NEW UPDATES POSTED BELOW:
I was link surfing today over at Dellers, and I found myself looking at the long list of bios for the 1010 team on their website. I noted something curious in the bio posted on Splattergate’s designer Franny Armstrong, because it was rather off the wall. She listed a “guilty pleasure”. Well no harm, we all have those, but at the same time she says her Actual job: “Asking powerful people for money and/or emissions cuts“.
The “emissions cuts” part I get. But wait a minute…not in season blueberries? Hmmm.
Now I don’t know much about growing blueberries, but I did find this on a BBC gardening site:
Blueberries produce fruit on branches that were produced the previous year. For the first two or three years of a blueberry’s life it’s not necessary to prune it much, apart from keeping the plant tidy. After this, blueberries need regular pruning to maintain plant vigour and high quality berry production. Prune them between November and March when the plant is dormant.
They need cold weather apparently:
“These bushes are hardy and require a minimum of 750 hours accumulated chilling time below 8 degrees centigrade in order to produce good yields of berries, so please do not put them into your greeenhouse over the winter.”
OK, so you can’t grow them “off season” in a local greenhouse. That means UK “off season” blueberries have to come someplace where the “off season” is opposite, like another hemisphere.
Looking more into blueberries, I find this from a Latin American Markets site on Chilean blueberry production:
While the US is the main importer of Chilean blueberries, Europe, and in particular the UK, are also strong markets.
“We’ve seen an explosion in UK blueberry consumption over the past two to three years,” says Hortifrut’s Francisco Ortuzar. “Unlike some other parts of Europe, the market is familiar with blueberries and category managers have done a good job of promoting the fruit.”
Huh, imagine that. Demand for blueberries in the UK is ummm ‘exploding’. Given what I know, I would imagine the demand would increase in the “off season” when no local blueberries can be harvested.
I wonder how they get there? Oh, here we go:
Tesco blueberries are harvested in Argentina and are flown to the UK for sale.
So I think it would be safe to assume that Franny is eating off season blueberries, flown in from Chile or Argentina using the speedy but horrible CO2 belching airplanes to preserve freshness.
Yet WE are the ones that have to reduce our consumption of things like “guilty pleasures”. Ya know, modern, guilty, dirty things like air travel, cars, and incandescent lights (though I do like the new LED replacements), to keep the planet from “burning up” due to CO2 emissions. And if we don’t, or give an indifferent shrug like those school kids in her movie…we get the red button.
She also mentions in her bio:
“Not flying to America or Australia to launch my climate movie”
…yet Franny can have her off season jet set blueberries. No pressure to eliminate that. I guess Franny never stopped to think how “not in season blueberries” get to her local shop.
Now that’s just plane stupid.
UPDATE: 8:05 PM PST 10/7/10 I was informed by email of some silliness. For the record, somebody who obviously didn’t like this story has signed up my name as a “supporter” at the 10:10 website, here: http://www.1010global.org/uk/people along with Christopher Monckton, and James Dellingpole. This is of course false, and the product of a simple minded prank. I don’t know what this stupidity will do for them, especially since it is obvious none of us would sign up to 10:10. Here’s the screen cap:
UPDATE2: 11:40PM PST 10/7/10
It appears the application of names is being handled by a static list superimposed at the website. The people counter continues to rise, but the list does not change. Here’s a screencap from 11:38PM of the “people” page at http://www.1010global.org/uk/people
If you visit the other pages on the website, you’ll find that static list with my name on it, along with Monckton and Delingpole, superimposed on it, even though the counter has advanced from 94,885 to 94,910 signups, a total of 25 names, more than enough to move the list down.
But it appears the “legal” page here: http://www.1010global.org/legal has what appears to be a correctly updated list:
How fun! Let’s watch the amusement unfold.
Most consumer goods AGWers buy are moved half way round the world, therby guzzling carbon at ludicrously inefficent rates,
Wrong, wrong, wrong. The distance goods are shipped has little to do with the amount of carbon used.
Assume her jeans are made in Asia. They will have been railed, shipped and railed. All in relatively large consignments. The fuel usage will be minimal really.
Blueberries from Chile are trucked, flown and trucked. In order to keep them fresh, I bet they are refrigerated most of the way too. That’s a pile of fuel for a small pottle of blueberries, despite them coming from much closer.
The distance = inefficiency meme needs to die. Support shipped and railed over flown and trucked by all means, but straight distance comparisons are meaningless.
So, in the opinion of an art dealer 10:10 are different because they “have a real grip on the science” and furthermore his kids told him they’re cool.
Well, that settles it then – lets start tearing the economy down.
Has anybody else noticed that the 10:10 logo looks like a set of leg irons?
Maybe they’re to immobilise deniers long enough to wire up the RED BUTTON.
AndiC, yes blueberries only started to appear in the UK in any numbers a relative handful of years ago. They were virtually unobtainable – for anyone not in Franny’s circles at least – before that.
