Transport Transport contributes largely to greenhouse gas emissions all over the world. Food often travels long distances to reach consumers. Do you know where your food comes from? Do you try to buy local? Why? Look at the title of the article. Why do you think the author uses the word odyssey? Read the text to find out whether you were right. a Reading 13 b The odyssey of prawns Few people will have heard of Kilkeel. Kilkeel is a sleepy port in County Down, Northern Ireland. Home to old-fashioned cottages and traditional pubs with live music and peat fires, it is a well- kept secret among holiday makers from all over Europe. However, Kilkeel is also home to Northern Ireland’s prawn fleet, and every morning the boats slide through the narrow mouth of the harbour to trawl the bottom of the Irish Sea for prawns. It is due to this latter fact that, several years ago, the sleepy town suddenly made international headlines. In fact, it was in the eye of a storm that raged between a seafood company and environmentalists. Environmental organisations, like Friends of the Earth, had found out that before landing in our prawn cocktails, all pink and juicy, the freshly fished prawns were sent half around the world from Europe to the Far East. The 12,000-mile journey leads them from the Irish coast to Thailand and back again. While the first leg of the prawns’ journey is a relatively short trip from the bottom of the sea to the trawler’s deck, the next stretches get considerably longer; packed in ice, they are transported back to the port in the neighbourhood of the busy quayside fish markets. Still nothing unusual about this, but then the odyssey begins. To start with, they are sent on a lorry ride from Northern Ireland to Scotland. On their arrival, the prawns are loaded onto a chilled container and then sent off on their long sea journey to Thailand to be hand-peeled there. Then they are repacked in refrigerated containers and sent all the way back to the UK where, finally, they are sold in supermarkets or to catering outlets like hotels and restaurants. On the one hand, NGOs say it is absurd that seafood should be shipped half around the world, just because it is cheaper to process it in low-cost countries. They also reckon that for every ton of prawn sent on its long-distance journey, half a ton of carbon dioxide is produced – not exactly a small carbon footprint! On the other hand, the food company responsible for the prawns’ voyage claims that it simply is not viable economically to have prawns handpeeled in Europe. In addition they adduce environmental benefits. Firstly, if the prawns were peeled in Europe, they say, the shells would have to be incinerated, which would cause CO2 emissions, whereas in Thailand the leftovers can be recycled and used in traditional medicines. Secondly, prawns need to mature for three weeks, which, if it happened in Europe, would also cost energy for refrigerating them. Be that as it may, it seems a bit of an unnecessary detour for the small creatures to make from the muddy bottom of the Irish Sea to people’s dinner plate. This is criticised not only by environmental groups, but also by journalists who complain that, despite strict EU laws, environmental concerns seem to be low down on politicians’ agendas. With their eyes on the next election, they might shrink from unpopular measures, shortterm thinking for which we shall all pay dearly in the long run. Look at the last paragraph. Work in pairs and discuss these questions. 1 What is the function of the first sentence? 2 What does ‘short-term thinking’ mean here? 3 In what ways do you think we might ‘pay dearly’? Linking expressions like adverbs and adverbial clauses help readers find their way through a text. Look at the highlighted expressions in the article and think about their functions in the text. c Vocabulary Linking expressions 2 14 a 90 Language skills Extras Explore 7 Your environment Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum es Verlags öbv
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