I was just listening to an interesting argument from Freakonomics radio about the best ways to protect the environment and make good eating choices. While there are many positives to buying and consuming local produce and groceries, this isn't always the smartest environmental choice. In fact with so much energy behind this trendy movement of growing your own food (even in downtown centers and large metropolises!), people are unable to see the drawbacks of these ideas. While it is great in many ways to have a garden and produce your own food, think about the land that this garden takes up in an urban space. In DC, there are many community gardens, taking up a few acres of land throughout the city. If those acres were used instead to build high rise apartment buildings instead, this would be a better investment in reducing greenhouse gases and carbon emissions.
Cities are a vital part of reducing greenhouse gases--the closer in proximity that the population lives, works, and plays, the more shared resources, the less transportation costs, and the more green space and clean air in other places. High rises are actually super efficient uses of energy, as are large office buildings, and other communal spaces.
Another thing to be wary of when shopping local is the climate. If you are buying local tomatoes and you live in the Northeast United States, for example, or the UK, you are creating more greenhouse gases then by buying tomatoes from Spain. This is true because it takes a special process to grow tomatoes in bulk on farms in New England and in similar climates. In Spain, it is the appropriate climate to naturally grow this product, and even when you factor in the environmental cost of shipping, the carbon emissions will be less.
According to this radio show, the single greatest impact an individual can have is to be conscious of their animal product (particularly cow) intake. If everyone cut out eating dairy and meat from a cow for two days each week, this would have a greater positive impact on the environment then shopping local. This is because cows are huge producers of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.
While some movements get wind and strength beneath them, it is important to investigate further and see what unanswered questions there are. In this case, growing veggie gardens and eating local foods are generally good things, or at the very least benign, but when you think about really affecting change, there are much better ways of doing that. This goes back to the idea of trendy ideas. Some ideas catch on with pop culture and mainstream media, and we run with them without asking questions. This is unfortunate, as there are many perspectives on the same issue, ie, this issue of building high rises for people to live in having a stronger environmental impact then green space and urban gardening. In the future, we ought to really focus on strengthening our cities and encouraging people to live together in community instead of on "their own" land. This has many social implications and benefits, of course, this issue of increased sustainability and reduced carbon emissions just being one component.
--Megan
