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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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Millions of roses get handed out on Valentine's Day. But growing roses has an environmental impact worse than many other crops.
Start with climate change: most roses in the U.S. and Europe are imported from warmer climes. All that flying and trucking adds thousands of metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
Then there's all the water needed to, well, water the flowers. And the runoff fouled by copious quantities of pesticides needed to make the roses look perfect.
There's also the wildlife and workers poisoned by all that fumigation. Add to that habitat destruction where floral plantations displace native forest and wetlands.
Finally, there's the refrigeration needed to keep those blooms fresh. The electricity is often produced by burning fossil fuels, and the refrigerant gases also exacerbate climate change.
A more sustainable and, possibly, more romantic approach is to go with flowers certified by outfits like VeriFlora or, even better, whatever flowers are in season locally. Of course, that's not much help for those of us in wintry climes. Maybe try writing a poem. Let’s see: Roses are red, violets are blue…
—David Biello
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
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7 Comments
Add Commentbefore Congress and the White House, in its infinite stupidity and greed, began outsourcing everything huamnly possible from America to "anywhere", roses were all grown in America by Americans. Then it went South and all American rose growers went broke. So this is not just a green issue, but like all green issues, its heavily political. try to get the roses back into america- good luck with that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRegardless of where roses are grown, they are drenched with insecticides. We live next door to a nursery in Southern California that fumigates it's fields of ornamentals - and at the same time all its neighbors - at least 4 times a week.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's it; I've heard enough! Its time to ban roses entirely for the sake of our health, our children's health and the health of our planet. Its obvious that immediate action could, once and for all, put an end to global warming. Why hasn't someone identified this earlier? Perhaps the floral industry was a big contributor to the Obama campaign.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have many species roses in my yard in Maine, they are tough as nails. The rule at my house is you gotta be able to survive on tough love, or tough. Everybody gets one or two dressings of organic, stinky fish, type fertiliser per year and no insecticides or fungicides. They either die in the first winter, I don't wrap or mulch either, or they bloom like mad and will often reproduce. But nobody, would ever bring me flowers, they have been warned! I am not willing to start soaking my property in poison, just because some fool brought a rose disease to my house. Just once with those damn white flies migrating from the compost heap and that was enough for me. Spring bulbs forced in the winter are nice.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm sorry folks but I suggest "get a life". Roses are not the problem -- blame chem company's or even Monsanto. Check the carbon footprint of bananas or that French wine and many other plants we get in this country from afar. Buy local and organic, of course organic cost more than food shipped from other country's.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDon't blame Monsanto for the roses. It is more of a social phenomenon. Valentines day, birthdays and other gift giving days are driven by the greeting card industry and the florists, and many people feel they have a responsibility to live up to the hype and give the person in their life flowers, which, if you really think about it, are only useful if you can put them into the compost.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe absolute folly is of course to take flowers to a funeral. "My late wife really enjoyed the flowers on her coffin". Yet we do it.
I don't mean to be too harsh, but putting the onus of "climate change" on roses? Where is the science to validate the conclusions? Without a link to references, one could just say anything as long as it blames "climate change". Substitute the word "coffee" for "roses"? (Oops, that might cause a war in the SciAm writers' kitchen.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis "War on the Roses" may be true, but who can tell without references? OK, I can trust that there must have a good scientific basis, (if only for fear of a lawsuit from florists,) but please cite at least one link so that readers can "see the science". Otherwise, SciAm loses credibility when it takes on real climate change issues.