[lbo-talk] skepticism on food miles

[Tayssir John Gabbour]

On 8/7/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> Given these problems, wouldn't it make more sense to stop obsessing
> over food miles and work to strengthen comparative geographical
> advantages? And what if we did this while streamlining
> transportation services according to fuel-efficient standards?
> Shouldn't we create development incentives for regional nodes of
> food production that can provide sustainable produce for the less
> sustainable parts of the nation and the world as a whole?

Yeah, that's one reason I'm attracted to a planned industrial economy
with trade, rather than a pretty strict low-trade regional one.

Maybe it's analogous to the "efficiency" of capitalism. Capitalism's
disciplined efficiency is within each economic unit, not the
society-wide one. A similar wasteful isolation may go for the
bioregional model.

All too often, this kind of discipline sounds like common sense. (But
then again, I'm not an environmentalist; your biodiesel mileage may
vary; etc.)

Tayssir