Europe, Boring Until it's Not

[Ph64]

Is the argument really coming from the belief that CO2 emissions don't affect climate change and since it is scientists and government spreading that propaganda then this is just an extension of that?

Certainly not my argument. My argument is simply that it would be virtually impossible to calculate with any reasonable amount of certainty given how supply chains work. Even just in the US I can get the same product shipped to me from a dozen different places with a dozen different locations around the country they ship/warehouse from. They could travel by railroad for some of it, or probably just trucked, through all kinds of different routes. If it comes from say China the ship could've stopped/loaded/unloaded at several ports along the way, taken different routes, probably unloaded in CA or WA where it then comes by truck across country by who knows what route...

The only way you could possibly even close to accurately handle that is to label it with "carbon footprint" at its destination (or close to it). So you slap the CF label on those 3000 mile bananas in London when they get there, where maybe you actually have enough tracking & fuel usage information on whatever path it took to get there to do it semi-accurately for "the UK". OK... Now do that for millions of items coming into your country on a monthly basis. And don't forget to add in the *added* carbon footprint of all the labels and ink you'll be consuming to do that, so you're effectively burning even more carbon "so people can be informed".

(Side note: you want a "carbon footprint" clusterfuck... I ordered something the other year that shipped from southern California... A week later on USPS tracking I see it's in Springfield MA, good I think, he here in a day or two (via NJ, because it typically goes from 50miles North of me to their sorting center 60miles South of me,before heading back up to me). A week goes by and the next update shows it in Tacoma WA, then it leaves there and another week goes by before it gets here. Three complete traverses of the US, 9000 miles, for a $20 item. Can't imagine the totally wasted carbon footprint of that.)

[Montegriffo]

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
We're talking about a traffic light scheme here not an exact figure updated for each product on a ship by ship basis.
I think it is perfectly possible to rank products as good, bad or indifferent and the difficulty of arriving at a precise figure is a weak argument aimed at derailing the plan.
I could be wrong of course but I am seeing this as more of an anti-government interference argument than an anti-carbon footprint labelling one.

Awaiting DB snark on ''I could be wrong'' rather than a genuine response to my points.

[Speaker to Animals]

Is the argument really coming from the belief that CO2 emissions don't affect climate change and since it is scientists and government spreading that propaganda then this is just an extension of that?

Certainly not my argument. My argument is simply that it would be virtually impossible to calculate with any reasonable amount of certainty given how supply chains work. Even just in the US I can get the same product shipped to me from a dozen different places with a dozen different locations around the country they ship/warehouse from. They could travel by railroad for some of it, or probably just trucked, through all kinds of different routes. If it comes from say China the ship could've stopped/loaded/unloaded at several ports along the way, taken different routes, probably unloaded in CA or WA where it then comes by truck across country by who knows what route...

The only way you could possibly even close to accurately handle that is to label it with "carbon footprint" at its destination (or close to it). So you slap the CF label on those 3000 mile bananas in London when they get there, where maybe you actually have enough tracking & fuel usage information on whatever path it took to get there to do it semi-accurately for "the UK". OK... Now do that for millions of items coming into your country on a monthly basis. And don't forget to add in the *added* carbon footprint of all the labels and ink you'll be consuming to do that, so you're effectively burning even more carbon "so people can be informed".

(Side note: you want a "carbon footprint" clusterfuck... I ordered something the other year that shipped from southern California... A week later on USPS tracking I see it's in Springfield MA, good I think, he here in a day or two (via NJ, because it typically goes from 50miles North of me to their sorting center 60miles South of me,before heading back up to me). A week goes by and the next update shows it in Tacoma WA, then it leaves there and another week goes by before it gets here. Three complete traverses of the US, 9000 miles, for a $20 item. Can't imagine the totally wasted carbon footprint of that.)

The number should not account for distribution and retail, only the footprint up to the point of manufacturing.

That really is not difficult to estimate in terms of averages, since all your inputs at any point have calculated the same things.

[Ph64]

Is the argument really coming from the belief that CO2 emissions don't affect climate change and since it is scientists and government spreading that propaganda then this is just an extension of that?

