Quote:
Originally Posted by jalmir
of course, stating that local markets and farms are less green that the food brought from overseas is ridiculous!!!
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Never said overseas, but it isn't necessarily ridiculous either. For instance, it's likely cheaper and better for the environment for sugar to be shipped from Brazil than to produce it locally (Oregon) where I live. Brazil simply gets more sugar per acre than we can produce, and shipping in bulk doesn't consume much fuel per unit of shipped good.
I was also careful to use non-definitive words. It would be more "green" for cherries, strawberries, etc to be grown locally to me than to have them shipped from elsewhere. The prices often reflect this as off-season produce rises in price when it has to be transported further distances.
Environmentally poor(er) choices generally carry higher prices. Most would consider fracking to be an environmentally poor way to extract oil, but then again it costs significantly more than pumping it by conventional means.
I'm not saying cheaper is always the better option for the environment, but it usually is. Forests are replanted after harvesting not just because a law says it must be replanted, but because logging operators understand that sustained revenue requires sustainable practices. For all other times, regulation is the answer.