CABI Blogs: hand picked... and carefully sorted

Motiviation to give up meat? (and save the planet, maybe)

My colleagues and I have blogged about how eating less meat could reduce one's carbon footprint. But how to motivate people to do this is a problem - people like meat. Here is a reason for men to consider giving up meat - I stumbled over it while searching on Nutrition and Food Sciences Database. Could be a fruitful area of research to pursue? Could it also work for women?

The state of our planet told in ‘Hard Rain’ a film released today to set the scene for the UN climate talks

Each time I check my work email inbox lately, I find it’s inundated with notifications, press releases and invitations to events during the COP15 Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen. One email, which caught my eye and prompted me to share it here, was a press release and invite to the launch of the film‘Hard Rain’ that will surely set the scene nicely for the summit. Bob Dylan's powerful, prophetic and legendary song, ‘A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall’, is surely set to become the unofficial soundtrack to the Copenhagen climate talks. Read on to learn more about the project.

Grow your own Christmas tree

Have you ever considered trying to grow your own Christmas tree? Or wondered what paper made of reindeer poo would be like...? How about combining the two - a little natural fertlizer perhaps? Well somebody has... The Exotic Paper Company, better known for its Ellie Poo and Rhino Poo papers (made from elephant and rhino poo!), is now selling Reindeer Poo paper (pictured on the left) that has growable Christmas tree seeds in it!

The handmade paper can be used, then planted in your back garden to grow real Christmas tree plants. The paper is 100% recycled and some of the profits made by the company go to conservation projects around the world, including The Millennium Elephant Foundation, The Elephant Family and Save the Rhino International.

So, aside from reindeer poo paper, how do you grow your own Christmas tree? Read on...

Is local food environmentally costly?

Many consumers feel that they should be buying “local food” to help combat climate change – but could “local food” actually result in more carbon emissions than food distributed through conventional supply chains? David Oglethorpe raises this possibility along with some other surprising ideas in a paper in CAB Reviews.

 

Oglethorpe, of the Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University points out that the economies of scale of major production networks do actually result in some environmental benefits. A study of sausages showed that using HGVs in efficient distribution chains resulted in a much lower carbon footprint per sausage than resulted from the many smaller journeys in smaller vehicles that were typical of local food production.

In attempting to be more “green”, many consumers feel that they should not buy food that is highly packaged. But Oglethorpe says that there is much higher food waste with food that is low on packaging. And the emissions associated with food decay, particularly methane, are much more significant than for packaging materials. So it might make more environmental sense to use more packaging. 

Some producers who supply local food also use more environmentally friendly farming or production techniques. However, this is not always the case, and studies suggest that while the association may be strong in the consumer’s mind, in reality it may be weak. There are also examples where local production is more resource-consuming than production in a geographical area more suited to a particular type of farming.  For example, there is some evidence that New Zealand lamb imported to the UK has a smaller environmental impact than that produced in the UK, despite the obvious transport-related emissions.

However, local food may have other benefits. It can provide an important boost to the local economy, offering employment, and attracting tourism, local festivals and the “vibrancy” of an area. The fact that consumers can meet face-to-face with producers may have positive effects on the local community. Some local foods are of better quality – e.g. “local” meat products tend to have higher meat content than typical mass distribution equivalents. However, some that target an “indulgent” consumer have high sugar or fat content, and thus could have negative health impacts.

 

So consumers should not be assumers that local is always best. However, there is currently no agreement on what “local” means, and the hidden environmental costs are far from obvious. As with many environmental analysis, research is only beginning to scratch the surface, and agreeing what is fair to count within the cost is a controversial business.

 

The paper, Food miles – the economic, environmental and social significance of the focus on local food by David Oglethorpe appears in CAB Reviews: Perspectives in Agriculture, Veterinary Science, Nutrition and Natural Resources, 2009, 4, No. 072, 11 pp.

The Carbon the World Forgot

Image courtesy of "The Carbon the World Forgot" report.

Boreal forests, found in northern areas like Canada, Russia, Scandinavia and parts of the United States, cover 11% of the earth and store 22% of all carbon on the land surface in soil, permafrost, peatlands and wetlands. They also store nearly twice as much carbon as tropical forests per hectare: a fact which researchers say should make the conservation of boreal forests as important as tropical in climate change negotiations.

Himalayan glaciers - not melting as fast as once thought?

I came across an interesting article whilst reading a recent issue of Science (13 November) that bucks the trend of many gloomy climate change reports over the last few months.

It seems that Himalayan glaciers are not melting as fast as is commonly believed. A recent report by senior glaciologist Vijay Kumar Raina, formerly of the Geological Survey of India, suggests that many Himalayan glaciers show no change or have even advanced, and that the rate of retreat for many others has slowed. Released by the India's Ministry of Environment and Forests a few weeks ago, the report draws on a review of satellite and ground measurements made by Indian research groups presented in a range of published and several unpublished studies.

The face of climate change

Is it a polar bear or…a child in Africa?

(image by Just being myself)

Going Veggie to save the planet – does what you eat really matter to our planet?

According to Lord Stern of Brentford, what we eat does matter and we should be eating less meat or even becoming vegetarians to reduce greenhouse gases emissions and, therefore, stop global warming from increasing and climate change from happening.

International Day of Climate Action – 24 October 2009

“Scientists say that 350ppm CO2 in the atmosphere is the safe limit for humanity.” Read on to find out why.

Climate change – the influence on food security

“When it rains, it does not rain on one roof only”

 
This is a saying from the home village in western Kenya of my friend and colleague Dennis Rangi, CABI’s Executive Director for International Development. He said this in his introduction to the CABI Summit in London which I though was particularly apt as I listened to speakers talk about the impact of climate change on their part of the world. Dennis showed two photographs of Mount Kilimanjaro and described how he remembers growing up looking at the mountain, a powerful symbol of Africa thats snow-cap has receded in a stark reminder of the reality of climate change.