Something similar. In many places, even in our country, concession stand food offering showers to e

There is something twisted seemingly modern agriculture. Consumer Iowa gets fruit and vegetables underwent an average of 2577 miles from growth to his desk. (How exactly define the average distance food goes, I really do not know, take into consideration by weight? Number of calories? Proteins? But never mind that, in any case this is an order of magnitude distance of Iowa to California, it comes about anything that is not a potato). If you would buy products grown in environment, transport distance was limited to 74 km.
"Food, import of food requires a lot of energy transportation and thus increases the level of carbon emitted to the atmosphere. Therefore, the food goes a long distance from the tumor to the consumer has a carbon footprint larger. Distance, which produces ecological damage is called concession stand food - miles of food (food miles). consumption of local food reduces the need for transporting goods to and from remote locations, concession stand food reduces food miles and therefore better for the environment. "
Amazing! If the transferee local agriculture, so keep the fields near the house, take care of livelihood of our neighbors, concession stand food and we would save significant greenhouse gases that disperse into the air in transporting food. Greenpeace claims that about 30% of greenhouse gas emissions are contributed by agriculture (including changes in land use and production of fertilizers). Claimed that suits different studies on the subject. concession stand food On the other hand, have to eat ... concept devised discuss is "food miles." It is important to reduce the distance traveled by food from the manufacturer to the hungry man's table. Seems logical, but as my brother taught me, even this fact Paquette, and the facts are not simple.
The typical American solution is a "farmers market" weekly. Passengers buy Bdocnii market, buy, and save the people. But, sometimes you can use the back of an old envelope, calculate "Big" and ask questions (and the end of the day to write this post). So here's the calculations. Background data, the average American consumes about 2 kg fruits and vegetables per week.
We imagine an American farmers market attracts 5,000 people. (Everyone has his own America. My name is Ai Northern California, which is what I imagine ...) Each of shoppers traveling to his home in suburban 3 km far from the market, and buys an average of 5 kg. This is a special trip, a separate trip to the supermarket. Total buyers are buying 25 tons of agricultural products, contents of heavy truck. Buyers were a total of 30,000 miles, the car makes an average of 10 km per liter. Overall they consumed about 3,000 gallons to transport the fruit home. Bring products to market about 20 trucks, each remote interface, say 50 km. These trucks undergo a total of 2000 km. These trucks consumed because of this total of 400 liters. Stated, to consume the contents of the heavy truck, agriculture locally, we need 3400 liters of fuel instead., concession stand food But heavy truck does 2.5 kilometers on each liter, or in other words, she can move 8500 Km. according to three average distance food transport in Iowa.
While shoppers traveling a short distance, but there are a lot of them, and they are dragging along with them something like 2 tons of steel for every five pounds of tomatoes. While about 70% of the weight of a heavy truck is loaded cargo., In other words, efficiency transporting heavy cargo truck is far higher than the efficiency of the Honda Accord as the leader of vegetables for home consumption. every separately concession stand food traveled to Orange 3 km from the market to the kitchen, and in total, buyers would set a distance of 30,000 km, much more than the distance fresh produce has moved from California to Iowa (about 2700 kms.) and Da"g, two best-selling car in the U.S., not just the Honda Accord, but rather heavy trucks, Ford F seria and Chevrolet Silverado (accurate, but a little demagogic, with automatic from small and medium are still 47% of the car facilitated USA).
Something similar. In many places, even in our country, concession stand food offering showers to encourage biking. What is more green than that? And so it is marketed. This private transport poi, but hot water? Shower of 10 minutes (a little more than the average UK Following a foul or Australia) concession stand food P is striking is probably carbon dioxide - as a private car travel distance of about 11 km. Whether the alternative is public transportation, concession stand food the combination concession stand food of traveling by bicycle and shower is outrageous waste of energy. But , even if the alternative is to travel by car, bike right argument is pretty weak.
Back Lsookii peasants. Calculations similar to ours have been made by others. Research conducted in Stockholm farmers market, compare the amount of energy required to transport the products to the market weekly, compared with traditional retailers transportation required. The research was thorough, just checked the size of the vehicles marketed, travel distances, etc., need much more envelope alone to do the calculations, but the conclusion was, as expected, the energy savings to be derived from the transition model of the farmers market is marginal. A detailed study English, found that if the purchase involves traveling a distance of 3.7 km, then there is a fundamental difference between local agriculture agriculture globally. Study irritating researcher showed that the signing of two - carbon monoxide of sheep raised in New - Zealand concession stand food and reseller in the UK, lower than that of sheep If you had grown close to the home of the consumer., and probably also worth buying the UK onions and Tfohii tree grown in New - Zealand, if the concern concession stand food to greenhouse gas emissions is a top priority of the buyer.
Another study examined the sources of greenhouse gases of agricultural production. The result shown on the graph. concession stand food Transportation is not important source. In fact, according to the authors, the savings will transition to agriculture locally about 4-5%. Significantly less than was spared, if consumers would refrain from eating meat for one day a week ....
An interesting concession stand food case is the district (COUNTY) Santa Barbara, California. The area is the most important food manufacturer in terms of Americans, and is, food manufacturers, the top quartile of U.S. counties. About 40% of the county is agricultural land, the vast majority is pasture. But, even if the fruits and vegetables, the county produces 9 times than he needed. But more than - 99% of the food