We need to make emitting CO2 expensive.
I'll say it again.
We need to make emitting CO2 expensive.
Getting food to our tables is complicated. There are many, many factors. We can't be expected to sit down and do out the calculations to figure out the carbon footprint of each tomato. If carbon dioxide emissions were expensive...the free market would do the calculations for us. The energy intensity of each food item would show up in the price. And everyone ( not just benevloent greens) would care.
This is exactly the type of complicated problem (maximizing benefits while minimizing costs) that the free market is designed to solve.

I never really felt debunked.

Actually I'm really shocked that, of all the "food miles" conversations I've had at Gristmill, it wasn't those two.

But ... I'm with Ekirky.  Tax the carbon and let it all sort itself out.

(Food miles discussions are ultimately a battle of "missing data."  No one knows the median distance customers drive to farmer's markets.  No one knows the median distance farmers drive to markets.  No one knows the median energy inputs for their operations.  Pessimists like me can assume that there are enough "stinkers" in those numbers to throw the whole plan off ... but I suppose optimists might just assume that there are not.)

The point is that you can move 20 tons by semi truck which has a fuel economy of about 8 MPG, or haul and half ton in a pickup that gets 16 MPG.

Of course, the truck might being going trans-continental and the pickup only 50 miles ... the NYT article seemed a little trivial and frivolous to me.

What I like about locally produced food is that is isn't a huge manufacturing operation that has all kinds of ancillary and secondary sources of energy consumption - such as cold storage sheds, huge warehouses, forklifts and terminal tractors, and so forth.  You pick the goodies and take them warm to market in a small farm truck.  If stuff needs chilling, you buy a few bags of ice, no big deal.

The big news I've been reading is that electric cars don't have much reductions if you're getting your recharging power from a dirty old coal fired generating station.  That was a shocker!

Onward through the fog

We've done the StepItUp march.  We've switched our lightbulbs out.  We've got a Prius.  We subscribe to a CSA.  Despite all these changes I find the rest of my family just doesn't get it.  Let me tell you why...

Well, first the wife does the shopping, often with two teen agers in tow.  So when she get's home, I peer into the grocery bag and start reading the really fine print about where the food comes from.  Washington state is best.  Oregon slightly less so.  California less than that.

I've got all them trained to at least think a little about what they are buying.  We've still got a little bit of trouble with boxed snack crackers and snack bars...a lot of packaging for the sake of convenience in my opinion.  (My wife's taken to hiding these in her car...kind of like what an alcoholic does with his bottle.)

Getting to the point though, I get home one day this week and found that we have eight of those small yogurt containers in the refrigerator.  I read the fine print.  Oops...California.  Time to quiz the wife and kids.

"Why did you buy yogurt from California? We should be able to get yogurt from Oregon at least..."

"I don't like the type of fruit that they have on the bottom."

Hmmm....  To me, fruit is, well, fruit.  Does it really matter to are overall quality of life if a California yogurt has just a little bit better fruit than an Oregon yogurt?

And this is why we need the carbon tax...even those of us who know better can't make the right decisions when it may mean even the slightest of compromises.  We need a signal that tells us we're making the wrong choice.  So that is why we need the carbon tax, it is the best way to engage Adam Smith's "invisible hand" to create the market mechanisms for making the right choices.

I agree with Ed's post above.  

I buy local for a number of reasons than just reducing food miles and carbon output (which I agree are important, but just not the only factor).  I like the idea of local produce farms in the area flourishing and I think keeping our farms alive makes a community more pleasant.  I like that the people at the farmer's market recognize me and chat with me. The food also tastes a lot better and is healthier.  

Another important reason is animal welfare. I don't eat animal products myself, but for those that do, buying local animal products usually contributes to better animal welfare, since it means not buying from a factory farm, where animals are kept in tiny cages, given antibiotics and hormones, and transported long distances, often under horrific conditions to slaughterhouses.

Tom, you'll be happy to know I biked to the farmer's market this summer and fall.