The great global warming swindle

The West is running a protectionist racket against the developing world

Ross Clark

08 August 2007

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The West’s new greenness conceals a giant protectionist racket

It isn’t just politicians who see in climate change an opportunity to keep the poor in their place. If you are an environmental group wanting to raise awareness of global warming through the Western advertising media, it has become customary to start with a picture of an emaciated woman wading through floodwaters in Bangladesh with her malnourished kids. Whether the woman and her kids will thank Western environmentalists for their attentions is questionable. Take the concept of ‘food miles’, which has made its way on to the packaging of supermarket food in Britain. The idea is to make Western consumers feel guilty about buying food flown in from halfway across the world and persuade them to choose more environmentally friendly locally grown nosh instead. Yet there is only a tenuous connection between the distance a foodstuff has travelled and the carbon emitted in its production and distribution. For example, a New Zealand study recently revealed that lamb raised in that country and transported 11,000 miles to Britain causes 688kg of carbon emissions per tonne. Lamb produced and eaten in Britain, on the other hand, causes 2,849kg of carbon emissions per tonne, the greater efficiency of farming in New Zealand more than making up for the energy consumed in transit. A separate study by Cranfield University revealed that roses produced in the Netherlands and transported to Britain cause 35,000kg of carbon emissions per 12,000 stems, against 600kg of carbon emissions per 12,000 stems of Kenyan roses: the carbon cost of flying the roses to Britain being more than countered by the manual nature of farming in Kenya.