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Our inadvertent Impacts on the Ecology of our Planet

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 Godwin 08 Feb 2022

Its quite difficult to keep up with how our lifestyles impact our planet. One would have to be rather uninformed not to appreciate that using fossil fuels have negative impacts on our planet, both in terms of climate change and pollution effecting health. And I often wonder about the impact of transporting non seasonal foods around the globe.
But this article https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/08/bitter-fruit-strawberry-boom-... about the impact of Strawberry growing shocked me. Who would have thought that buying Strawberries would implicate me in damaging an ecosystem I think should be cherished and would like to visit, hopefully by Train and Touring bike.
Is buying such products, with such impacts a choice we should even have, and who should be deciding, us, business, national government or do we need a trans national global governing body. Or is it too late, and I should just eat my Strawberries* and go climbing.

* I wouldn't care but they taste crap anyway.

Post edited at 08:27
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 Tringa 08 Feb 2022
In reply to Godwin:

Have a look at this edition of Simon Reeve's journey in the Mediterranean.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bqn4g1/mediterranean-with-simon-ree...

The impact of growing fruit and veg under square miles of plastic starts at 26 minutes.

Dave

 RX-78 08 Feb 2022
In reply to Godwin:

One of the reasons we went with riverford veg box scheme, to eat seasonally and organically. 

My new food moral dilemma is the land and resources taken up by tea and coffee, which i love! i try to reduce the harm by buying fair trade and organic, but still not a necessity.

Post edited at 12:27
 girlymonkey 08 Feb 2022
In reply to RX-78:

Sugar and cocoa are also pretty bad. I like chocolate!!

We also have a good supply of local fruit and veg, but I do sadly really like the more "exotic" stuff. I love sweet potatoes, mangos, bananas etc. I'm really not into normal white potatoes and there is a limit to how often I want turnip and cabbage! I try to get as much as I can from local options, but I do go for other stuff too.

I never get imported strawberries or raspberries though, they are just tasteless!! I wait until they are in season locally and get them from our local farm shop. You get the best strawberries imaginable from our local shop! I don't even buy English strawberries, they have to be from Perthshire or Angus!!

 Harry Jarvis 08 Feb 2022
In reply to girlymonkey:

> I never get imported strawberries or raspberries though, they are just tasteless!! I wait until they are in season locally and get them from our local farm shop. You get the best strawberries imaginable from our local shop! I don't even buy English strawberries, they have to be from Perthshire or Angus!!

I remember my Australian father-in-law being surprised at the quality of Scottish strawberries and raspberries - he had the idea that it would be impossible to grow soft fruit like that in a Scottish climate. However, we must recognise that most Scottish soft fruit are also grown under acres of plastic - any drive from Perth to Dundee will pass polytunnels by the hundred, and the countryside round towns such as Blairgowrie and Arbroath is heavily blighted with plastic. Even here, we impose a significant weight on our environment. 

 Tringa 08 Feb 2022
In reply to RX-78:

> One of the reasons we went with riverford veg box scheme, to eat seasonally and organically. 

> My new food moral dilemma is the land and resources taken up by tea and coffee, which i love! i try to reduce the harm by buying fair trade and organic, but still not a necessity.

Same here with Riverford. Not all of their stuff is from the UK but they seem to do what they can to reduce the distance travelled. Have to admit we sometimes get veg from abroad but we try to keep it to a minimum.

Though, it was only recently that I found out that food miles is quite literally a measure of the miles only. It takes no account of how those miles were covered, eg by air which is environmentally unfriendly or by ship which is much better.

Dave

 jimtitt 08 Feb 2022
In reply to Tringa:

Food miles have never been an indication of the environmental burden of food products, you have to go through the entire production chain and the lifestyle of the producer as well.


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