Certainly not my argument. My argument is simply that it would be virtually impossible to calculate with any reasonable amount of certainty given how supply chains work. Even just in the US I can get the same product shipped to me from a dozen different places with a dozen different locations around the country they ship/warehouse from. They could travel by railroad for some of it, or probably just trucked, through all kinds of different routes. If it comes from say China the ship could've stopped/loaded/unloaded at several ports along the way, taken different routes, probably unloaded in CA or WA where it then comes by truck across country by who knows what route...

The only way you could possibly even close to accurately handle that is to label it with "carbon footprint" at its destination (or close to it). So you slap the CF label on those 3000 mile bananas in London when they get there, where maybe you actually have enough tracking & fuel usage information on whatever path it took to get there to do it semi-accurately for "the UK". OK... Now do that for millions of items coming into your country on a monthly basis. And don't forget to add in the *added* carbon footprint of all the labels and ink you'll be consuming to do that, so you're effectively burning even more carbon "so people can be informed".

(Side note: you want a "carbon footprint" clusterfuck... I ordered something the other year that shipped from southern California... A week later on USPS tracking I see it's in Springfield MA, good I think, he here in a day or two (via NJ, because it typically goes from 50miles North of me to their sorting center 60miles South of me,before heading back up to me). A week goes by and the next update shows it in Tacoma WA, then it leaves there and another week goes by before it gets here. Three complete traverses of the US, 9000 miles, for a $20 item. Can't imagine the totally wasted carbon footprint of that.)

The number should not account for distribution and retail, only the footprint up to the point of manufacturing.

That really is not difficult to estimate in terms of averages, since all your inputs at any point have calculated the same things.

Then at bother with "carbon footprint" labelling at all? Why not just "country of origin" labelling? Those bananas are "product of Chile" - no matter where I am, if I'm educated/concerned about carbon footprint, I know where Chile is and roughly how far it is - I have a good idea they've come farther than oranges from Florida so maybe I buy oranges instead.

Oh, wait... That got shot down here in the US, didn't it. Companies can voluntarily label their products "made in USA", but mandatory labelling is verboten because it might impact sales of global corporations that paid off the politicians.

Of course it I'm not educated/"enlightened" about it, public/taxpayer education didn't teach me enough geography to know where the heck Chile is (which could be a good chunk of the population these days), or I just want bananas and don't care about the footprint today, then I'm probably not going to read the carbon footprint labelling anyways.

Honestly just sounds like a feel-good measure for armchair environmentalists to claim they're trying to "woke" the public as they drive their $60,000 Teslas or SUVs to the grocery store and scan labels for carbon footprint to show how virtuous they are. Meanwhile the vast majority of struggling workers are concerned with one thing, price, maybe followed by nutritional value. The least thing they need is another government mandate that'll drive up costs. Just look at France for where that leads.

[Montegriffo]

Country of origin labelling is mandatory on all products here enforced by law. We can all see the food miles involved but what we don't know is the impact of production. Like Hastur's example of beef being greener to import from Uraguay than homegrown.
Like Otern's example of the difficulty of growing bananas in Norway rather than shipping them from the West Indies.
The more things taken into account the more accurate the measurement of impact.

[BjornP]

Ok, well, on the topic of food labelling... Ingredients rarely give amounts, just listed in order of most to least.

Nutrition information I'm guessing is an average - if a McD's hamburger is "450 calories", the only real way to determine that accurately by testing is destructive, I'm betting its really between say 435-465 per actual burger (given "manufacturing" differences),they just give you an "accurate enough" amount to use in rough calculations.

Now let's take "carbon footprint" labelling - as was mentioned there's 3000 mile bananas, 800 mile oranges, etc. But that depends on your physical location, if it's 3000 miles to me here in CT, it might only be 1000 miles to someone in CA, or maybe they all get shipped 1000 miles to TX, to a distribution/import plant, and then shipped 500 miles to L.A. but 1500 to CT. Mind you are bananas really aren't "labelled" but I suppose every store could slap a tag on the bin they're in on "estimated carbon footprint". Is that per banana? It obviously doesn't cost much more in carbon to ship one banana vs 10 on the same vehicles.

