On a side note, his guest, Rob Walker, lines up with Rushkoff’s “The Persuaders” noting that marketing “short circuit[s] our thinking” and that it’s more about a personal narrative that actually changing the system.

I can understand that local agriculture can waste a lot of fossil fuels in a way that Dole doesn’t, since your local farmer doesn’t have an army of accountants and MBAs dictating that he fill up the truck to the brim before starting the motor. But to say that the tomato in your backyard is less efficient than one you have to drive to a grocery store to get? That’s utter madness.

Oh yeah, like “balanced” media?

Where we don’t even get to logic…..

Language itself has suffered enough since the media stopped spinning and now professionally swallows for americans.

Logic is non partisan, no? It sure is illuminating to watch it fall into the ditch, right after language itself.

“Carbon emissions from food transport saw only a 5 percent bump.” But “A tomato raised in a heated greenhouse can be more carbon-intensive than one shipped halfway across the globe.”

One statement is the factual increase in shipping fees and pollution of *only* 5%! How unripe or non nutritious or covered with pesticides or human manure the tomato *can* be is not included on this side of the equasion. The Cato logician *does* burden the so called local tomato with possibly being raised in a “heated” greenhouse.

Passive solar has been in greenhouses since day one and the technology that requires no electric heat has existed since day two: Barrels of water.

Local makes it much more certain one can verify just what one is buying and influence the production of the more perfect tomato.

The individual can connect the dots about what kind of “information” Cato traffics in and what social, political and economic behavior it encourages.

Bon Appetit.

-Mason

A logic to justify both the one and the other, that’s both real and imaginary, a dual scenario that makes a general point.

Let’s use our own logical capabilities to take these valid arguments about the balance between central/decentral, local/nonlocal, passionate craftsmanship vs. blind adherence and turn *that* into a new meme that’s as easily understood as the carbon emission model.

Preferably one that’s *playable* more than it is *wallowable*. Pardon my Dutch

Blind adherence to a model without looking at costs, externalities, and alternative possibilities is just dumb. That goes for local advocates as well as those of industrial solutions.

But the logic we use to justify one or the other should be real, not a single scenario to make a generalized point.

First, there are two sources that greatly dispute the validity of the whole carbon emission scare. One is the documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle that very plausibly deconstructs the IPCC standpoint (http://twurl.nl/rcyued), the other is a compilation of NASA data by David Wilcock showing that global warming is at least a solar system-wide phenomenon: Interplanetary Day after Tomorrow (http://twurl.nl/g8kx4x)

Second, I think it is a form of naive and sub-optimal counterculturism to favour local agriculture, or any form of local production, over ‘nonlocal’ or large-scale production per se. Of course there are huge and pressing issues involved with large-scale production that need to be adressed; it is however not their scale per se that is the problem, it’s the rampant externalisation and dissociation that came along with it.

I think the original tomato argument is quite interesting. There are definitely benefits to large-scale production in terms of energy efficiency and such. The trick would be to infuse these facilities with the same kind of passionate, context-aware craftsmanship that naturally comes along with local, small-scale production.

Again, I say let’s try to find the sync, the synergy between these seemingly opposing methods. In terms of classic dualities that are in dire need of reconnection, local && nonlocal is a sweet contender.

There is nothing like getting up on one’s hind legs and trying a little logic or walking over to the boob tube and turning it off. Yes, we know that is where most everyone “lives” today, but maybe it’s some kind of goose liver pâté relationship….

Better yet, my retired buddy who set up a biomass heat system. He had the fan to dispel the volatile gasses, but after the great unveiling and demonstration he turned off the fan. Problem was, when he came back and turned it on, it sparked and blew a fireball of hot biomass a few stories high.

Moral of the story is not give up, run in fear and spread disinfo about biomass heat and energy, but (duh) capture the gas or buy a better switch and keep fanning it.

“If this song’s too hot, cool it if you can.
You better go out and get yourself a 5-stick fan
And fan it. (Fan it.) You’ve got to fan it. (Fan it.)
Won’t you fan it and cool it, honey, till the cows come home.”

A great version of this by Lightnin Hopkins exists, but it’s packed away.

Every night I’m reading Wittgenstein’s “Culture & Value.” I am in love! When i cross that Hudson River, i’d like to leave my copy with you Doug or have you autograph it for me?

An essential observation on the situation, as which you do so often!

-mason

Yeah, that money isn’t getting to those farmers. They’ve actually stopped growing food for themselves and are now growing food on giant factory farms. I’m sure there’s a reason why most of our food is imported from these countries. Could it be significantly more relaxed environmental, labor and economic justice? Savor the righteousness indeed.

More info on factory versus family farmed:
http://www.factoryfarm.org/?page_id=48

And dear Gawd… When is the population going to start realizing how these folks use language to obfuscate and control. When any think tank says “Limited Government” I hear Consolidation of Power. When they say “Free Markets” I hear Corporate Rule. Let’s see the Man behind the Curtain already.

Where I live communities seem to be converging on the Internet. Rural groups are learning how to use the Internet to organize and connect and Urban groups are creating collectives to support family farms.

Check out:
http://www.sustainusa.org/familyfarmed
http://www.learngrowconnect.org/what
http://www.familyfarmdefenders.org

These are initiatives that Cato (NPR?) doesn’t want you to know about – because then you’re Thinking for Yourself. Isn’t ADM / ConAgra / Monsanto a Big “Supporter” of NPR?

What’s interesting to me is going to be how using the Internet medium will shape these people’s awareness. It will be interesting to see how and when they shift their Internet usage from the “Electronic Brochure” stage of 1999 to the “Hyperconnected” stage of today. How will that effect the future vitality and diversity of family farms and rural America?

Interesting times.
- D.