Survive Local
If you haven't seen the latest post from Redzilla, git to gittin'...I'll wait...
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Ok. Does anyone think they could survive locally? I'm thinking of trying it for a week. Anyone else with me?
Starting this Saturday (farmer's market day), and for a full week, I will attempt to:
- Only eat food grown locally. This means no condiments, cereals, teas or coffees that aren't produced locally. Oh crap, this probably means no caffeine. There is a tea lady at the farmer's market, but that tea is probably not grown around these parts. I'm starting to feel like Arthur Dent just thinking about a lack of tea. How do the locavores do it??
- No purchases from box stores (including the grocery store). If I absolutely, positively must buy something, I'll buy it from a locally-owned store.
- I'd better get gas before this thing starts. It is nearly physically impossible for me to get to work without my car - it's a 10 minute drive, but would take an hour and a half each way via bus...also, I can't walk or bike because it's only accessible via interstate or an out-of-the way road with no sidewalks.
- I'd try this with clothing, but I don't even know where to start to buy local clothes, so I'll make do with what I have (I rarely buy clothing anyway unless it's to replace something that's worn out).
Any other ideas or things to think of? Who's with me?
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Comments
Cat litter has me stumped. Still get that from Target.
Have you thought about getting a job that you could get to without a car? It's been wonderful for me.
Oh, and used clothing is morally neutral.
Oh man. This is very good.
But, it will take some thinking. (not that there's anything wrong with that!)
This is an excellent exercise, and will get me looking at everything I buy!!!
Forget the cough syrup, go to a local winery and pick up the strongest stuff they have. You'll be fine. :-D
As far as the job thing goes, I really love where I am. I sort of fell into the job and it's turned into a nice career (important since I didn't finish college!). Albany, in general, is not a friendly place for cyclists and walkers. Two cyclists were killed a block from my home in the past year because of a stupid stop light (as in, the logic the light used is what caused both accidents, not a failure on the part of any of the involved parties).
Wow, I think I'd starve while researching this project. I would consider this in the future but I have enough challenges for this week. Good luck and good for you! I imagine this would be a much easier thing to do in the summer months...
and how local is local? Lucky for me Wawa, PA is close, for milk and some other stuff. I'd probably just have milkshakes all week.
It's fun to hear you all psyched up!
I was getting discouraged thinking how difficult it would be to find local stuff around here. But, I'll bet once I start looking it won't be that hard.
Yes, I'm beginning to sound like a skipping LP with barbs, but I am REALLY tired of how much of this is pitched like a goddamn [socioeconomic] middle-class guilt complex (sorry Val, you're middle-class). Along with the big box hatred comes the slandering of the poorer classes, e.g. the dregs of Wal-Mart being in-bred trailer trash.
I doubt I'll get this fully out of my system but let me utter a pre-emptive "FUCK YOU" before I explain how this needs to be recast for the poorer classes.
Thrift/charity shop/consignment has always been a good idea, and not just for clothing. I thought it was a purvey of the poorer folk, but hey, apparently middle-class folks are signing on, too. The big trick is finding the older stuff that was built to last, and is still lasting. Alas, yes, what the big box stores is selling is designed to break.
Speaking of reuse, my youngest sister is sending us a crochet pattern for making strips of old grocery bags into something a little stronger. I wish I'd known of this (or somehow thought of this) before getting the bags at the grocery store, but hey-- I had my canvas bookbags that I was using before.
Because of this back injury, I think I am going to do more walking to places I have to go (sitting makes it worse)-- but I am not going to guilt myself because the farmer's market ain't open yet. I can walk, and save a little gas. But only because sitting in a car is bad for my back, and because it will save me some money, not because some fucktwad social crusader says it's going to save the world.
I'll still buy pesticide-grown food, thanks very much, because the same social crusaders are lamenting how expensive it is for poor shits like me to buy whole foods, period. Organic sounds like a GREAT idea for meat (up until about 30 years ago, cows were traditionally grass-fed anyways, and chickens were all traditionally "free range") but despite all the ranting and raving about "IT WILL COST YOU MORE IN HEALTH PROBLEMS" (again, 'fuck you') I gotta do what I must to survive day-to-day, y'know?
