Food Miles

Tim Harford (The Undercover Economist) writes about the environmental effects bringing foods to the market (here). Chilean grapes & Kenyan beans (I had no idea Kenya was so well known for its green beans) have certain carbon intensities derived from the fact that they travel so many airline miles to get to our markets here in the US.

I am not exactly a skeptic about environmentalism, but I typically find that I need to be more critical of alarmist talk about energy technology, conservation, etc. Consequently, I liked Harford's article because it showed the logic behind the calculations showing that the actual greenhouse effects of food transportation are smaller than one might think.

But I get frustrated when someone discounts the importance of availing ourselves of *all* the baby steps that we can take. It's important in a cultural/psychological way to demonstrate that we are committed to changing for the benefit of the planet and posterity, even if the savings are only a few cents of carbon dioxide (assuming $20 per ton tax) for a bunch of grapes. It's important to know that driving cars to the local grocer is much more costly; soon we'll be able to tackle that problem (and to an extent we already can by avoiding useless trips about town).