Fine analysis of "tangerines per gallon"

You may have heard that John Edwards's wife recently swore off eating tangerines because she is worried about the "carbon footprint" of transporting food long distances.

David Foster at Chicago Boyz crunches the numbers and reports that tangerines imported into North Carolina from Florida, California, and maybe even from Spain, are more fuel efficient than if they were grown on a small farm located 60 miles from the Edwards's house.

Amazing what a little careful analysis can do to airy sentiments.

Comments

[Dave Tufte]

I showed a few weeks ago that the carbon footprint from a normal day of driving is comparable to that of producing a couple of cheeseburgers.

http://voluntaryxchange.typepad.com/voluntaryxchange/2007/07/the-environment.html

[JorgXMcKie]

I would just love to see the diet of one of these loons (yes, Elizabeth Edwards, when it comes to this topic, is a loon) if they subsisted entirely of stuff produced 'locally' (say within 100 miles of where they live). I wonder how many food processors they have in that area? Pickling plants? Pasta factories? Mills? Perhaps they should go back to processing their own wheat, corn, potatoes, and rice. That would certainly keep them too busy to bother the rest of us. (Of course, Edwards could have it done by either some unpaid interns or a few poorly paid illegal immigrants who live in shacks on her estate [I'm assuming, perhaps unfairly, that she wouldn't want member of that 'Other America' to be dirtying up her pool house or guest bedrooms or whatever].)

I wonder just how much driving to the grocery store she's done in the past ten years or so, anyway.

[david foster]

"Local" is not a synonym for "virtuous."

Prior to the introduction of coal as a major fuel, locally-produced wood was used both for home heating and for industrial purposes such as iron foundries. As population grew, this led to a rapid depletion of woodlands.

The transport of coal over relatively-long distances by ship and canal barge (and eventually by railroad) took the pressure of wood, and saved the trees.

[kyle N]

It is really just rank stupidity, consider this: fuel costs a lot, anything which uses a lot of fuel will cost more right? Unless the use of hydrocarbons is even greater when produced locally. Therefore the least expensive commodity will more than likely be the one with the smallest carbon "footprint".
There are of course some exceptions, but this is a good rule of thumb. Buy the best, for less. and don't worry about all the rest.

[brian g]

I won't nit pick the math. I'll just say that at best for Ms Edwards its a wash, whether bought local or not, but she may well be doing more harm than good!

Of course she could just buy a few Tangerine trees and have a renewable source of Tangerines, right? See Democrats are short sighted! She could be growing her own, instead she is depriving the whole Edwards family unjustly of Tangerines! Imagine what they may do to us lol.

[brian g]

Nuther pretty thought in my head.

If she buys tangerines or not, they will be there anyways at the store. So she could be a consequentialist and enjoy the fruit. Or she should wage a war against imported Tangerines. Simply saying I stopped buying Tangerines does not really accomplish anything. That's like nonbinding legislation. Ohhhh now I C.

[JorgXMcKie]

brian g, she's probably got a 'tropical fruit room' in that mansion and can swear off buying tangerines *because* she *is* growing them. Why doesn't everyone do that?