Recently, I wrote about The moral dilemma of eating pumpkin outside the season, and since I encountered some tricky questions while dealing with this topic, I contacted the Norwegian environmental organization Bellona for a follow-up question. I asked: Is there any food we (meaning living in Europe) should totally avoid because of the environmental costs of transport? Here is the answer I got from Anne Karin Sæther (in Norwegian):

“Svaret vårt er vel at vi ikke kan svare ja eller nei på et slikt spørsmål. Transportelementet må uansett veies opp imot forskjeller i energi- og miljøkostnader ved produksjon og da blir ofte langreist mat bedre enn ”norsk drivhusmat”. Man må huske på å se på utslipp av klimagasser gjennom hele produksjonen.

Det er gjort en del slike livsløpsanalyser på CO2, og her er noen tall jeg har fått av Marius Dalen i Bellona:

Lam: 17,4 kg CO2 / kg produsert

Storfe: 15,8 kg CO2 / kg produsert

Svin: 6,4 kg CO2 / kg produsert

Kylling: 4,6 kg CO2 / kg produsert

Oppdrettslaks: 3,0 kg CO2 / kg produsert

Tallene over gjelder for norskprodusert kjøtt. Eksemplet med oppdrettslaks er at den er oppdrettet i Norge og solgt i Paris. De andre er noen snittverdier at noe slag. Her vil det tallene variere en del avhengig av hvilket scenario man setter opp. Men for oppdrettslaksen så er visst 80-90 prosent av CO2-utslippene knyttet til produksjonen av fôr (dyrke mark, fiske etter råvarer, høsting, transport av råvarer, energi i fôrfabrikken m.m).

Mat må jo verden ha, så vi kan uansett ikke stoppe med kaffe- eller kornproduksjon eller annen matproduksjon, men produsentene og konsumentene bør til enhver tid velge det alternativet som totalt sett gir lavest mulig utslipp av klimagasser.”

If your interested in journalism, citizen journalism and the future of media, here is an article you have to read (via eJour). Blogger and professor in Journalism, Jeff Jarvis and Michael Tomasky, Guardian’s USA editor, “clash” in this piece on the topic of citizen journalism/bloggers and what to expect from the new reporters. The backdrop for this discourse was the famous report from a citizen reporter and Barack Obama supporter Mayhill Fowler earlier this month when Obama described rural, white voters as “bitter” (I wrote about it here). Tomasky has argued that Fowler’s reporting raised serious ethical questions and argued that blogging, like journalism, needed rules. Jarvis, on the other hand, has stated that openness, not rules, is needed in the era of the internet.

I have to admit I’m on the Jarvis side in this discussion, and think it is interesting to read how he is dealing with this new openness or challenge of disclosure:

“I reveal my politics on my blog’s disclosure page, including my vote for Hillary Clinton in the primaries. I’ve blogged my expectation to see similar behaviour from bloggers and journalists alike. I went so far as to ask my readers recently whether, having revealed my preferences anyway, I should put my money where my mouth is and donate to Clinton’s campaign. Their view (like mine) was mixed. But it’s worth asking: if I’m going to be a citizen journalist, shouldn’t I act like a citizen?”

Here is why he supported the reporting from the donor’s event:

“I think we should be applauding and supporting Mayhill Fowler. Her reporting of Obama’s “bitter” remarks - in spite of her support of his candidacy - is an impressive act of intellectual honesty. She knew those remarks would be newsworthy. She knew they could hurt him. But she opted for openness, directly to the public, around campaign spin as well as press filters: the witness reports. I’d say she showed veteran journalists how to operate under new rules of her own that, in this case, were superior to the old rules of conspiratorial secrecy.”

Another interesting question that comes out of this digital conversation at Guardian’s nice concept, Comment is free, is the fact that Fowler paid to get into the event, she was a Obama donor. In other words, she got an access other journalists didn’t have. And still, she reported on what she saw and heard.
Do you see a problem with that?

I wished I could go to this seminar in Oslo next week, Monday 5:

(How free is the Internet?)

Hvor fritt er internett?

Let’s start the day with some well-written stories:

• Fantastic article about “the architecture of participation” or how we find time to produce Wikipedia articles - but also about gin, sitcomes and grown men sitting in their basement pretending to be elves. (Via Welcome to the Revolution and Tversover).
• Do you think Robert Mugabe has heard about press freedom? Nope! Here is how it goes when a journalist goes to Zimbabwe to cover the election: Jailed for committing journalism

And here are some interesting news:

• The discussion has started on where to place the EIT (European Institute of Innovation and Technology), the EU’s flagship innovation and education project - Hungary, Spain, Poland, Slovakia, Austria?
  
• Nobel Foundation drops Swedish broadcaster after China censorship. The Nobel Foundation has dropped TV4 because they let Chinese television censor a speech on freedom of expression. (EJC via Media Network Blog)

Yesterday evening I served my girlfriends pumpkin soup at my house. So what, why do you have to write a blog post about that, you might ask. Good point. Nothing sensational happened, no one died from soup poisoning, as far as I know, but the pumpkin soup got me thinking. Because the pumpkin had travelled all the way from Argentina to Belgium.

Photo: Flickr/Darwin Bell

When I was looking through my cook books earlier on the day, the pumpkin soup tempted most, even though I knew it was off-season for pumpkin. And as I was getting the ingrediens at the local supermarket, pumpkin from Argentina was my only option.

Okay, time to come to the point. I follow all the discussions about rising food prices, the advantage of local food, the enviromental problems connected to transporting food from the other side of the earth.

