reLAKSation 285. Callander McDowell
PC or not PC?: British retailer Marks & Spencer has announced that it intends to begin labelling foods which it has imported into the UK by air. The label, featuring a small aeroplane symbol and the words ‘air freighted’ will initially appear on about 20 different foods such as mange tout and strawberries and will increase to over 150 by the end of the year.
This latest development is part of the £200 million eco-plan ‘Plan A’ which includes a commitment to become carbon neutral within five years.
Marks & Spencer say that they have a large carbon footprint as a result of their combined operations, their suppliers’ activities and the carbon dioxide that is emitted during their customers’ shopping and the use of their products. Their priority is to shrink this footprint so doing their bit to help tackle climate change. They add that climate change is a complex issue to which they do not have all the answers but they do know that they need to act fast which is why they have started to address the question of food miles with the introduction of this new labelling.
There is no doubt that climate change is a complex issue and one to which Marks & Spencer are trying to adopt a responsible approach. However in these times when climate change is promoted as being the greatest threat to mankind, it is certainly not ‘Politically Correct’ to be seen to question whether such efforts to fight climate change are actually a total waste of time.
The climate does appear to be changing. On Friday, the BBC News reported that the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had found that winter in the Northern Hemisphere had been the warmest since records had began.
They have suggested that a number of different factors included El Niño had contributed to this warming but NOAA’s Jay Lawrimore said that these higher temperatures were not evidence of man made global warming from greenhouse gases. Mr Lawrimore was part of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) that recently published a report suggesting that climate change has likely a human cause. He said that part of the conclusions reached indicate that the warming trend is in part due to the rises of greenhouse gases.
The current findings are based on data collected since their records began some 125 years ago so it is easy to ignore that our planet has a long history of weather change from over thousands if not millions of years. One hundred and twenty five years is only but a moment in time but even in this short period, the picture can be very confused. Not so long ago, during the 1970’s, the public were being told that the planet faced a mini ice age and it is only necessary to look at the NOAA graph to see why such a conclusion could be drawn.
Yet only a hundred years before, Britain was experiencing a mini heat wave. At that time records are patchy but one gentleman scientist of the time, George Symons, published his Monthly Meteorological Magazine. The Daily Mail recently published a feature article about Mr Symons reporting that over the winter of 1868/9 he recorded that strawberries were still being harvested, roses continued to blossom and hibernating animals had reappeared. By January, the temperature was hitting 13oC and 16oC a couple of weeks later. Such records simply confirm that the weather is constantly changing and that rising temperatures might just be due to natural changes rather than man’s influence.
By co-incidence last week, a Channel 4 documentary investigated the whole question of climate change and whilst not everything on TV can be believed, the programme argued the case well. The Great Global Warming Swindle did not dispute that the climate was getting warmer. What it did dispute was whether this was down to man’s influence especially through the increase in greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.
What they showed was that the amount of carbon dioxide produced by man is absolutely tiny in relation to the earths’ atmosphere and certainly no in enough concentration to affect the climate. They showed that he CO2 emissions from just one volcano eruption far exceeds any amount of gas that we can produce.
They also looked at the data used by ex-vice president Al Gore to demonstrate the need for controls on CO2 emissions. This shows that temperature rises are related to increasing CO2 concentrations and the programme agreed that they are. However, whilst Al Gore suggests that rising CO2 causes elevated temperatures, the climate change scientists clearly showed that the reverse is true. The reality is that rising temperatures are responsible for an increase in CO2.
The climate scientists seem to be united in their view that there is only one thing that can influence climate change and that is the sun. More importantly, climate change is linked to sun spot activity. This comes as no surprise to us at Callander McDowell. When our principal, Dr Martin Jaffa was at University some thirty years ago, he studied marine biology as part of his degree. One of the subjects covered was the collapse of some fish stocks which was attributed to changing sea temperatures caused by sun spot activity. The link between the sun and climate change is nothing new.
What is different now is that climate change seems to have been hijacked by political activists, especially those who previously fought against industrialisation and globalisation. They have now found an outlet which no-one appears willing to question. One scientist interviewed on the Channel 4 documentary said that doubting mans’ influence on climate change is akin to been seen as a Holocaust-denier. Climate change is no longer about science, but politics, and every-one is expected to be politically correct, including Marks & Spencer.