“This is Frannie Armstrong and Ed Miliband (he was our Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, and also partly responsible for our horrendously expensive Climate Change Bill and our representative at Copenhagen)”
… and also (she’s now been proven right–@6:35–that he’d be out of office after the election):
“Was a drummer, became a filmmaker, turned into a climate campaigner.”
At least this climate racket is keeping more of the otherwise unemployable off the streets.
I thought that she listed “off season blueberries” as a “guilty pleasure” precisely because she knows how they get onto the shelf. This is what makes her feel guilty.
Of course out of season fruit and veg carries a large CO2 footprint. For that matter, anything that is not locally sourced carries a CO2 footprint usually far higher than locally sourced products. This, of course, extends to import of foreign goods which we are all so fond of – witness the rise in Chinese goods etc. As
Adam says:
October 7, 2010 at 3:47 pm
C’mon, you’re being unreasonable. If climate campaigners were meant to lead by example then nobody would want to be a climate campaigner
mmm
From a 2009 interview by “Reign of Terroir” [sic] with Franny A [h/t Gareth @ur momisugly Bishop Hill]
So that’s the level of her science “knowledge”
What with all that flying…
Did the rather shady Common Purpose promote her quietly, like I suspect they did with Rob Hopkins of Transition Towns (where I met Franny)
Her taste buds know how stupid her extremism is.
Marion says: October 7, 2010 at 4:24 pm
My thought too
A man on fire, flames billowing from every part of him, turning to ash before our very eyes, THIS is the man telling us, “Don’t light that match – fire is dangerous!”
Now that’s just plane stupid.
Ha! Clever!!!!!! 🙂
Anthony, you are mentioned by name in this one….a very good read from down under!
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/ipad-application/miranda-devine/story-fn6bn88w-1225935264079
Can I introduce a note of reason into this (admittedly delicious) strand of Franny-bashing?
The “food miles” canard was one of the “falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus” moments that stepped up my scepticism from passive to active. In my case it was Kenyan green beans, not South American blueberries, but the principle is the same. The warmies assign CO2 emissions of airfreight on a pro rata basis (or claim to, I bet they load it up, but that’s another matter). I have a background in airfreight. In fact the vast majority of this kind of commodity only flies when there is an abundance of spare capacity (usually due to a directional imbalance in the market) available at low, “backhaul rates”. As such, the “carbon footprint” of its journey is negligible – a small increment in fuel burn, but comparable, say, to a single circuit in a holding pattern, which happens all the time. The effect of removing it would be that the aircraft from which they are removed still flies, but under-utilised – great job, warmies.
High-quality horticulture is one promising way for 3rd world economies to develop away from the primary resources/tourism paradigm in which so many find themselves – it ought to beggar belief that people who profess a concern for the “globe” should be so keen to shut it down. (Curtis is a prominent agitator for African development, which I originally thought was his reason for subverting the 10:10 outfit in the way he has)
So Franny, stop feeling guilty about eating yer blaeberries – you’ve got more to worry about – like being a deep-sea, ocean-going, copper-bottomed, first-rate AIRHEAD, who’s been told all her life how wonderful and creative she is, and now finds herself unprepared to confront a real world that doesn’t entirely agree.
Marion says: October 7, 2010 at 4:05 pm
This is Frannie Armstrong and Ed Miliband (he was our Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, and also partly responsible for our horrendously expensive Climate Change Bill and our representative at Copenhagen) touring the UK as a double act explaining to warn us of the dangers of Global Warming. Ed is very concerned about ‘negative feedback’ which gives us global Climate Change!!!! The Age of Stupid indeed!!!
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Marion. Thanks for posting the clip. This and the others posted here tell us all we need to know about Franny – and for that matter – the likes of Ed Milliband – he was talking absolute twaddle going on about positive feedback as though he understood the science. But of course he is a polly – so you take what he said with a pinch of salt. There is no hope for her though. The gleam in the eye says it all. Now she is reduced to producing clips blowing up people. She was looking forward to earth shattering changes at Copenhagen – changing all our lives forevah. All I can say is thank goodness for China and India who had other ideas!
Doug
It looks as though from a google, that these could be had in-country with a little effort. However it also appears that the air delivery will shortly no longer be necessary:
http://www.seasonalberries.co.uk/?folder=000029&document=000115
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-10760020
http://www.pickyourownfarms.org.uk/index.php#listings
http://www.dorset-blueberry.com/index.html
http://www.blueberrypicking.co.uk/
Not mentioned is that blueberries also require very acid and iron rich soil which usually requires significant soil pretreatment and along with the long chill times can foil amateur gardeners:
http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/1422.html
& there’s something new here?
Verse 1 Do as I say, not as I so!
Nothing to see here, move along please.
Damn!!
Has Foamy moment.
DaveE
May the Lord spare me from these, holier than thou -” help us save the World and or Universe too by going green!” fanatics.
Too much time on their hands and an obvious lack of analytical skills because of being out of the queue when the grey cells were distributed, leads – to making bad life choices.
And, preserve me from ever meeting up with this lass, I may just tell her what I think and if I didn’t and allowed my better nature to prevail in the meeting, was polite and gentlemanly (which I would), would that then make me, a hypocrite?
