Rowan Williams, really?
The Archbishop of Canterbury has called for “unsustainable” air-freighted food to be replaced gradually by homegrown produce from thousands of new allotments.
He said that the carbon footprint of peas from Kenya and other airfreighted food was too high and families should not assume that all types of food would be available through the year.
The Archbish seems like a nice guy, very thoughtful and likeable in fact. I’d have him round for a BBQ, if he brought a nice bar of Haloumi. I’m not convinced though that he’s qualified to make public comment on all and sundry. Him and Prince Charlie, peas in a pod!
The ‘lets grow our on food’ angle is one of those things that seems like an obvious environmental good, but the facts just don’t stack up regards carbon emissions. Allotments are fun, tasty and nice but they aren’t efficient, a recent BBC panorama programme clearly set out the statistics regards importing meat and veg from New Zealand vs growing/rearing our own, it’s a no contest! Mega farms use less packaging, have a higher yield, less labour intensive (labour = need for food = carbon). The point is that Dr Willaims sounds like a man who has read a few books and watched a few programmes on the mater (probably more than me!) but he’s not a qualified expert and shouldn’t get on newspaper front pages .
Of course ‘watching Panorama’ doesn’t qualify me either, but I’m not on the front page of The Times.
Update: i do note that The Times did at least run a counter-piece putting the other side of the argument
Stewardship of the environment is a foundational issue of Christian theology and exactly the kind of thing that Rowan Williams should be commenting on.
of course. and I guess my problem isn’t really with him, more with the reportage. He’s free to comment on what ever he deems fit, as is Prince Charles. But just because Charlie feels like architecture is fundamental to the role of Prince, doesn’t mean the London Times should be giving over page space to him, rather than people with a more educated in the field. Likewise Archbishop & environment.
Isn’t there another angle here (I didn’t read the Times link- I’m a busy girl) that without support from other markets that somewhere like Africa a country highly dependant on its export market as a mainstay of its economy. Surely Rowan Williams should be helping us to love our ‘African’ neighbours by supporting their toil?
Prince Charles has overseen the investment of millions of tax payers pounds into a Homeopathic Hospital. Homeopathy doesn’t work. On your knees and obey your betters!