In much the same way that climate change has become a political issue so it seems has the issue of sustainability with regard to fish supply. Although the Marine Stewardship Council was established over ten years ago, it seems that their message of sustainability has only now come to the fore. Sustainability is definitely the new buzz word of the industry.
Just in the past couple of weeks, IntraFish has carried major news stories about sustainability on the international stage. For example, the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, a non profit project which aims to produce a database enabling seafood buyers to assess the eco-status of the fish they buy. Meanwhile, members of the Responsible Fisheries Alliance hope to broaden the definition of sustainable fisheries with a focus on more responsible business to business seafood trade. Finally, a report in Seafoodintelligence.com highlights a new project ‘Friend of the Sea’ in which anyone can get real time information on the environmental status of any fish species by the use of SMS texts. It is therefore possible for anyone in a restaurant, fish shop or supermarket to receive immediate information about the sustainability credentials of the fish they might buy.
In addition, nearly all the stories to emerge out of the major fisheries events such as the Seafood Summit and the Boston Seafood Show relate to sustainability. Connecting the two events was the Seafood Choices Alliances’ seafood champions of 2007 which were announced at the Seafood Summit whilst the formal presentations were made at Boston. It is perhaps worth considering these awards to see whether they the claims of sustainability really live up to expectation.
One of the awards was made to Peter Redmond of Wal Mart who has shaped his company’s commitment to sustainable seafood but by extension has influenced other major seafood buyers to take similar actions. Yet, Wal Mart’s decision to support sustainable fisheries through the purchase of MSC approved species was taken only last year even though the MSC has been pushing their sustainable message for well over a decade. It would seem that Mr Redmond has jumped on the bandwagon rather late in the day and is more a follower rather than a leader.
Encouraged by the invasion of their rooftop by environmental activists Greenpeace, Wal-Marts’ subsidiary Asda took action even earlier. In January 2006, Asda agreed to stop selling a variety of fish species including skate, Dover sole, ling and dogfish. Just over a year later, Asda also decided to ban the sale of monkfish and in the same week, the store group was granted MSC certification for its fish counters. In the press statement issued to announce this milestone, Asda listed their top five eco-friendly stores for fish sales. Top of the list was Trafford Park which happens to be very near to Callander McDowell and is one of the stores regularly visited as part of the routine surveys of the retail sector.
In the same week that Asda announced the ban of monkfish sales and highlighted their continued ban on the sale of skate, Asda’s most eco-friendly store was selling ‘Ray Wing’ and continues to do so.
The use of the term ‘Ray Wing’ is surprising because under the fish labelling legislation, stores should label the fish with its correct name. ‘Ray Wing’ could mean a variety of different species some of which are also under threat according to both Greenpeace and the Marine Conservation Society. Certainly, clarification could not be obtained from the 'Friend of the Sea' SMS as they replied that the name must be misspelled. The simplest way to clarify what ‘Ray Wing’ means is to ask the Asda fishmonger selling the fish. Peter, Asda’s Trafford Park fishmonger, replied that the fish was ‘skate’. Perhaps, Peter Redmonds' attempt to make sustainable as possible are more in name than action.
Another award given by Seafood Choices Alliance was to Fedele Bauccio of Bon Appetit Management Company who has pioneered seafood purchasing policies and been instrumental in informing consumers about sustainability. Mr Bauccio was interviewed by IntraFish TV in which he gave a detailed account of his sustainable buying policies. However, Mr Bauccio made it very clear that his vision of sustainable seafood did not include farmed species such as salmon. This very blinkered vision, and one shared by the Marine Stewardship Council, considers that sustainable seafood can only come from wild catch fisheries. If this is the accepted view of sustainability then it is a view of which we at Callander McDowell will share no part. Aquaculture is undoubtedly still the most neglected management tool for safeguarding wild catch fisheries and ensuring that stocks remain both sustainable and viable.
Like global warming, sustainability appears to have been hijacked by the political lobby that are not only against world-wide industrial development but who are also against progressive fish supply.