Sorry to be so pissy, Val-- it's not that I don't believe in these causes. If I had my way, hemp would be grown in the U.S. (and there are farmers here that WANT to grow it) so we could have good, quality, white without dioxins paper;
What have the liberals done for us lately? Do I want them to do something for me? I'm already tired of doing the dog and pony show for local, state, and federal government just so my kids have food and a roof over their heads, so when they start preaching their activism, I'm about ready to tell them where to stick it while I'm telling them where to go. (By the way, leftie politicians, remember how your hostility to religion as of late is STILL costin' ya votes.)
Grrrrrrr... good message, but sorry, the typical delivery really pisses me off.
We don't have a farmers market this time of year. No local bakeries etc.
sigh**
Example: folks in my home town used to get most of their meat from local farmers. Chickens were free range and organic because, as you say, that's just how it was done and it was cheap to raise chickens that way. We got our chicken from old man Mueller, who lived three miles away. Most people did who didn't raise their own chickens. Then, Wal-Mart came to a neighboring town (40 miles away from my little podunk ville), and people were all, "Oh, Wal-Mart has chicken a lot cheaper!" Yup, about thirty cents a chicken cheaper than local farmer. And when gas was 70 cents a gallon, who cared if you had to drive 40 miles? Twenty years later, podunk chicken farmer is out of business. All those years he managed to eke out a living for his family, with his three kids helping in the business, grooming them to take over the business, poof. Now all the folks in my home town are stuck buying from Wal-Mart, forty miles away. Even now that gas prices increase the cost of that chicken beyond what it used to cost to get local chicken. Local farmer used to deliver. Wal-Mart doesn't. Makes me mad at myself and my fellow dirt farmer kin. We were so eager to save thirty whole cents a frickin' chicken that we never gave a thought to what the long-term consequences would be. The entire downtown in my home town is dead, because we were so set on saving a little money that we couldn't see what we were doing to ourselves. Now I talk to my family and they lament how all these businesses are gone and the people who owned them are struggling to keep work in the neighboring town and the only place to shop now is 40 miles away.
So, whatever guilt the middle classes might have, the poor people are getting their own slow lousy realization. Or this one is, anyway. That a local chicken is $8 just means I don't get to eat chicken very often. (Oh, and that's something that blows my mind--how can people afford to buy pre-chopped-up chickens? Holy buffalo wings, who buys just chicken breasts? Who?)
It drives me crazy thinking about the message poor people are getting, knowing they're boxed into a corner. I can't even imagine what it would take to reverse the trend, and I don't think any of our politicians can either. Christ, we're fucked.
Labels are scary aren't they? The stuff that's the cheapest is always the worst. You would think we could reverse this trend somehow.
It's often pitched with "Hate Big Box stores" attitude, and a lot of the same people are the folks that say Wal-Mart is full of in-bred hicks and trailer trash.
Oh, supposedly liberals are supposed to be champions of the poor, but their approach... goddamnit... what I mean by "dog and pony show" is describing my life story to some bean-counter or bureaucrat in triplicate or what have you, and so government solutions? Um, no thank you.
You are confused because I've been attacking ALL the heads of the hydra. One head says it has something to offer me, that it will take care of me, but the others:
Condemn me for my decisions regarding sexuality, for I MUST be loathing myself
Condemn me because I am intellectual, but also religious, or rather... I espouse faith that is SOOOO oppressive (yeah, fuck you too and your pretenses, so-called oppressed heathen)
Condemn me for choosing to be a political wild card (and here's where the "fencesitter" and "swing" analogies get tiresome, as they are used to describe sexuality, too)
Condemn me for my poverty, while pretending to care about it, and pretending they want to do something about it
and so on. Again--
--much of the so-called "green" movement is written up like a guilt complex. I read and listen to the preaching, and think, "well, damnit, I'm sorry, I can't do all of that, because I'm just too damn poor, okay?" My ranting and ravings have mostly been:
Modify the message-- I realize middle-class folk patronize big box stores, but y'know, us poor folk do too and we're not all in-bred trash. Not all of this "buy local, buy sustainable, buy green" smack is realistic for people that are just struggling to survive day to day. I'm yelling, with lots of colorful langugage, because, damnit, the voices down here are not being heard, especially by a lot of the silver-tongued snakes that supposedly are supposed to be speaking for us! The liberals have forsaken us for the middle class-- and I'm not sure I want them back, because ... I'm not liberal!
