Math Lessons for Locavores

[ch]

(analysis should be extended to water as the amount of "embedded" energy in a liter of water varies from place to place. -ch)

Math Lessons for Locavores

By STEPHEN BUDIANSKY
Published: August 19, 2010

Leesburg, Va

Comments

[ccjohn]

Human nature is to wrap self-interest in cheap burlap virtue. Growing food for yourself at your house is something of a no-brainer. It may not be cost-effectiveness in pure form but if you grow it, you know what's in it -- major benefit. And it is news to no one lots of folks get a psychological benefit from growing what they eat, and given how bad things suck right now I think they're entitled

[mallorys_camera]

Brilliant analysis! Thanks for writing this.

[ccjohn]

Hey, thanks pal. It's nice to get a kind word on Live Journal.

I'm still kicking this idea around. You could, for example, come up with an asset value for The Human Being. I dunno, assess the Absolute Value of all the Earth's resources and divide by population. Then each employee is accounted for as an asset with that value. This might help establish a floor for labor costs (wages) that was realistic. The most critical ratio would be "Employee Value Relative to State Economy." You could rig it so companies would be forced by their own measuring system to lay off only as an absolute last resort. Pollution would wind up the same way. It could even help yank obscene compensation down to a baseline so that more wages were freed up for more workers.

[mallorys_camera]

I'm not blandishing here -- I am really impressed by yr argument. Do you mind if I add you to my flist?

[mallorys_camera]

Personally, I think the problem with importing tomatoes from California -- is California a huge tomato growing center? Who knew? -- is that it undercuts the tomato growers closer to home. It has nothing to do with energy use, and that analysis is more-or-less why I've avoided getting involved in green movements for years. The green movement, or the ecology movement as it was called when I was younger, is a rich man's social movement: they care about the planet because damn! much as they might wish otherwise, they have to share it with the teeming masses. It's total self-interest on their parts.

Whereas for me, the only social movements that are worth supporting are the ones that hold out some improvement for the millions of people who are out of work in this country and starving around the world (not that I'm going to give one cent to Pakistani flood relief efforts, you understand -- I think the US gives quite enough graft to the corrupt Pakistani govt already.)

[substitute]

Thanks for the repost. This is very good.