But let's pick something that *is* labelled - let's say a can of U.S. grown sweet corn to keep it simple, grown in... I dunno, Iowa let's say, canned in a plant in Montana. So you have to account, presumably estimated, for plowing/planting/harvesting fuels, pesticide/fertilizer spraying, watering, etc, in production "carbon footprint", plus transportation to the canning plant, processing/canning... But ok, assuming your doing a good faith estimate you could do that. Then at the canning plant they also label the cans - oops, wait, there's still all that carbon that's going to go into getting that can to you... Me in CT presumably being more than someone in MT or WA, even more to someone in FL, and way more to someone in Hawaii.

Do we ignore that? Or does the canning plant need to print different labels for every state? Seems costly and inefficient (and uses more carbon footprint), plus if I buy that can of corn from Wal-Mart it maybe went to Benton AR or whatever distribution location before coming to CT. Or maybe I got a case of them on Amazon that went to wherever their warehouse is before it gets shipped to me by whatever circuitous route UPS takes. Or whatever distribution chain my local grocery store chain has... Which obviously could be different depending on which local chain grocery I shopped at that day. Well, shit, my can of corn could've travelled from MT to TX to NC to CT, through 20 different states before it got to where I bought it. Or it could have travelled straight across from MT to CT (10 states? Not counting right now, but far shorter). How does your labelling account for that?o

It's not quite as easy as labelling for ingredients or nutritional content, which is reasonably easy to provide on an estimated per can basis, on one label I can print for every can in the entire country.

And that's not even counting "global shipping" if they're exported.

I'm not really for or against having a government mandated carbon footprint label or sticker. You bring up a common sense point about the workload involved in the labelling process. I think both all food manufacturers and venues should be obligated to inform consumers of where their products, or ingredients come from. The consumer, or customer can then figure out miles and energy costs for themselves. Because while I don't think it's impossible to make the calculations you allude to, I imagine the massive amount of bureaucracy and sheer workload for each government worker who'd need to verify all those calculations amount to alot of money and time spent that doesn't really solve anything.

If the important goal is to inform people of the environmental impact of their food (or electronics, or whatever product), then in terms of cost-efficency, a non-government, non-profit consumer advocacy organization(s) could be entrusted with making those calculations based on - obligatory - public information of where the product originates from and thereby calculate the energy cost of the entire manufacturing chain.

At the end of the day, though, the reason I wouldn't support such a labelling idea is precisely because I don't see it solving anything. If a food product is expensive, but environmentally green, I'm sure the well-off, environmentally aware consumer will buy that. But if the more affordable product is the less green one, then it's not much of a solution for the entire population of consumers.

[Ph64]

Country of origin labelling is mandatory on all products here enforced by law. We can all see the food miles involved but what we don't know is the impact of production. Like Hastur's example of beef being greener to import from Uraguay than homegrown.
Like Otern's example of the difficulty of growing bananas in Norway rather than shipping them from the West Indies.
The more things taken into account the more accurate the measurement of impact.

And if beef from Uraguay is $10.99/lb, and homegrown beef is $8.99/lb, you tell me what your average working class schlub struggling to get by is going to buy, regardless of the carbon footprint labelling and how "green" it is?

First world upper middle class problems, looking for government to step in to virtue signal, imho.

Hey, I've got a great idea, let's put on a "carbon tax", that way the inefficient homegrown beef will be $11.99/lb, and the beef from Uraguay will still be $10.99, and people will be forced to be "green"!
(One word on that: France).

[Speaker to Animals]

Country of origin labelling is mandatory on all products here enforced by law. We can all see the food miles involved but what we don't know is the impact of production. Like Hastur's example of beef being greener to import from Uraguay than homegrown.
Like Otern's example of the difficulty of growing bananas in Norway rather than shipping them from the West Indies.
The more things taken into account the more accurate the measurement of impact.

And if beef from Uraguay is $10.99/lb, and homegrown beef is $8.99/lb, you tell me what your average working class schlub struggling to get by is going to buy, regardless of the carbon footprint labelling and how "green" it is?

