Are you advocating to lower fossil fuels? How about that bouquet?

In this series of articles, I am not really weighing in on arguments about fossil fuels and peak oil.  My lifestyle in a remote Alaska cabin says enough about how my husband and I have decided to live. 

I do want to encourage those who advocate against fossil fuel use and investment, those who are, by definition, telling other people what to do, to EXAMINE THEIR OWN CHOICES and ACTIONS FIRST.  The easiest way to crater an advocacy group is to document a lack of integrity.  Hypocrisy is another word for that. I hear a lot of “talk the talk.” I see less of “walk the walk.”

So… let’s consider those lovely bouquets on the tables at an anti fossil fuel fund raising gala, or the flowers on the chancel of a social justice oriented church or non-profit or outside an office or home advocating for divestment from fossil fuel companies.

Fresh, local flowers

If you or others you know are concerned about carbon footprints and social justice, the international floral industry warrants your consideration.  Did you know that 80% of all flowers sold in the US are imported, primarily from South American industrial flower farms?  For decades, these farms have been the subject of exposes about toxic chemicals and pesticides that poison the land and the workers, as well as onerous labor practices.

The world’s biggest producers of familiar flowers are:

Roses:  Ecuador

Tulips and Peonies:  The Netherlands

Carnations:  Colombia

Orchids:  Thailand

Internationally, the top producers of cut flowers in the world are the Netherlands (52%), Colombia (15%) and Ecuador (9%) as of 2023. Kenya and Ethiopia are #4 and #5.  The USA is not even in the top ten.

In addition to the chemicals and labor issues, we can quantify the carbon footprint of transporting those lovely flowers to the church chancel, wedding, funeral, or dining room table.  According to the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), in the three weeks preceding Valentine’s Day in 2018, 30 freight planes carried loads ENTIRELY comprised of flowers into the US EVERY SINGLE DAY.  The environmental impact of delivering those 15,000 tons of flowers was 360,000 metric tons of CO2 and 115 million liters of airplane fuel.   

If this information prompts you to reconsider your purchases of bouquets, what might you do instead?

·         Buy in-season flowers and plants that are grown locally.

·         Grow your own flowers and plants.

Home harvested flowers and honey

·         Enliven your church, home, synagogue, community center, and office with long lasting, living plants.

·         Decorate with other natural products, such as shells, leaves, rocks, pine cones, or branches.  A church in Alaska decorates its chancel with a lovely structure of birch trunks, rather like a huppah. 

·         Engage friends, family, and members of the congregation to create art works depicting plants and other aspects of nature, such needlepointed images, or framed, pressed flowers. 

·         The cleverest art installation I saw was at a Houston, TX synagogue.  Arrayed along a long table was a beautiful display of 20 bouquets that I thought were made of glass.  In actuality, the synagogue’s resident artist taught adults and children to cut up used plastic soda and other bottles of various colors to create individual works of art that look stunning en masse!

·      Botanical gardens offer great ideas and classes, such as creating cement leaf prints as stepping stones and birdbaths.

·      Feature a wall of nature photographs, taken by church members, or a rotating power point display.

Before people tell others what to do, I encourage any of us with opinions to research our own lifestyle choices first.  Asking simple questions, like “where does this bouquet come from” is eye opening. 

Do you want to diminish your personal fossil fuel usage?  If you do, grow a plant.  Don’t buy a bouquet from the supermarket.  Don’t buy them for your next climate change gala. 

May the answers arm us to make intentional choices that synchronize with our values.

For more information, see these and many other articles:  

·       Floristry and Floriculture Industry Statistics & Trends (2023)

By Petal Republic Team,               

·    https://www.solidaritycollective.org/post/the-true-cost-of-flowers-labor-practices (2020),

·    https://www.solidaritycollective.org/post/the-true-cost-of-flowers-labor-practices (2019)