In early July, Shimeon Lee had a useful TPA piece on a Zack Polanski claim about food prices in 2050.
To the surprise of nobody but Green voters, the claim turns out to be worthless. Worth reading but yet again it does raise an example of the perennial issue - why is rational voting such a forlorn hope?
A closer look at "The Price of 5 A Day?
Green Party leader Zack Polanski recently made the alarming claim that the price of fresh fruits and vegetables is set to rise 170 per cent by 2050, making them “unaffordable” for many households. This figure comes from a report by the Autonomy Institute, a progressive research organisation, and has already been used to support calls for more climate spending, a higher minimum wage, increased welfare and unprecedented interventions like price caps.
But what is actually behind the 170 per cent figure, and does it really show that fruits and vegetables are about to move beyond the reach of ordinary families? Unsurprisingly, the claim does not stand up to scrutiny. This edition of a closer look examines how this figure has been calculated and what’s wrong with it.
A closer look at "The Price of 5 A Day?
Green Party leader Zack Polanski recently made the alarming claim that the price of fresh fruits and vegetables is set to rise 170 per cent by 2050, making them “unaffordable” for many households. This figure comes from a report by the Autonomy Institute, a progressive research organisation, and has already been used to support calls for more climate spending, a higher minimum wage, increased welfare and unprecedented interventions like price caps.
But what is actually behind the 170 per cent figure, and does it really show that fruits and vegetables are about to move beyond the reach of ordinary families? Unsurprisingly, the claim does not stand up to scrutiny. This edition of a closer look examines how this figure has been calculated and what’s wrong with it.
11 comments:
You just have to love Mr. Polanski. The capacity to make himself look a total buffoon is awe-inspiring and yet the gullible vote for him and his equally ludicrous cohorts.
Why?
They overlooked how cheap Berwickshire bananas would be. Not many food miles there! And Orkney oranges. Mull Mangoes. Angus avocados. Portree pineapples. Lewis lychees. Kirkcudbright coconuts. Glasgow guava. Perthshire papaya. Bruichladdich Brazil nuts. Yum, yum.
I have a rule of thumb... if a claim only mentions percentages and not actual values then I suspect I am being targeted for manipulation.
Five pieces of chocolate a day. Good idea, must make the coffee to go with it.
Chris - yes, his total buffoon capabilities are awe-inspiring. We have to assume Polanski knows he'll get away with it. Or maybe he doesn't know, he's just a buffoon among buffoons. It's weird though.
dearieme - good point, Kirkcudbright coconuts could even be available as pick your own, so parents can bring their kids to shin up there and throw them down. Derbyshire dates too - soon to be a Christmas essential.
DJ - that's a sound rule of thumb, worth adding to the one about politicians and their lips moving.
James - coffee counts too, but no need to reduce the chocolate to account for it. Which reminds me...
You can usually tell the quality of a politician by the quality of his sources. "Five a day" is marketing bollox dreamed up by Californian fruit sellers many years ago to push their products. Say it often enough and the ill-informed will take it as gospel, as they have with the eco-shyster phrase "fossil fuels". That was invented in the early 20th century by the US oil industry and is now widely quoted, despite its inaccuracy, every 4king day . . .
Jannie - yes, it could have been any number, but even Californians have five fingers so that's the number they chose. An interesting problem with "fossil fuels" is to ask where the hydrocarbons on Saturn's moon Titan came from.
There are strong arguments that oil is not a 'fossil fuel' at all.
Tammly - that's my impression, although I've only looked at the issue fairly casually.
I seem to recall a tv programme quite a few years ago, when a (British) scientist told a politician, and others, that oil is a mineral formed by heat and pressure deep within the earth, that oil fields are found well below the deepest fossil findings, and challenged those present to.prove him wrong. To date, as far as I know, no one has.
Penseivat
Penseivat - it's one of those issues which is worth exploring, but there are only so many hours in the day and a vast amount of other interesting material out there. The hydrocarbons on Saturn's moon Titan do make the issue very interesting though.
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