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Monthly archives: October 2009

Labelling or not labelling, that is the question

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products
Photos: Roamallday/Flickr.

Being a “good” and “green” consumer isn’t easy. Trying to be climate-conscious while buying my food, going shopping in my local supermarket can sometimes take rather a long time. Vegetables have to be checked. Where are they grown? Is it the right season for this crop, or has it been grown in an artificially heated greenhouse? Sometimes things are even impossible to check on the spot, and would require hours of research.
To rectify this, the Swedish associations KRAV and Swedish Seal are now about to introduce a new climate label. The first product to be labelled is milk, but others will follow when more farms are certified.

This will make things easier for consumers, is the argument behind the label. But everyone doesn’t agree. Recently the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation criticized the idea, arguing that a climate label will be too one-dimensional and that we need to take into account other types of environmental influence too, such as eutrophication, increased use of fertilizers or threats to the biodiversity.

The Swedish Seal, on their hand, argues that climate change is an urgent problem, and that we can’t wait until there is a label that includes all kinds of environmental influence that a product has. And the organic certification program KRAV says it will include climate consideration into its coveted seal.

Labelling or not, I get the feeling that the responsibility tends to land on the consumer in the end any way. As a radio show that discussed this issue last week pointed out, an increasing number of different labels are emerging on the market. Some are very serious, with strict rules and an independent third part who certify. Some are just nice pictures on packages, making us think we are buying something environmentally conscious.
So is there maybe even a risk that consumers in the end feel overwhelmed by all these labels? And that we will eventually spend the same amount of time checking what the different labels stand for as we did before, trying to check the food?

Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

October 30, 2009

Three powerful digits, from science to culture

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Benny-Andersson-and-Ane-Brun
Former ABBA star Benny Andersson (to the left) after performing the song “SOS” together with Ane Brun (in blue dress).

Saturday was a global day of action to draw attention to the number 350, which is the safe limit of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. It turned out an intense day in many places of the world, and I was amazed and happy to see such a crystal clear link between what science says needs to be done and grass root actions.

Here in Stockholm the main square Sergels torg was filled with people forming the number 350, and inside the cultural center Kulturhuset seminars and workshops about climate change were held all day long.

Singing for 350

In the evening I went to see a grand gala with around 25 artists, which was arranged at a theatre, hosted by the artist Ane Brun. During the summer she attended a three day seminar about climate change. What she heard there made her decide she had to do something. The result was this concert. During 350 minutes some of Sweden’s finest artists put music to many of the feelings that the climate crisis can awake.

Below you can see Robyn’s contribution.

 

Serious message

All this has hopefully helped to put the number 350 up on the agenda. But, as professor Johan Rockström pointed out during a presentation of the Planetary Boundaries report a few weeks ago: This number requires action, and is a very serious message to the world that an enormous amount of things need to be done. The safe limit of CO2 in the atmosphere is 350 parts per million. Today we are at 387. That means it isn’t enough to emit less greenhouse gases – we actually need to suck CO2 out of the system.

Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

October 26, 2009

Who is environment friendly?

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recycling-station
A sure sign of eco-friendly living?

Once again to the recycling station. Tins in the metal department, cardboard boxes among the paper packages and plastic into another box. Walking away I am both relieved of my rubbish and having a slightly better environmental conscience. But is it really that easy?

A thesis that stuck

As a journalist you get to read (or at least scan through the summaries of) a lot of scientific studies. Some incomprehensible, some very interesting, and some which actually makes you continue thinking even after leaving work. Karin Bradley at the Royal Institute of Technology, KTH, has written a thesis about what we perceive as being eco-friendly living. This thesis definitely belongs to the last category.
She shows that our notion about who is environmentally friendly and who’s not often has more to do with standards and cultural believes than actual facts. For example people who spend a lot of time in the nature are easier perceived as caring for the environment than others, although they might alternate those forest walks with shopping weekends on the other side of the Globe.

Status and economic assets 

What Karin Bradley saw in her studies is that this also has a lot to do with economic assets and social status. She found many persons living in the poorer suburbs who felt they couldn’t live up to the demands on living environmentally friendly when it came to recycling and buying the right products. At the same time they were living in flats, didn’t consume a lot and used public transports. In that way they actually contributed a lot less to global warming than somebody living in a large house, making faraway holidays and owning a car – although this person might spend all his time sorting his trash and eating organic food.

Still important

Not that these are insignificant measures, Karin Bradley underlines. This must be done too, but we should be careful not to get stuck in symbolic actions, preventing us from confronting more difficult questions about how society would have to change in a more profound way to become sustainable.

My thoughts go on. Maybe I do have the right to feel a bit good about my recycling. But shouldn’t we take a step further up the chain and start asking ourselves why all these packages are there in the first place?
In that way it wouldn’t be so much of a personal virtue getting rid of your trash.

(More about the research project that Karin Bradley is working with here)

Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

October 22, 2009

Scientists speak their minds

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Royal-Swedish-Academy-of-Sciences
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Photo: Helena Ledmyr/KVA

Science has traditionally been rather separated from the discussion about how society should act. When it comes to global warming this seems to be changing.
Today the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences holds an energy symposium. It has a very clear message to the governments of the world: The use of fossil fuels must stop.

“Five to twelve”

One of the professors of the Academy, Sven Kullander, describes the situation for adjusting our energy systems as ”Five to twelve”.
The way our burning of fossil fuels contributes to global warming is just one of the reasons why we should replace them with sustainable energy systems, he says to the Swedish radio. Another reason is that fossil fuels are a limited resource that we will eventually run out of.
The scientists also ask politicians to change the economy to an ecological one, which makes it more expensive to cause emissions and to use limited resources.

Will go to Copenhagen

This call will now be sent to academies of sciences in other countries before it reaches global decision makers at the big conference on climate change on Copenhagen in December.
In the radio interview Sven Kullander says he sees no problems with the fact that scientists now start to put pressure on the political discussions about how the world should deal with emissions.
– If we want to be able to switch over to a sustainable energy system in the short time we have, we think that it is necessary to have a much more direct communication between scientists and politicians, he says.

Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

October 19, 2009

Women take climate threat more seriously than men

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women-walking
Photo: Nicho Södling/www.imagebank.sweden.se.

Recently a news show on the Swedish national television made a poll to find out how Swedes react to the scientists’ description of global warming. The poll also tried to find out to what extent we are willing to lower our standard of living through reducing our incomes in order to combat greenhouse gas emissions.

Willing to take action

The result shows that it is the women aged 30 to 49 years who are the most willing to lower their (or maybe I should say “our”, since I actually belong to this group) standard to reduce carbon emissions.
This poll was rather small, but it confirms what more extensive ones have already shown: for instance 69 percent of the women participating in a survey made by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency declared that they would consider eating less meat to curb global warming, compared to 45 percent of the men. Women also said they were prepared to go less by car and use public transport more often in order to curb their emissions.

Men would lower their income

In this last survey, men over 65 years are pointed out as the “lost generation” – they form the biggest group who are not prepared to lower their standard of living at all to save the climate. But men did not distinguish themselves only in a negative way: the largest group willing to reduce their incomes with more than 500 Swedish kronor a month (around 72 dollars) to combat greenhouse gas emissions were actually men aged 30–49 years.

Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

October 15, 2009