Awesome post as usual Zarah!  I had some thoughts I wanted to share...

With the increased buying that takes place in the holidays, conscious consumers talk a lot about buying local. Last year I read an interesting article by James E. McWilliams, author of “A Revolution in Eating: How the Quest for Food Shaped America”, and who is also an assistant professor at Texas State University. The title of this article was “Food That Travels Well”, and was published August 6, 2007 in the New York Times. He talked about the controversies behind “food miles” and how people put too much emphasis on “buying local”, when sometimes it’s not as good as it sounds (in terms of the price the environment pays).

Many people who advocate for “buying local” embrace the term "food miles". This is done to such an extent that, in some places in Europe, people are pushing for “food miles labeling”, so they will count food miles just like counting calories.

However, Dr. McWilliams argues that food miles are not the only things impacting the environment. He mentions that researches at Lincoln University in New Zealand found out that other processes along the way must be added to the energy-consuming chart and ‘carbon calculator’. For example, in England, people push for the consumption of locally raised lambs. The ones raised in Britain produce 6,280 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per ton, while the ones shipped from New Zealand (11,000 miles away) produce only 1,520 pounds of carbon dioxide per ton. The reason? British farmers are forced to use feed because of poor British pastures, increasing the amount of energy needed to raise the lambs.

Anyway, I think conscious consumers should analyze the whole life-cycle of those apples, or sugar, or fair trade crafts that they are buying this holiday season when calculating how environmentally friendly they are. If it makes more sense to import a product because it takes less energy to produce it in a different place, then do so. This way you are really lowering your carbon footprint. At the same time, don't buy imported things when it makes more sense to buy them locally.

When it's kind of confusing, I still try to buy local, because it DOES reinforce local economies in numerous ways.  And because there is another factor that I had not talked about yet: the fact that you're helping your community.  We cannot quantify the "good" we are doing when supporting our community and creating all those smiles on our neighbours' faces.

Hopefully, buying fair trade will also prove environmentally friendly :-)  I know I'm buying tons of Fair Trade stuff for my family and friends.  This is because I know for a fact that fair trade emphasizes that products must be made following environmentally friendly principles as much as possible.  And last time I checked, a lot of things are no longer manufactured here in the US, and it makes more sense to choose ethical companies and products over unethical ones.

I hope that wasn't too long!

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It was my posting regarding the flowers referenced at the start of the article. Nice well thought out article by the way. The thing that riled me at the outset was that flowers are hardly essential to living, certainly not for the consumer, although I fully appreciate the value to the Fairtrade grower. We seem to have gotten away from the idea of "seasonal food". The strawberrys in the supermarket in a cold snowy UK February haven't come from anywhere local for example. For me, I'm prepared to wait until the strawberrys come into season. With those, I've got a choice. With coffee or tea (for instance), I don't have a choice. It has to be imported, so I should purchase ethically.

My wife liked the more ethical but less spectacular flowers!

That was definitely something that needed addressed. Thanks.
I'm grateful for your blog in general to keep up to date with fair trade "news" and to know what is going on in this area.

And thanks for finding my blog and commenting!! I'm glad you enjoyed those hipster cartoons. :)

Nadia