Putting pollution on grocery bills

[flashl]

ROME: Cod caught off Norway is shipped to China to be turned into filets, then shipped back to Norway for sale. Argentine lemons fill supermarket shelves on the Spanish Citrus Coast as local lemons rot on the ground. Half of the peas in Europe are grown and packaged in Kenya.

...

Increasingly efficient global transport networks make it practical to bring food before it spoils from distant places where labor costs are lower. And the penetration of megamarkets in nations from China to Mexico with supply and distribution chains that gird the globe - like Wal-Mart, Carrefour and Tesco - has accelerated the trend.

But the movable feast comes at a cost: pollution, especially carbon dioxide, from transporting the food.

Under longstanding trade agreements, fuel for international freight carried by sea and air is not taxed. Now, many economists, environmentalists and politicians say it is time to make shippers and shoppers pay for the pollution, through taxes or other measures.

...

Under a little known international treaty called the Convention on International Civil Aviation, signed in Chicago in 1944 to help the fledgling airline industry, fuel for international travel and transport of goods, including food, is exempt from taxes levied on fuel for trucks, cars and buses. There is also no tax on fuel used by ocean freighters.

Proponents say ending these breaks could help ensure that producers and consumers pay the environmental cost of increasingly well-traveled food.

IHT

Now that there is FEAR about rising food costs, everyday there is another article revealing how the money-changers are going to INSURE that the costs WILL rise.

[angstlessk]

1. in all reality if the REAL costs of EVERYTHING was extracted there would

NOT be the outrageous consumption we see today, and maybe subsistance farms could do just that, allow the farmer to subsist, ain't nothing wrong with subsisting, just no flat screen teevee for you, you farmer!

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. Wow - I didn't realize that there was no tax on flying on shipping fuel use like that.

Bizarre.

It is time to end that.

[glowing]

3. And really, it would make sense to be able to purchase local marketed

items in the local area. Fair trade is the way to globalize the market... Really, it should be cheaper to buy Florida oranges in Florida than it is to buy the California oranges. Strangest thing in the world.. Of course, I cheated the other day, I took the oranges off the tree from the vacated property near my home. The house has been on the market for sale/ or rent for a year now.. I know, I've been scouting out a home in the area now for the past 2yrs. Anyway, its sitting there, dropping all its lucious free orange fruits. No one is even bothering.. so, my son and I picked a few to bring back to the house. I figure no harm done. Its now being used and it won't rot the ground below the tree with the decaying fruit juice.. I also took some for seed.. Hopefully, I will have a few orange trees off of this magnanamous one and will be able to sell them in a couple of years at a much cheaper rate than you could buy from a nursery or Home Depot. Oh, and I'm about 1 week away from enjoying the first of my lucious tomato plants. My neighbors have been eyeing them with envy for a while now.. I'll be sure to share the extras with the gals. AND every kid loves playing in my back yard.. I refuse to use pesitcides or lawn sprays.. so I guess it feels and smells more natural to roll around in.

[Demeter]

4. You Are a Guerrilla Farmer, And We all Need to Be

This is war against the MAN, the corporations. We are fighting for our lives.

[truedelphi]

5. All that we need to do is so simple it will never happen: BRING BACK THE FRIGGIN' TARIFFS!!