To further explain, I don't neatly fit the picture of the oppressed in this scenario-- I'm NOT part of the working poor (the so-called "invisible class") whose jobs are being outsourced and exploited. Nope, right now I'm disabled poor... and if people think that's a peach, they'd better think again!
So it's REALLY, REALLY annoying to read things where I think I can do it in parts, but I am being insulted and shamed because I'm not doing what's socially righteous. OH YES, it IS preached like religion. Don't think that it's not.
"But, but, I'm just saying what I'm doing." Please. You said you were throwing down the gauntlet. It means you are telling people, "I challenge you to do this"-- don't be surprised if someone picks up the gauntlet and slaps you with it.
Don't get me wrong-- a lot of friends and churchmates are farmers, and if I am offered produce or other foodstuffs, I happily take it.
If I could grow my own garden, I would contemplate doing it, broken back and all.
My working poor sister loves Wal-Mart, but I don't actually grocery shop there much because their prices are NOT the lowest in town. No, that distinction belongs to 1. a warehouse-style grocery and 2. a local Mex supermercado. Of course, we can't duck imports there easily, either, produce included.
who buys just chicken breasts? Who?
Me, because the rest of the chicken isn't as lean. Oh, I'll buy skinless thighs and such when I can, though.
Seriously, I was raised to do old-fashioned food prep and cooking, but I often lose out because Cimmy will not go for it. With two small children, we still often wind up doing processed food. Our lives are so thrashed from the inside out for so many years, I'm sorry if we live in trash, eat trash, and generate more trash than what is socially justified.
Screwing ourselves. Yeah, okay, whatever. We are trying to survive, and to be honest, Cimmy and I are doing a little more than the average poor sap does. We don't spend money on tobacco, we don't drink, we recycle (mostly so my daughter has pocket change now and then), and we do-it-ourselves and buy used when we can, so please excuse me if I take a great big needle and pop the bubbles in the pretenses and the agendas this doctrine has (yes, it IS a doctrine, even if it's not preached in a church building).
Second, I was not condemning anyone (you) or their (your) opinions and political views. Just because, in the past, I have shared my own does not mean that they invalidate yours. We are allowed to peacefully co-exist even if we don't agree. I write from my own perspective, it's called a blog, it's got my name on it. You can do the same.
Issuing a challenge does not mean you have to participate. I've worked really hard to get to where I am today and I realize that greening my life is a luxury. I know it's not feasible for everyone, I never said that it was. There was a time in my life where I made great sacrifices in order to do this type of thing all of the time, but that's not for everybody. I'm not hear to judge, hopefully only to get people to think - even if they aren't in a position to do anything about it.
ps - I don't avoid Walmart because of my class - I avoid it because there are too many people there and I hate crowds...
I'm off to look up the kit so I can retrofit my truck to burn used corn oil...
Never said that. What I said is that the political agenda you're leaning to feeds ammunition to folks that ARE saying it.
Cimmy's maternal grandfather was a cattleman. Not a cowboy-- he said such wore fuzzy chaps and hung out in drugstores-- but a cattleman. Furthermore, I have friends that are ranchers and farmers, and I respect them, so don't take the assumption that way, either.
