Carbon Footprint Labeling

I found a fantastic article in the New York Times about a Swedish experiment in food sustainability.

Basically, they have started labeling all of their food with the food's carbon footprint. The new labeling system is supposed to encourage Swedes to not only eat healthfully for their bodies, but also healthfully for their planet. Each food item is labeled with the number of kg of CO2 produced for each kg of product, including transport. Ideally, the new labeling will help Swedes choose carrots, which grow well in the Swedish climate, over cucumbers and tomatoes, which must be grown in energy-burning heated greenhouses.

I am not sure how I feel about the labeling. On one hand, it would really simplify my jam-aisle decision making. I often stand in the jam aisle, holding a jar of imported Swedish lingonberry jam (made with no high fructose corn syrup or other suspect ingredients) in one hand, and a jar of local strawberry jam (chock full of high fructose corn syrup AND sugar) in the other, trying to weigh the various factors of nutrition and environmental responsibility. Almost every time I decide that I really don't need jam badly enough to stand there longer than the 45 minutes I have already deliberated, and leave the store jam-less and distraught over the intractable nature of the jam dilemma. So I could see how it would be helpful in that regard. However, I suspect that it oversimplifies things. After all, is the carbon footprint of HFCS that great? I don't know; however, the problems with HFCS have a lot more to do with the nature of corn. Corn requires exceptional quantities of fertilizer and water. The fertilizer runs off into the Mississippi River, which flows out into the Gulf of Mexico. The fertilizer feeds the algae there, causing massive algae blooms that suck all of the oxygen and nutrients out of the water, causing red tides where everything dies out. Unless that part of the corn equation is factored into the carbon footprint, I worry that this labeling isn't telling the whole story. I think I would be more in favor a more general "environmental labeling" that lists carbon footprint in addition to other pollutant indexes. That way, a shopper can make decisions based on which factors are most important to him or her.

(This photo was graciously provided by gwire at flickr. It is published under a Creative Commons license. The photo is actually of CO2 labeling at Tesco in the UK.)