Recent scares about the impact of reduced flights because of the engine unfriendly volcanic ash reveals the incredible volume of fresh goods imported by flights to the UK – over two hundred tonnes daily.

Flowers

It’s amazing this country managed to survive into the 21st century at all. Reading this report in the Times:

In Kenya this weekend 400 tons of rotting flowers originally destined for Europe were being destroyed.

Quite frankly, who actually needs flowers from Africa, whose transport imposes a heavy carbon footprint?

Time to return to ‘home-grown’?

Are we running out of land at home on which to grow our own varieties of flowers, fruit and vegetables?

Chillies

Will mankind survive the trauma of a few days without sugar snap peas and Kenyan flowers?

“One supermarket executive said yesterday: “I wouldn’t fancy your chances of getting fresh chillies in the next couple of days.”

My goodness the world is coming to an end.

Birdsong

To console myself I’m going to sit in my garden, listen to the birdsong (which is usually drowned out by jet engines) and look up at the clear blue sky (which is usually white with vapour trails).

I was hoping to hear some birdsong today but they’ve been drowned out by the lawnmowers.

This incident does however show how fragile to UK ‘consumer society’ really is. We only produce 60% of the food we need and our manufacturing base is all but gone. Imagine the state we’d be in if something serious happened which curtailed imports for any length of time.