Issuing a challenge does not mean you have to participate
You missed my point. Although I stated it rather obliquely, I said I already was. What I am arguing for is pitching this message in the old-fashioned, frontier way that the poorer folk can embrace a little more closely. While not all will agree with Simple Living, I point in that direction as a lifestyle that the economically poor can adapt more easily.
Well... I honestly wished such logic was that simply executed. It does help, but when I was studying energy efficiency in school, I remember reading the words of someone whose name I can't remember, which paraphrased was this:
Despite the best efforts of the residential sector, the commercial sector will outstrip in in consumption, every time.
He was speaking in the context of recycling, but I think this applies to the green movement on the whole.
I get your problem--you are crazy pissed off. I'm with you.
Yes, politics today gets me crazy pissed off. To be honest, while I would like to claim centrism, I lean slightly to the left, at least according to somewhat reliable tests. I tend to be fiscally conservative and socially liberal, although it's really not as cut and dried as that. My dealings with government has left me wanting, and so I am sympathetic to libertarianism.
Although I have found the commercial sector to be very irresponsible with their promotion of consumerism at times, and so now and then I feel anarchistic stirrings, I'm just not an anarchist. I don't believe capitalism is the enemy-- the ideals of microeconomic solutions would suggest otherwise.
So if you got that politicians don't seem to be serving my interests very well, you're right.
Would that more Republicans were like Arnold Schwartzengger (sp?)-- because the greatest strides for the environmental movement will probably come from folks like him, with the idea that negotiation is possible and it is OK to go green in a capitalistic way.
I'm sure people still roll their eyes reading he still drives Hummers despite that they run on biodiesel and... hybrid power, if I'm not mistaken, but... not everyone can march this beat to the same drummer.
I don't know what people are saying that, it's unacceptable as far as I'm concerned.
Sadly, it's how most of us feel. Clearly our current two-party system needs to be overhauled to better represent the vast differences of opinions of the population.
That's provided they believe it's good for their bottom line.
But it's not all coming from consumers directly... some of this has to come from other service providers, particularly if we are talking about energy as a product instead of goods.
But I'm sure you are probably thinking about in as complex terms as I am, i.e. while some solutions will indeed come from petitions and letters and such, more are going to be retro-fitted capitalistic solutions. Corporate America won't come up with all of them-- some will likely be served up by small businesses and utilities along the way.
Perhaps I trust the business machine just a tad more, but I'm suggesting that such solutions may not always be ultimately populist.
Me, too. It would sure be nice if all the political parasites and the do-gooders and such would stop digging for gold, roll up their sleeves and start actually helping us out instead of pandering to us with their lipservice and their federally funded programs, meant mainly for the middle-class and not for those of us who actually need it. Lets not forget the rich, either. So many Americans seem to think that their one goal in life is to guarantee that they die rich. However, if there are so many multimillionaires in the world, then what happens to those of us who are poor? Maybe I don't get it. However, you "green peace boys" out there, if you really want the world to be greener, maybe you should start by helping us make being green a little easier (shades of Kermit the Frog there), and not focus so much on lining your pockets. That's all I have to say.
I am also a liberal activist. I believe in buying local, buying organic, and supporting independent business as opposed to big box stores (though I do get my Target on from time to time). But I do NOT make my purchases the way I do because of some sense of "middle class guilt." I resent the implication that those of us who are middle class and make these choices do so because of guilt and can't make accommodations in our mental or political frameworks for people who are low income.
I make the purchasing choices I do because they are the choices that are best for me and I believe they are the best for my community. We cut our grocery bill in half when we switched from Trader Joe's to a local market that carries predominately local, organic produce. In the process, we are consuming goods with SIGNIFICANTLY less packaging and supporting local farmers, as opposed to those elsewhere in the world. So, with one choice, we save money, protect the environment, and support local businesses. It's one of those "win-win" situations. I do it perhaps out of a sense of responsibility - I have dollars, where do I want to spend them - but never a sense of guilt. I don't appreciate such a disempowering emotion being imputed to empowered choice-making.
