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The crash of the global flower trade

bloomberg.com

1–10 of 137 posts

Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#3
Cut flower export sounds like climate travesty; they are not essential, they are fragile (requiring energy-intensive cold chain logistics and air-freight) and after all that effort... they have a shelf-life of a week.

If there is an industry that should be strictly localized, it's this one.

Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#4

Cut flower export sounds like climate travesty; they are not essential, they are fragile (requiring energy-intensive cold chain logistics and air-freight) and after all that effort... they have a shelf-life of a week. If there is an industry that should be strictly localized, it's this one.

The argument I regularly hear is that there would be more energy spent heating local greenhouses than flying the flowers.

Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#5

Cut flower export sounds like climate travesty; they are not essential, they are fragile (requiring energy-intensive cold chain logistics and air-freight) and after all that effort... they have a shelf-life of a week. If there is an industry that should be strictly localized, it's this one.

The argument I regularly hear is that there would be more energy spent heating local greenhouses than flying the flowers.

It’s possible to run a greenhouse with green energy. It’s not possible to do that with jet airplanes.

Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#6
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument I regularly hear is that there would be more energy spent heating local greenhouses than flying the flowers.

It’s possible to run a greenhouse with green energy. It’s not possible to do that with jet airplanes.

Or maybe we could reexamine the need for cut flowers out of season?

Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#7

Cut flower export sounds like climate travesty; they are not essential, they are fragile (requiring energy-intensive cold chain logistics and air-freight) and after all that effort... they have a shelf-life of a week. If there is an industry that should be strictly localized, it's this one.

I don't even understand the whole cut flower thing. It's morbid.

You cultivate something that is living and beautiful. Then you kill it, and bring the corpse inside, to essentially observe the once-living thing's decay.

(And don't get me started on giving cut flowers as gifts. If your host is an animal lover, you don't pick up roadkill on your way over, either.)

Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#8
I'm really sorry for the Dutch but their response to the crisis to Italy and Spain has been: "you should have saved some money!". I hope now they realize this crisis affects all in one way or another, either with direct deaths or with indirect sales crash, which can translate also into deaths.

It's really hard for me now to feel pity for flowers when they didn't care about people dying...

Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#9
post #8

I'm really sorry for the Dutch but their response to the crisis to Italy and Spain has been: "you should have saved some money!". I hope now they realize this crisis affects all in one way or another, either with direct deaths or with indirect sales crash, which can translate also into deaths. It's really hard for me now to feel pity for flowers when they didn't care about people dying...

Seems like quite a leap from "not wanting to subsidize other countries with Dutch tax payers money" to "not caring about people dying".

Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#10
post #8

I'm really sorry for the Dutch but their response to the crisis to Italy and Spain has been: "you should have saved some money!". I hope now they realize this crisis affects all in one way or another, either with direct deaths or with indirect sales crash, which can translate also into deaths. It's really hard for me now to feel pity for flowers when they didn't care about people dying...

Not really. The response from the Dutch government was that they did want to help, but did not want to hold the responsibility for paying back the loan from the countries. Which would have been the case with Eurobonds.

Instead, they wanted to help but had some financial reform obligations tied to it, which Italy and Spain were not happy with.

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