Resistance to global interactions

Food Miles: Carbon footprints for global flow of foods

Food mile (Geography guide, IBO 2009): A measure of the distance food travels from it‘s source to the consumer. This can be expressed either in units of actual distance or of energy consumed during transport.

Class work: Think

Are you consuming jetlagged apple?
Where does your food come from?
How well travelled your breakfast is?
How the food has been transported and even packaged?
Do you buy all your cooking ingredients from the super market or do you also buy food from the local farmer‘s market?
Do you eat foods that are locally produced?
Do you grow vegetables in your garden?
Do you eat foods that are in season?

Impact of food miles (food being transported for a great distance)

• Higher energy cost (in transportation and packaging)
• Pollution and green house gas emission
• Eutrophication and water pollution from fertilizers and pesticides.
• Soil erosion and water shortages due to large scale commercial agriculture.
• Huge ecological footprint
• Loss of local jobs and rural-urban migration
• Lowering of food’s nutritional value

Ecological footprint is the theoretical measurement of the total area of ecologically productive land and water (cropland, pasture, forest, marsh, river, sea, etc.) that a population requires in order to produce the resources (the energy and materials consumed) it consumes and to absorb its wastes, under prevailing technology.

Local and civil society resistance to global interactions: Rise of anti-immigration movement

Partial or total internet blocking is becoming a regrettably common government response to protests or political upheaval in Iran. Click here to read more on the regime’s approach to internet censorship.