Buy Flowers and Destroy the Planet

For those of you planning to buy floral tributes to your true love for Valentine's Day, watch out. According to this British report, you may be contributing to the destruction of the planet:

The Valentine's Day bouquet — the gift that every woman in Britain will be waiting for next week — has become the latest bête noire among environmental campaigners.

Latest Government figures show that the flowers that make up the average bunch have flown 33,800 miles to reach Britain.

In the past three years, the amount of flowers imported from the Netherlands has fallen by 47 per cent to 94,000 tons, while those from Africa have risen 39 per cent to 17,000 tons.

Environmentalists warned that "flower miles" could have serious implications on climate change in terms of carbon dioxide emissions from aeroplanes.

Andrew Sims, the policy director of the New Economics Foundation, said: "There are plenty of flowers that grow in Britain in the winter and don't need to be hothoused.

"Air freighting flowers half way round the world contributes to global warming.

"You can argue the planes would be flying anyway but the amount of greenhouse gases pumped out depends on the weight of the cargo."

There was a report on CBS Sunday Morning yesterday that backs up the fact that a large percentage of the cut flowers we buy here in the States come from thousands of miles away where land and labor are cheaper (especially roses and carnations). Thanks to the availability of air transport, flowers can be cut and packaged in South America today and show up in the flower marts tomorrow. The environmentalists would call that wasteful, but I call it capitalism and progress.

The Sunday Morning show highlighted a book, Flower Confidential, which tells you everything you ever wanted to know about the flower business. It actually sounds kind of interesting - I may check it out myself.