Probably.
Hmm.
This is the Age Of Stupid environmentalists…
Ahhhh! But what does she do with those blueberries? Hmmmmm?
Wrong, wrong, wrong. The distance goods are shipped has little to do with the amount of carbon used. The distance = inefficiency meme needs to die. Support shipped and railed over flown and trucked by all means, but straight distance comparisons are meaningless.
Ok, but there’s still plenty left to go at wrt their international supply of consumer goods vs their carbon emission offsetting routines.
What is the carbon cost exactly of getting a pair of jeans from china to the UK, and compared to other stuff?
Ah yes naughty naughty Franny ye have sinned and thee shall repent for thy sins…… unless of course you buy some carbon credits and then you can go straight to heaven.
Its actually possible that by eating blueberries imported from Argentina Franny is contributing less to the environmental cost than buying locally grown berries.
She’s likely not aware of this and has a guilty admission instead of a carbon emission.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/food-miles-does-distance-matter-401558.html
The greens had such fun with the carbon footprint and food miles scenario insisting we save the environmental impact by only eating locally produced. Unfortunately the reality is that produce can often be produced overseas (sometimes the other side of the world) and freighted using less “carbon” that when produced locally.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/food-miles-does-distance-matter-401558.html
Excerpts
The July 2006 Lincoln Report (from Lincoln University in NZ) has shown that even taking into account the environmental cost of transporting goods to the UK, NZ uses considerably less energy than the UK in the production of sheep meat (NZ is four times as efficient), dairy (NZ is twice as efficient), and apples.
The production of British lamb produces 2,850kg of CO2 per ton. New Zealand lamb shipped to Britain produces 690.
A new report from Lincoln published in July looks at the CO2, methane and nitrous oxide emissions associated with NZ and UK dairy production. This provides a more in-depth picture of the environmental footprint of dairy production, and is more precise than looking at the carbon footprint alone. The report shows that, even after taking into account the energy used to ship dairy products to the UK, the NZ dairy sector generates around three-quarters of the greenhouse gas emissions (per kilo of milk solids) produced by UK producers.
Eat as many imported blueberries as you like Franny and you can keep both the admissions and emissions down. But stay away from any movie making huh.
peakbear at 3:32 pm:
“…As long as she is below the average of the 6 billion or so of us in energy usage then she can hold the moral high ground I reckon…”
How is vigorously trying to deny 80% of the world population access to cheap reliable energy, holding the high moral ground?
Everyone who knows anything about blueberries and the environment is that you have to hand-pick your own blueberries in the wild. Then you need to hand-clean and wash them. And they taste 10 times better than the ones you buy in the store.
How many environmentalists have their own garden? None, of course. How many have picked wild blueberries? None, of course.
We all know what Franny has to do now …
…. She has to give up blueberries for 10:10 (unless she picks them herself).
And that is the least we can expect (from someone who thinks it might be okay someday to blow people up).
7 Oct: Camden News Journal: JAMIE WELHAM: It’s just too explosive! School eco film is scrapped
Camden School for Girls in Sandall Road would not comment on whether it was happy with the finished product, commissioned by environmental group 10:10, which was pulled this week following a furore over the graphic scenes…
The three-minute film, entitled No Pressure, was dubbed “enviro-snuff” by disgusted critics and questions are now being asked over the school’s judgment in letting it go ahead.
Tom Bugeja, a teacher at the children’s charity Kids Company based in Camden Town, said: “I think it’s a bit embarrassing for the school to be associated with this. They’ve ended up looking pretty stupid.”
Similar scenes were filmed at the school in September featuring ex-Spurs footballer David Ginola and X-files star Gillian Anderson being blown up for expressing mock ambivalence to carbon emissions.
Sixth-form pupil Conrad Landin defended the school’s stance. The 17-year-old said: “It was clearly well intentioned but I think there is a danger with a younger audience, that they might not understand. As far as the school is concerned, I think they agreed to it because they support the campaign.”..
Chairwoman of governors Penny Wild said she had not been told about the piece.
http://www.camdennewjournal.com/news/2010/oct/it%E2%80%99s-just-too-explosive-school-eco-film-scrapped
those in London who can contact Penny Wild, might like to inform her.
some Spurs fans have responded, but not management. u have to scroll the comments:
VitalSpursForum – For the fans, by the fans:
10/10 No Pressure…. post by lordjohnny
For those of you who tend to read newspapers back to front starting from the sports pages and don’t get past the adverts for bargain sheds, miracle trusses or revolutionary pile cream, Spurs has been involved in another cringe-worthy project, for which it should hang its head….
The powers that be at Tottenham might want to reconsider the wisdom of aligning the club’s name with this dubious and distasteful message….
http://www.spurs.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=7505994
Gosh, a whole post dedicated to nothing but an attack on someone. How repellent. Besides being a simple bully, you must be very ignorant if you think that importing fruit is a significant source of CO2. It is trivial. If she drove to the supermarket to buy the fruit, that would release more CO2.