So, my dillemma is this - since I bought pumpkin outside the season, I had to get pumpkin that came from the other side of the earth, and thus, huge amounts of CO2 had to be emitted in order to transport it to Delhaize in Belgium. As I was eating breakfast this morning, I read this article in the Herald Tribune, where they use an example I’ve heard several times before:

“Cod caught off Norway is shipped to China to be turned into filets, then shipped back to Norway for sale.”

Reason: Cheap labour. But there are of course some problems:

“Food is traveling because transport has become so cheap in a world of globalization,” said Frederic Hague (his name is Hauge), head of the Norwegian environmental group Bellona. “If it was just a matter of processing fish cheaper in China, I’d be happy with it traveling there. The problem is pollution.”

I totally agree with the enviromental aspects of this discussion. The cod example is insane, seen from an enviromental perspective, just as “Britain, for example, imports - and exports - 15,000 tons of waffles, and similarly exchanges 20 tons of bottled water with Australia.”

But if we are suppose to stick to local food, instead of eating peas from Kenya, avocado from Peru, aspargus from Mexico, what consequences will that have for international trade and poor farmers in developing countries? If we stick to the “eat locally” -idea, which is very sympathic, what will happen to the poor farmers who are dying to get into the rich markets in the West?

I’m a bit confused. This dilemma seems a bit like the biofuel situation. Biofuel seemed like a fantastic idea at first (cheap, clean energy), but it got much more complicated when it seemed to be linked to the rising food prices and political insability, for example on Haiti.

Does anyone have a good answer for me?

I wrote a post about the Pearl Project recently, and I got so happy when I received a replay from Jackie Sanders, the director of the Journalism program at Georgetown University, regarding the progress of the project. Here is what she wrote:

“I am the Director of the Journalism program at Georgetown University where the Pearl Project is being run, and I would like to thank you for your recent blog posting regarding the Pearl Project.  Currently, the Pearl Project is completing its second semester of investigative reporting into the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl.  The reporting and writing will continue into the summer with a published report anticipated for release toward the end of the year.  A website is in the process of being created for the Pearl Project and I have attached the link below.   http://scs.georgetown.edu/pearlproject/

I’ve been looking at some environmental mashups today, several from this site, and they give some pretty stark images, either on the present situation or the future. Here is a site that is dedicated to the consequence of rising sea level on American coastal cities. Take for example a look at this image from Manhattan in 2030:

Here is another mashup of restaurants and cafes in the US or Canada where you can eat local food. Yet another where you can find green hotels. This is scary - a mashup of the many nuclear accidents around the world (I had no idea there were so many!).

This weekend I watched “A Mighty Hearth”, the movie about the horrible kidnapping and search for Wall Street journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan. I had already read the book, written by his courageous (and pregnant!) French wife, Marjane Pearl, who is also a journalist. I thought the movie, with Angeline Jolie and Dan Futterman in the main roles, was well worth seeing - intense and calm at the same time. Since I and, I assume, most of the people who have seen it, knew the ending, the reason for watching such a film is to see how the search goes about, and how the people are coping with it. Marjane Pearl (the movie is based on her memoires) comes across as incredible strong and calm, even though her life is falling apart when the terriorists send the video of the beheading.

I also thought it was fascinating to get behind the scenes of a news story I followed while I lived in the US in 2002.

But at the end of the movie I read a little note about “The Pearl Project“, which I hadn’t heard about before. Apparently, it was a journalism course offered at Georgetown University in 2007, initiated by Asra Q. Nomani, who was a close friend of Daniel Pearl, and is also heavily featured in the movie. The search for Pearl took place in her house in Karachi, where Daniel and Marjane lived. “For the five years since Danny was killed, I have wanted to find out the full truth behind Danny’s kidnapping and murder”, says Nomani at Georgetown University’s website. There is also a Daniel Pearl Foundation, which mission is “to promote cross-cultural understanding through journalism, music, and innovative communications.”

I’m wondering if the Pearl Project at Georgetown came any further in the investigation of what really happened to Daniel Pearl, and who ordered his killing. And is the seminar still taught?

I just watched this very interesting video at the Washington Post, about Blogging Japanese Style. Very nicely done, and it gives us a good comparison between the Japanese way (more modest, audience - your friends) of blogging vs. the American (more bragging, selling yourself, audience - the world). I was also surprised to learn that Japanese is the dominant language in the blogging world, according to Technorati. 37 % of blogs are in Japanese, “only” 28 % are in English. If any other has some interesting thoughts about intercultural differences among blogs, please let me know, I would love to hear your views (Thanks for sharing the story, Erik Enger).

What a hectic week! Now, it’s the weekend, and time to lower the shoulders. And do some blogging. But before I log out (for a few hours), here are some neat stories I enjoyed today:

• The people behind The Pirate Bay has started an blog service, Baywords, in order to protect freedom of speach (Via Hivand). I would be interested in hearing more about what kind of content they will protect that will not be protected other place.
• Olav Anders “Undercurrent” Øvrebø , a friend of mine, has written an excellent piece (in Norwegian) about Obama’s comment on people in small towns in Pennsylvania, and how the story came about.
• I came across two new initiatives to fight child pornography on the net, one by Google and the other by the Internet Watch Foundation. Great -keep up the good work and get the bastards!
• Note to myself - remember to order this book - Access Denied (about Internet censorship).
• By the way, did you know that 10% of registered voters in America think Barack Obama is Muslim?
• As I mentioned recently, there are no .eu domains in Norway, but as Jon Worth commented, “It’s based on residence, not nationality. So Norwegians living in the EU can register .eu domains”. Here is one blogg written by a Norwegian, with an .eu domain - Finn Myrstad (Update: It seems like the blog is removed since last time I visited it. When is it coming back?)