Restaurants' carbon footprint under scrutiny. Sweden's carbon-tax solution to climate change puts it top. If there's a paradise for environmentalists, this Nordic nation of 9.2 million people must be it.
In 2007 Sweden topped the list of countries that did the most to save the planet - for the second year running - according to German environmental group, Germanwatch. Between 1990 and 2006 Sweden cut its carbon emissions by 9%, largely exceeding the target set by the Kyoto Protocol, while enjoying economic growth of 44% in fixed prices. Under Kyoto, Sweden was even told it could increase its emissions by 4% given the progress it had already made. How the myth of food miles hurts the planet. Mike Small and his wife, Karen, sat down last Thursday to a dinner of smoked fish pie crusted with mashed potato and served with purple-sprouting broccoli, an unremarkable family meal except for one key factor: every ingredient came from sources close to their home in Burntisland, Fife. 'The fish was Fife-landed, while the potatoes and broccoli were grown on nearby farms,' he says.
Nor was this a one-off culinary event. For the past six months Mike and Karen and their two children, Sorley and Alex, have consumed only food and drink bought in their home district. This is the Fife Diet, developed by Mike Small as a response to the environmental dangers posed by carbon-emitting imports of Peruvian avocados, Kenyan green beans, New Zealand lamb and all those other foreign foodstuffs that now fill the shelves of our supermarkets. Each of these imported products involves the emission of carbon dioxide from the planes and ships that brought them to our shores.