Similarly, I do not assume that all people that shop at Wal-Mart are rednecks, trailer trash, or whatever other labels were thrown out there. My mom shops at Wal-Mart, as does my mother-in-law. I have a cousin who works at one. I choose not to shop there because I have a choice and I don't want my money to go to a company that refuses to take care of its employees, that decimates local economies, and that generally doesn't do good things for the world. Thankfully I am educated and insightful enough to realize that while I have a choice, many others do not or may not realize they have a choice. I can only be responsible for my own actions. While I can try to persuade others to see things according to my perspective, I won't judge people for shopping there - I don't know their lives.
As much as people may hate the middle class, the middle class has been historically known to start a revolution or two that has benefited those with less financial means as well. That activism isn't always just talk. And no conversation will be furthered with preemptive "fuck you"s or class bashing. It's just a railing monologue then, not a dialogue.
And as far as the Greenpeace statement goes, you are WAY off base. Greenpeace has the lowest paid figurehead out of any non-profit, aside from Catholic Charities. The organization makes no money and doesn't really even pay that much of a living wage.
Wow, very charged discussions. I definitely get Valerae's point on doing this experiment, yet I see no gauntlet thrown down in challenge. Sounds very reasonable. I grew up on a farm in Western Illinois and we grew most of what we ate, so I always try to buy veggies and meat local when possible, just makes good sense. When we lived in an apartment, we grew veggies on our balcony in planters to cut grocery costs. Worked for people during the Depression, worked for us then.
Also let me go on record here by saying that currently I'm upper middle class and don't really feel any guilt about anything. I worked hard to get where I am and as Dad always said, "If you don't have what you want, you're not working hard enough at it". He truly believed and demonstrated daily that you could do whatever you put your mind to if you kept at it. I've been dirt poor, going to the food banks, walking to work and coming days from losing the house. More the motivation to get me where I am today.
I think the arguments about class distinctions are wrong. If you gave everyone the same amount of money today, the same top 1% would end up with all the money again in less than ten years. Want to break the cycle? Get educated about money. As for stereotypes, most people do fall into three main categories: Those who are trying to do better for themselves and their community, Those who could care less and Those who want to feed off the other groups. Not color, religion or wealth.
Entitlement: Not everyone is destined to be a millionaire, so get over it and yourself. Great post Val!
Kzinti: I come from a country where "the poor" tend not to have the sense of entitlement you describe, so it's always a little bit of a surprise to me when I encounter it in the U.S. It's a nice luxury to live in a country where it's generally taken for granted that someone with "more" automatically owes some of it back to those who feel they have "less." It is not this way in many other parts of the world.
Val, I meant to say in my last comment that I accept your challenge. Though the tea thing is tricky. Numi tea is based here (they employ a significant number of people with disabilities and do great things for the environment), but I suspect the tea is actually sourced from Asia. My coworkers will need to watch out for caffeine withdrawals and their likely negative impact on my mood. ;)
The interesting thing was that we each learned a little - if we tried - about what the other was going through. I have sorrow for farmers that feel compelled to kill the very soil that sustains their livelihoods because instead of the stewardship that they had traditionally taken pride in managing, they are trying to keep their families alive.
If enough people decide to get off the merry-go-round, it will stop. Each person does what s/he is willing to do. To say "I only have x dollars and must stretch it as far as possible to take care of my responsibilities and obligations" isn't a cop-out and it doesn't make someone a lesser human being (not saying you said that, Val! just saying what I think). Some day, that person may be able to make other choices. That's how it worked for me. The difference I think is in a person's awareness of a picture bigger than his/her own and a willingness to make those choices whenever it's possible.
So even when I was broke and on food stamps and didn't know if I'd ever find a job and was crawling to the township assistance office for toilet paper (because you can't buy that with food stamps) and paying it all back by working in a soup kitchen at a homeless shelter, I recycled. Everything I had was used, second-hand, sometimes rescued from dumpsters. That's about as local as you can get, I suppose ;)
I'm not noble or superior or even remotely honorable. I use more now than I ever did and have more now than I ever did. I'd get rid of it in a heartbeat except for the rest of the people who live here, too. Because that's just me and my way of thinking. It may irritate me that we have way too much stuff and that we use more than we contribute overall but I can't be mad at my family. I can do my part and encourage them to do theirs.
