Economic Localization?

I found this great website that helps you obtain a better understanding of where our food comes from. With the effort to localize agriculutre in the USA there has been some unsubstantiated rhetoric about "food miles," just because your food travelled more miles does not mean the environmental impact was worse. The inputs into the equation for the environmental impact of food transporation are: miles travlled by the food, efficiency and scale of transportation, the vehicle used for transportation and how many miles you traveled to purchase your food. In large scale agriculture food is shipped in large amounts and the fuel cost of shipping most products is 1% of the price of that product. There are other issues though that are not intrinsic to food miles, such as packaging, political context, the storage of food and the types of products that can be found on the global market.

This article titled "Avoiding the Local Trap" explains scale as a means not an end, and explores the validity of the food localization rhetoric. I support increased performance in our food system, and sometimes localization accomplishes that.

This article from Micheal Shuman highlights localization and is a primer for his book "Going Local."

I wish there was ample research on the "buy local" concept that was not a promotion or an attack and was simply an assessment of when localization increases some type of performance (environmental, social, etc) and in what situations localization has no effect or a negative effect.

This website is a local food advocacy organization and provides "buy local" information and resources, as well as the neccessary rhetoric to decorate their position.

Buying local is not an assurance of doing more for you community or environment, but it is often better then buying a highly packaged product made using toxic chemicals (check out the book "Body Toxic"). Since our economy is so globalized most efforts to localize will be better for society and the environment, but only because of the minimal scale of the effort and the fact that many large companies sell you products that do not have the full cost (negative externalities) of the product included in the price.

1/11/09: The human world is still confused and endangered, but atleast the times are interesting.

According to facts, and measurable results globalization has done the most to reduce poverty out of any effort ever made in the modern world. Emerging economies are tied to developed economies and right now that is not the best thing, and as modern history as shown increased economic protectionism in times of crises just makes the situation worst for everyone. So a slump in our wealth means a slump in poverty reduction.

Criticisms of the International Energy Agency (IEA) are emerging regarding their view of the future of renewable energy. The agency gives advice to many large governments in the world regarding energy policy. What the IEA's position on renewables has created is a reinforcement for government leaders that oil and coal will continue to be our energy sources in the next couple of decades.

This is an article from Canadian news. There is a perception that Canada is more "liberal" than America, but this article will show that this is not so true when it comes to the CBC. This article gives a critique of hydrogen and electric cars and while it is vastly misleading and pathetic there is some good information on the subject. Where the author goes wrong in the article is in two ways: one, although there are many technological obstacles to electric and hydrogen cars that is no reason to abandon the entire project, technology limitations has never stopped us especially when there is no alternative, two, the main critique of alternative cars is that they will be less powerful, more inconvenient and more costly- of course it will be at first and as it becomes more researched and manufactured cost and inconvenience will decline. But, the most ridiculous thing about the article is that because of a slightly higher cost and some inconvenience the author seems to suggest that we should just continue as we have been and accept the consequences of environmental degradation. I think that this is called Nihilism and laziness.

This article is an example of what the future will hold as the consequences for our toxic economy begin to reveal themselves as the bio-feedback mechanism rears its ugly, environmentally corrective head. Disoriented Pelicans are falling out of the sky in large numbers, test are being done, but so far it looks like our fault.

George Bush II has an environmental legacy? This is news to me, but apparently Bush is setting aside some non-controversial isolated bits of marine environment as a sanctuary. This totals 3 sanctuaries created by Bush, at least he did something good.