First world upper middle class problems, looking for government to step in to virtue signal, imho.

Hey, I've got a great idea, let's put on a "carbon tax", that way the inefficient homegrown beef will be $11.99/lb, and the beef from Uraguay will still be $10.99, and people will be forced to be "green"!
(One word on that: France).

Giving people the option to better optimize their purchases (if they can afford it) is not going to hurt you.

[Montegriffo]

Country of origin labelling is mandatory on all products here enforced by law. We can all see the food miles involved but what we don't know is the impact of production. Like Hastur's example of beef being greener to import from Uraguay than homegrown.
Like Otern's example of the difficulty of growing bananas in Norway rather than shipping them from the West Indies.
The more things taken into account the more accurate the measurement of impact.

And if beef from Uraguay is $10.99/lb, and homegrown beef is $8.99/lb, you tell me what your average working class schlub struggling to get by is going to buy, regardless of the carbon footprint labelling and how "green" it is?

First world upper middle class problems, looking for government to step in to virtue signal, imho.

Hey, I've got a great idea, let's put on a "carbon tax", that way the inefficient homegrown beef will be $11.99/lb, and the beef from Uraguay will still be $10.99, and people will be forced to be "green"!
(One word on that: France).

Or... people could decide to eat a little less beef in preference for a cheaper and greener product altogether.
It would also show the holier than thou veggie types the impact of their intensively farmed, forest killing, tofu burgers.

Information is key if we wish to be more informed, seems so obvious to me that it shouldn't need stating.

[Ph64]

Is the argument really coming from the belief that CO2 emissions don't affect climate change and since it is scientists and government spreading that propaganda then this is just an extension of that?

Certainly not my argument. My argument is simply that it would be virtually impossible to calculate with any reasonable amount of certainty given how supply chains work. Even just in the US I can get the same product shipped to me from a dozen different places with a dozen different locations around the country they ship/warehouse from. They could travel by railroad for some of it, or probably just trucked, through all kinds of different routes. If it comes from say China the ship could've stopped/loaded/unloaded at several ports along the way, taken different routes, probably unloaded in CA or WA where it then comes by truck across country by who knows what route...

The only way you could possibly even close to accurately handle that is to label it with "carbon footprint" at its destination (or close to it). So you slap the CF label on those 3000 mile bananas in London when they get there, where maybe you actually have enough tracking & fuel usage information on whatever path it took to get there to do it semi-accurately for "the UK". OK... Now do that for millions of items coming into your country on a monthly basis. And don't forget to add in the *added* carbon footprint of all the labels and ink you'll be consuming to do that, so you're effectively burning even more carbon "so people can be informed".

(Side note: you want a "carbon footprint" clusterfuck... I ordered something the other year that shipped from southern California... A week later on USPS tracking I see it's in Springfield MA, good I think, he here in a day or two (via NJ, because it typically goes from 50miles North of me to their sorting center 60miles South of me,before heading back up to me). A week goes by and the next update shows it in Tacoma WA, then it leaves there and another week goes by before it gets here. Three complete traverses of the US, 9000 miles, for a $20 item. Can't imagine the totally wasted carbon footprint of that.)

The number should not account for distribution and retail, only the footprint up to the point of manufacturing.

That really is not difficult to estimate in terms of averages, since all your inputs at any point have calculated the same things.

Well, so far we seem to be focused on food here, but what about other things? I mean, it you are *really* concerned about carbon footprint shouldn't we be labelling all those cheap plastic toys from China (it being the holidays and all)? What about cars? If I buy a Toyota made in the US is that greener than one made in Mexico? JApan? Or what if I buy a BMW? Shouldn't we label those too if you're all concerned about carbon footprint? How about that toothbrush you bought? Toothpaste? shampoo? Your deodorant? Your computer?

Would Teslas even sell if the "green" people really knew their carbon footprint (50+% of U.S. Electricity is from coal)? Maybe we'd need more nuclear plants, they're "green" right? Or more solar - China (the biggest polluter in the world probably) can make the panels for us.