I can minimize my WalMart-ing and Target-ing. I can hit The Cupboard and Drug Emporium. I can go to the library for DVDs instead of Blockbuster. I can turn off lights and keep the thermostat low. I can recycle and reuse. I can lessen my footprint. Maybe some day I can lessen it even more and get the people around me to do the same.
I'd totally go Little House on the Prairie (except for the typhus). Interesting discussion all the way around!
Aww, at first I thought this was a post along the lines of could you survive in an emergency, just walking out the door and making do. You know, like a natural disaster, plague, or something like ZOMBIES! That I have put thought into, BTW.
But this is interesting too. It'd be intriguing to try to do. It'd matter on the season, but we have a farmer's market within walking distance of my house four days a week. And since it's california, we have a good variety of fruit and veg (and honey and such) no matter the season. It'd be difficult but possible.
I wouldn't do it so much as an experiment since at the moment, it'd cost us in a way we can't afford to try to do so. But we are attempting to make life choices right now to become more self-sufficient. Pretty soon, we'll be planting our veggie garden and in five years, I want to be making the vast majority of our clothes. Not the spinning of the cloth (I'm not insane) but definitely the sewing of it. Of course, I want to be wearing Salwars but that might have to be put off until we're done living in the Yukon. Oh goodness, how would we possibly do this living in the Yukon? I don't like salmon. I'd die.
I would love to see the clothing you're going to make (perhaps another blog?).
I haven't seen Little House for years and remember very little. I Wikied Typhus, and look at that:
Reminds me of Redz's chickens.
I skipped all the way down to the bottom for various reasons - time, mostly. My mom was giving me some crap about the fair trade issues (is it really or is it just a gimmick, etc?).
I said that you have to do your research and figure out what that means for the company saying it. My local coffee shop does a better job supporting small farmers than Starbucks does.
Also, when I shop local, for me it's not just the products but the stores. In Arizona, when you shop in an independent establishment as opposed to a national chain, 45 cents of your dollar stays in the community versus 13 cents. When I have to go to a national entity like Target, I'll pick the one in my city as opposed to a neighboring city so my sales tax comes back to me.
It comes down to thinking about where you are spending your money and who is getting it. Money is power, after all, and you can use it for good.
I won't! :-) Thanks!
"I'm throwin down the gauntlet."
Val's reply on Redzilla's post that links back here
Just say that you're calling me out, because you're mostly taking issue with assertions I made.
For the record: I did not assert Val said these things-- I said I perceive that these prejudices exist within the framework of the discussions of the environmental movement.
To be clearer-- I am starting to see replies that speak of living supposedly "green" for survival, not because it's necessarily the "environmentally righteous" thing to do. I find it dismaying that no one is really speaking the old frontier ethic: "Use it up, wear it out; make do, or do without." Instead, many green arguments are cast in "buy fair trade, buy sustainable, support this organization" language that *does* reek of a middle class (or even upper class) guilt because rarely is it pitched to the impoverished.
As I have said before, these older sensibilities are reflected mostly in the Simple Living lifestyle that I can see; I met a couple that was practicing such (in person, but became acquainted on a forum community). Most telling were comments from community members who dismissed their practices as anachronistic, old-fashioned, and out of place; but it seemed to be the most prime example of practices that could be adopted by people with the least amount of affluence, and were generally time-honored.
Thank you for articulating what I utterly failed to say.
We are all occupying the same space on this planet and we must all learn to co-exist. That means not consuming more than we need, whether you see that as necessary for survival of the species or just plain old good ethics, and learning to work collaboratively. We will need to find solutions to our growing economic and environmental issues together. I called you out because while we may not all agree on the paths we need to take or the language used to describe what we need to do, we will need to talk to each other and listen to each other. You simply can't do that if the conversation starts with "Fuck you."
