The 100 Mile Diet
A study by Chris Goodall, author of How to Live a Low Carbon Life, purports to show that walking to a store three miles away actually contributes more to global warming than driving a car would, due to the carbon intensive system of food production we have developed--especially when it comes to beef.
While I'm a bit skeptical about the findings--he counts all of the inputs that go into creating and transporting food, but doesn't seem to count the energy required to build and transport cars--Goodall does raise an important point: our agricultural system is increasingly oil and gas dependent. Food sold in the U.S. is now shipped in from an average of 1,500 miles away--a 25% increase from 1980.
That's the impetus behind the 100 mile diet. Starting in 2005, Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon, of British Columbia decided to try to live for one year buying or gathering their food and drink from within 100 miles of their apartment in Vancouver, British Columbia. Within weeks of their announcement on their blog, word had spread around the world.
This year 80 Seattle residents signed on to an experiment to eat only food grown within 100 miles of home for the month of August. In addition to the desire to reduce fossil fuel use, the participants are finding that the food is fresher and better tasting, they are getting to know local farmers and businesses, and with stories of tainted food from China, they feel safer knowing where their food is coming from.
The Seattle project comes on top of the 10,000 people who have pledged to do their own 100 mile experiment.
Should a real oil crunch come, the 100 mile diet may become a necessity. As Cuba found out after the collapse of the Soviet Union cut off their oil supplies, locally grown food can literally be a life saver.
posted by Tim @ 18:33
6 comments
6 Comments:
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I think any resource we can use to help us be a greener planet is of great help.
If the economics don't work, recycling efforts won't either.
As our little contribution to make this economics of recycling more appealing, http://LivePaths.com blogs about people and companies that make money selling recycled or reused items, provide green services or help us reduce our dependency on non renewable resources.
Urban farming and micro-farming are a great antidote to this problem, although with a projected 80% of people globally living in cities by the year 2050 it won't be enough. I wrote a whole post on the issues of urban and micro-farming in Vancouver, BC in my blog this week. There are some useful links and resources. http://www.seabuckthorn.net - Nat
Diane said... Our commission building in Clinton Township has built a rain garden. The garden recycle rain water from the roof.
I do my share by using a push lawn mower and purchase food grown and produced in Michigan.
Some of the products are a little bit more expensive, but at least I am helping out our community and hopefull the state.
I heard of the 100 mile diet, and I thought it is a very good idea.
Another interesting note, automotive manufacturing is beginning to adopt a philosophy that transportation costs are not important. They are adopting a "Just In Time" JIT philosophy. In some cases this causes emergency air shipping and overall it means that items are shipped in smaller quantities. The idea is to reduce inventory, thus reducing waste by eliminating over production. This principle can be hard to grasp at first but I think it is somehow related to what you are talking about in this post. The cost of producing a wasted widget or one that has to be stored is somehow higher than the extra transportation costs.
I've completely bought into the prediction that our oil will run out sooner rather than later. When that happens, people will need to rely on their small, local family farm for their food, or grow their own. I'm happy to be one of those small family farmers. I also love teaching people how to grow their own food. I was in France this past summer, and was delighted to see that just about everyone there who is not tightly packed into a city has their own vegetable garden. We Americans (and everyone on earth who can, for that matter) should start their own gardens and learn how to grow better veggies!
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