Britain starts eating the planet on Sunday 16 April

This is another way of thinking about the concepts lying behind the metaphor of the ecological footprint. In this case the metaphor [if that's the right term] is drawn from the financial world of tax payment where the amount of weeks that the average tax burden takes to pay are lumped together and then a day is declared when you start working for yourself. Well here, its lumping together the days when the UK feeds itself and then declares a day when we start eating the rest of the planet -which was Easter Sunday. Some interesting thoughts here which could be useful in those pub-like debates we get caught up in...

"If the whole world had wanted to share UKlifestyles in 1961, the Earth would just have managed with its available resources – one planet would have been enough,” says Andrew Simms, lead author of the report and nef policy director, “Today, if the whole world wanted lifestyles like those enjoyed in the UK, we would need 3.1 planets."

The report at the back of this is tracing the interdependence of the world economy and there are some disturbing factoids to be seen:

in 2004:

* We imported 465 tonnes of gingerbread and exported almost the same volume, 460 tonnes
* We sent 1,500 tonnes of fresh potatoes to Germany, and brought in 1,500 tonnes of fresh potatoes back from the same place
* We imported 44,000 tonnes of frozen boneless chicken cuts and exported 51, 000 tonnes of fresh boneless chicken
* We sent 10,200 tonnes of milk and cream to France, and imported 9,900 tonnes from France
* We imported 391,432 tonnes of chocolate and exported 170,652 tonnes

All that redundancy in transport can't be good. It points to the need for sensible pricing of transport globally.
Britain starts eating the planet on Sunday 16 April
Filed in: environment, UK, footprint, NEF