I checked out your blog and it looks like you are struggling to make your voice heard. I think we all are in many ways. But you will never get someone to listen to you if you belittle and berate them. As my father is fond of saying, you can catch more flies with honey. I think that you may have some valid points to make, but I was immediately turned off by your lashing out at others. In the future, I hope we can all make space to hear each other because what each one of us has to say is valid and important.
NO. I am simply saying that these perspectives should be remembered and considered.
you can catch more flies with honey
http://xkcd.com/357/
"Set out a bowl of balsamic [vinegar] and honey. The vinegar gets more."
Doug's post: On The Mechanics of Whining
You take issue with my colorful language; that's fine. But really, I feel I have every right to express my opinion (and I don't pretend it's not), especially when I don't think I'm being heard or I'm in someone's crosshairs because I don't fit the neat little categories.
And if it's especially harsh because I'm very sick, very injured, and the past couple of months have been shitty, but well... y'know what, I shouldn't have to apologize for simply putting up barbs. That's all it is.
Welcome to the rantings of a certified madman. Yeah, outbursts like this people don't understand and it tends to make advocacy for mental illness difficult, but yes, I'm mad. Insane. Crazy. And you got a vomitful of it. I'm sorry for my proverbial puking in your lap-- key phrase "in your lap", not "sorry for puking".
For what it's worth I agree with your position. For many people it simply isn't affordable to shop for their conscience. They are stuck shopping merely to survive. Preaching at them that they are destroying the planet through greed isn't helping anyone and only helps to put people off environmentalism. In many instances if they had a choice they would do something differently if they could, but only if it's presented in a way that is not perceived as an attack. Making people feel guilty when they have no choice is counter-productive and it's where the 'green' message often fails.
However I think encouraging the middle-class to shop ethically is beneficial. The more people who buy locally produced, community-minded or ecologically friendly products the cheaper they become, which then gives more choice to people with less money.
Education is the key. And interestingly education is why I'm often not interested in buying locally and why I won't be taking up this challenge. Peter Singer and Jim Mason's book 'The Ethics of What We Eat' points out that sometimes the most ethical choice isn't the local choice. If you buy tomatoes grown in an artificially heated greenhouse locally they could be responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than tomatoes shipped interstate by road in bulk. And if you buy goods transported by sea they are actually responsible for far less greenhouse gas emissions than those transported by road. What is more ethical, do buy eggs produced locally battery hens that are poorly treated, or to buy eggs from the next town away that are free range? And if your $10 could do more to help a poor farmer in another country than at your local store, is it really ethical to buy locally or is it just thinly disguised nationalism? Yes, it's best to buy local all other things being equal. But there are many factors in food production these days and all of them have to be weighed up before deciding which choice is best.
Ethical shopping is really a balance of issues. Sometimes the solution is presented as being far too simple. Of course at the same time I think people should do what they can where they can, and if they cannot afford to do so at least by becoming aware of the issues they can let their opinions be heard.
Yes, the message is often targetted exclusively at the middle-classes. The answer isn't to get rid of that message, the answer is to create additional dialogue that targets the needs of other groups. 'Living simply' is a great message for those of us who don't have any spare money. And it's certainly something I'm going to take on board from this discussion! The problem is that if that becomes the only message it won't be relevant to the middle or higher income brackets and it goes back to being irrelevant again.
Sorry about the overly long post. I find this a very interesting issue and tend to get carried away!
My uncle was mentally ill and used to swear profusely and puke everywhere. I think he even tried to be eloquent while doing it as well, so can't say much about that. Now, when he said he was going to kill our family because we put electric wires in the floor and tried to electrocute him, well that kind of crossed the line from opinion into threat.
Sincere hope for better days for you.
Actually, what I was pointing out that people use such insults when disparaging big box retailers like Wal-Mart. Sorry if it sounded like I was making that assertion myself.
the answer is to create additional dialogue that targets the needs of other groups
which was the point I was trying to make, but utterly failed to do.
