Progressive Wednesday

Organic v. Local - head to head

July 14th, 2007 by Eric

Progressivism is a big tent. The catalyst that moves someone to progressivism can be race, religion, social or economic status, the environment, civil liberties, or antiauthoritarianism, just to name some. True progressives have a concern about all of these issues.

But what happens when two of these collide? How do we decide what positions to support and what to do about it? When the United Auto Workers union expresses its concern about increasing fuel economy while climatologists warn us of the consequences of inaction, how do we decide?

Of course, we prioritize. We weigh the consequences against the potential benefit, and then determine the best course of action. While I sympathize with the UAW (though I think that better fuel economy would lead to a huge increase in production and jobs in the long run), I feel that the consequences facing the planet due to global warming far outweigh the short-term consequences raising fuel efficiency to the UAW.

I frequently find two sides of my progressivism playing tug-of-war with my conscience when I’m at the local grocery store. As I stand there surveying the produce one side wants me to buy the locally grown tomatoes while the other tells me to put those with the “certified organic” label in my basket. Fortunately, organic produce is frequently homegrown, allowing my two sides to come to a truce and making my decision easy, but not always. Since I came across this article from Terrapass.com, I have started to listen more to the organic angel.

Food miles are actually a minor portion of the total ecological footprint of food. In the study of a basket of foods in Cardiff, transport amounted to only 2% of the total environmental cost. Growing conditions, packaging and processing made up the bulk of the impact. In fact… local food systems actually have slightly higher carbon emissions!

This doesn’t push me completely over to the “organic side of the farm,” nor do I think it should for you. But I don’t want to make decisions without knowing as many facts as possible; I don’t want to be that kind of progressive.

This photographer buys local, but this one goes organic.