You’ll see more carbon labels in the grocery store next year

Carbon labels tell consumers the environmental impact of oat milk, dish soap and more. Do they work?
Corey Mintz writes in Maclean’s Magazine on Dec.8 – Standing in the supermarket aisle, your hand hovers between two cartons of oat milk. You’ve bought oat milk plenty of times, rarely with much deliberation or indecision. But now there is new information—a label declaring the carbon footprint of Oatly brand oat milk: 0.31 kg CO₂e per kg. READ MORE
 

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It is difficult to imagine a more useless and wasteful expenditure of our tax dollars.

The costs of inaccurately labelling tens of thousands of consumer products will increase our food costs when we are concerned about rapid increases in inflation.

IPCC and EU calculations of product carbon emissions are worse than useless. The carbon emissions associated with a can of beans will vary greatly depending on where and how the beans are grown, processed and marketed. The IPCC reputation for usefulness is somewhere around the 5,000 ft underground level in some coal mines. The EU is close behind.

We do not need this labelling. Why can’t we choose the XXX brand of beans because we prefer how they are processed and taste as part of the meals we prepare?

If the tall foreheads required supermarkets to create a section for foods in quantities for two people, they could sharply reduce food waste. A single retired person does not need 4 or 6 pork chops or a dozen chicken legs in a package. Meals for two can be split and half refrigerated.

It is incredible how bureaucrats work to thwart common sense and everyday needs. When food products are labelled “no artificial ingredients,” we realize how out of control food processing has become. It is disgusting to put meat, fish or fowl in a frying pan and watch it shrink as our pan fills with water.

Telling us that the package of burgers we bought for a weekend BBQ contains some obscure carbon factor does nothing to improve the quality of the product.

Come to think of it that is what governments do most. Find something useless to do and spend even more convincing us they are working for us.