The carbon cost from farm to fork

The carbon cost from farm to fork
It’s the golden rule of the local-food movement: the fewer miles that food travels, the better for the environment. The only problem is, it may not be true. “Very few studies support the idea that local-food systems are greener,” says Rich Pirog of Iowa State University’s Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. When it comes to calculating the carbon cost of a certain dish, the method of transport matters as much as the distance from farm to fork. Sea-freight emissions are less than half of those associated with airplanes, trains are cleaner than trucks and a tractor-trailer can be a green machine compared with an old pickup. If you live east of Columbus, Ohio, it’s actually greener to drink French Bordeaux than wine from California, which is trucked over the Rockies, according to one study. How food is grown and harvested is also key, says Gail Feenstra, a food-systems analyst at the University of California, Davis. New York state apples, for instance, can be less ecofriendly than those imported from New Zealand, where, among other things, growing conditions produce greater yields with less energy. We need a complete picture of carbon emissions, Feenstra says—not just a mile marker.

Eels decline in numbers with climate changes
Climate changes may be altering ocean conditions in ways that are decimating eel populations. Kevin Friedland, a biologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with colleagues at the University of Tokyo and the University of Westminster, in Britain, found a significant correlation between the decadal circulation pattern known as the North Atlantic Oscillation and the long-term catches of eels in their juvenile stage, when they are called glass eels. The three researchers surveyed annual catch data for glass eels since 1938 at Den Oever in the Netherlands and found that with the exception of the World War II years—when no one collected data—the catches mirrored changes in ocean conditions. Both European and American eels spawn in the Sargasso Sea, in an area between the Bahamas and Bermuda. The transparent leaflike larvae, known as leptocephali, stay in surface waters for up to a year and drift toward the Gulf Stream, which transports the European eels to coastal waters there. The stream, along with the Antilles Current and other circulation patterns, directs American eel larvae toward the US East Coast. Since the 1970s, the number of eels reaching Europe is estimated to have dropped by more than 90 percent. Since glass eels tend to live in the top 330 feet of the water column, Friedland said in a statement, “any changes in the surface waters will have a big impact during critical stages in their development.” The paper will appear in the ICES Journal of Marine Research.

Abuse by bosses can prove costly
Getting ridiculed at work may not be illegal. But it can be just as psychologically damaging as sexual harassment, according to a study involving tens of thousands of employees at a variety of workplaces. Yelling bosses may not seem worthy of scientific study. Everybody has had a supervisor with a less than civil demeanor, and most have survived. M. Sandy Hershcovis, who studies workplace aggression and justice issues at the University of Manitoba, decided to look more closely at the psychological effects, however. Not satisfied with the everyday wisdom that occasional belittling is just part of a day’s work, she and Julian Barling of Queen’s University in Ontario combined the results of 110 studies conducted over 21 years on the impact of sexual and nonsexual workplace aggression. The behaviours weathered by employees included verbal and nonverbal rudeness; persistent criticism of their work or repeated reminders of past errors; being shouted at; being the object of gossip or lies; being ignored or excluded; and being the subject of derogatory comments about their personal lives or attitudes. Compared to those who experienced sexual harassment, those who were subjected to nonsexual abuses reported being more angry, anxious and stressed, more dissatisfied with their jobs and their bosses, and more likely to quit. The results were reported at the Seventh International Conference on Work, Stress and Health in Washington, D.C.