the antipodes for grass fed meat? There's
> nothing in Britain, and nothing in between? If it's worthwhile in
> carbon terms to get it from NZ, surely it's even better to get it from
> Iceland. They're big on non-combustion energy, too.
Yeah, sure, I couldn't care less about the nationalist aspect; if they omitted the land transport part so much the worse for the particular conclusions and the credibility of those particular figures. I think we agree the basic approach stands - the lesson is to include all the relevant emissions.
But I don't think it's that surprising the meat travels so far - ever since refrigerated shipping was developed in the 1880s the antipodes have been an economical place to grow meat. If it were more profitable to do it in Iceland, it would have happened. I don't know too much about Iceland's agriculture but my guess is it has less productive land. Just as economies of fertility and scale can overcome the 'tyranny of distance' for trade, surely there are _carbon_ economies of fertility and scale that beat the carbon costs of transport.
Mike Beggs