If you were intending to clarify my badly written statements, well, I think you have, so, thank you.
I didn't intend on clarifying your comments with my post, either. I honestly think you did a good job of that and didn't need any help. I just wanted to agree with many of the points you made and add my own two cents to the conversation! :-)
I want to apologize, val, if what I said came out sounding insulting or pejorative towards you. Here you were, deciding to do your bit for the greater good and not really expecting the big production that this item has turned into. That said, let me amend my own statement.
You go, girl! Every little bit we can do for ol' mother Earth is good. Living greener and buying more locally, if you can afford to do so, is part of it. Also, I agree that the more people buy green and buy locally, the easier it will become for those of us with less money to buy greener and more locally, For myself, I do as much as I safely can, within my limited budget, to forward a greener agenda. We have a store here that specializes specifically in locally grown items, which it sells cheaper than the national brands, which it also sells. Things are still expensive there, but I like buying my produce there and lots of locally grown extras as well, when I can. We also buy as much of our food in bulk, from another local store (not sure how local) to reduce the amount of extra packaging. At home, we turn lights off when they're not being used and we're trying to teach our daughter the value of recycling by giving her the money from the items we take to the local center.
To reference the title of this item, I don't know how well we'd survive if suddenly everything was back to local again, but I do hope we're doing enough of our part that, should that happen, we'd get some support from our local community.
I don't know if this item is too far down to get noticed, but, Val, I hope you'll accept my apologies for helping to foment all the chaos that's been going on here. Frankly, I just read down through it and, I confess, I don't think I really understood, or understand even yet, what all the fuss is about. I hope this message helps you get things back on track.
As for the rest of us, if a gauntlet really needs to be thrown down, I challenge all of us to state what we are doing within our means to help revitalize our local economies. I hope that's worded right. We don't want any more arguments here, do we?
Great comments - lots of stuff to think about!
Very true. Very good stuff to think about.
Wow, there's been a bit of addition since I last stopped by this thread.
WOW.
I think you may find this article interesting, a 100-mile Thanksgiving
for reference, the writer is based in Lexington, Kentucky.
alright. Apologize for that mistake (if you wish), but don't apologize for writing your blog (you didn't). (2) Don't respond to respondents who find it hard to put two sentences together without inserting vulgarities.
Your intentions are good, I commend you for that effort.
Yes, I Studied Environmental Archaeology this semester at my university, our lecturer is from Washington State and she has lectured to farming collages on both sides of the pond. One of her favorite facts was the discovery that long groves that covered thousands of miles of the upper Andes were for water-gardens- you have a little long thin raised garden with a ditch on either side and another raised garden on the other side of the ditch and so on. the muck from the bottom of the ditch is an excellent fertilizer and the presence of the water keeps the air humid and stops frost hitting the garden so hard as in a field plowed by tractors. Hundreds of years ago the Inca grew potatoes that way, and when Archaeologists tried it the locals thought they must have used some supper-advanced chemical fertilizer as the yields were the biggest they had ever seen per hectare. Now hundreds of local villages use the method.
When she suggested it to a conference on helping farmers in developing nations she was laughed out of the room. No-one wanted to hear it, and when she suggested bringing back MORE ancient irrigation and farming methods the laughing started. "Its a nice idea DEAR, but we can't all live in the past like you archaeologists." when she tried to show the data about yields had increased by without using machinery or chemicals it was to late, no-one was listening. And these went' farmers laughing at her, these were all university lectures and government advisors on scientific farming methods.
It's over. Modernization has finally hit the point where we are loosing more old skills that we are gaining new oil-technology dependent ones.
One was Barbara Kingsolver (I'm pretty sure) who wrote a book recently about living on local food for a year. I believe her whole family was involved.
The other was a man (writer) in New York state someplace who went for a year eating food that he produced. I think it was a year? There was much talk of chickens...
Dang - I can't remember more than that. Then again, I can't remember lunch either.