About your "foodprint"

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, there are a number of good reasons to support local food sources, but, unfortunately, reducing your, or your family's, carbon footprint isn't one of them. I was surprised and disappointed to read in Cooler Smarter: practical steps for low-carbon living:

"The emissions from producing food are so much greater than those from transporting it that transportation makes up only a tiny part of your carbon "foodprint." Even if local food eliminated all the emissions from transportation, long-distance food produced on a farm with 5 percent lower emissions might actually contribute less to global warming." ...

"Buying local food is an excellent way to support farmers in your area and to ensure freshness and quality.But other strategies are more effective in reducing the global warming emissions resulting from your diet."

Photo by J. Harrington

We'll look at some of those other strategies, plus some interesting thoughts from Wendell Berry on why supporting local family farms is critical, in the days and weeks ahead. Today we'll have this short posting because we sent time in the dentist's chair getting a molar extracted. Tomorrow we hope our ability to concentrate will be much improved. Soon I hope to enjoy Mr. Berry's suggestion to enjoy

“The Peace of Wild Things”

Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

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