The sandwich: a global warming culprit?

Ah, so homemade sandwiches have the least impact? I'm relieved to hear that; around here I'm the sandwich king, pretty much all I'm king of...

Anyway: I do think the sandwich is "inefficient", in that a lot of the ingredients have short "half lifes", require frequent trips to the store and so on.

But I love 'em.

 

dang that earl of sandwich!

hmm... food or cars?

but seriously, another bogus study funded by tax dollars no doubt.

 

Thankfully all of my sandwiches are either circular or square...

 

You can't call out the sandwich if your study ignored other foods. Is a hamburger worse than meatloaf with a salad and a roll?

 

Lunch time for me and the missus:

 

Murderer!!!!

 

funded by tax dollars@3. British taxpayers support this research via EPSRC and NERC. Life-cycle assessments of several products and services are examined by the Manchester group. Those funding agencies have decided that 'carbon footprints' are worth knowing and worth paying for. It is beyond me to question that, but not beyond Bisco. His keen sense of the bogus is effective even without having read this sandwich research, or anything else from this group.

 

For good or ill there are several research groups going lifecycle analyses/ carbon footprint studies on things ranging from sandwiches to cars and beyond. It occurs to me that a good way to troll would be to calculate the carbon footprint of a particular scientific journal in the field and see if they'd publish it.

Bwahaha

 

yes, no doubt we see it from different points of view. i stand by my statement, not every study is worth doing.

 

Just look at food court trash cans, there's an easy study.

 

i had a salad for lunch, hard to believe two pieces of bread are causing climate change.

 

Some 'golden fleece' studies have spinoffs that are not obvious when they are made fun of in the media. I doubt that is the case for life cycle assessments. They seem to be essentially accounting work, and when you put several of them together, you get - a list.

Sandwich study showed that more-processed and more-packaged items had higher carbon costs. I doubt this would surprise anyone. It would be qualitatively obvious beforehand. Funding agencies funded, to turn that into quantitative. Their call.

 

yes, and fodder for opposition groups.

 

If we did life-cycle assessments on everything, and added them up, I have no doubt that the total carbon would far exceed 9.9 petagrams per year. Which is all there is. Reason is double-and higher multiple counting of the same carbon. This limits their value in some senses but not others.

It would be interesting to some to know how their annual bread consumption compares to car fuel or home heating. But not for all, and that's that.

 

If the Manchester group finds they have given fodder, perhaps they'll tighten up on future press releases.

 

one can only hope. personally, i'm more concerned about the studies themselves, but i'm sure those doling out the money have political reasons for doing so.

 

I believe it is possible to be curious about how food processing and packaging 'carbon out', compared to the food itself. Completely apart from political interests. That belief does not guarantee purity of these funding agencies' motives.

 

agreed, it is possible, but it never crossed my radar, and now i wish it hadn't.