Over the last few years, ecological and energy depletion websites alike have been telling us that eating locally will reduce transportation costs, which saves energy and thus is a good thing. The term locavores has entered the lexicon, meaning those who pledge to only eat food produced within a limited distance of home.

But as reported in the Atlantic, Christopher L. Weber and H. Scott Matthews of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University have compared the effect of eating foods that require less energy to transport with the effect of eating foods that require less energy to grow. Their abstract:

Despite significant recent public concern and media attention to the environmental impacts of food, few studies in the United States have systematically compared the life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with food production against long-distance distribution, aka "food-miles." We find that although food is transported long distances in general (1640 km delivery and 6760 km life-cycle supply chain on average) the GHG emissions associated with food are dominated by the production phase, contributing 83% of the average U.S. household's 8.1 t CO2e/yr footprint for food consumption. Transportation as a whole represents only 11% of life-cycle GHG emissions, and final delivery from producer to retail contributes only 4%. Different food groups exhibit a large range in GHG-intensity; on average, red meat is around 150% more GHG-intensive than chicken or fish. Thus, we suggest that dietary shift can be a more effective means of lowering an average household's food-related climate footprint than "buying local." Shifting less than one day per week's worth of calories from red meat and dairy products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a vegetable-based diet achieves more GHG reduction than buying all locally sourced food. PDF

In short, not eating red meat, dairy and certain cereals (all of which I love) should lead to a far greater reduction in household greenhouse gas emissions than, "eating locally." But can't one do both?

Atlantic's Marion Nestle notes:

I've always thought that the real benefits of local food production were in building and preserving communities. I like having farms within easy access of where I live and I like knowing the people who produce my food. If local food doesn't make climate change worse and maybe even helps a bit, that's just icing on the cake. Or am I missing something here?

One commenter to the Atlantic article replies, "there are BIG PROBLEMS with substituting eco-theory for the economics of international trade." Another continues, "... One needs to focus on eating what is in-season, locally and then, and only then, look at infrequent treats of out-of-season, non-local products. The thing that will motivate people to do this is some form of carbon tax that will provide a more realistic cost associated with transportation of non-local goods."

I'm not sure we'll need the carbon tax. I already find out-of-season food to be much more expensive than before.

"A riot is an ugly sink. Unt, vonce you get vone schtarted, zere is little chance of schtoppink it, short of blootshet." - Inspector Kemp

Michael Hiltzik sticks up for the credit card companies in this LA Times article.

Attacking these firms is a crowd-pleasing sport for lawmakers, in part because every constituent has a story about being mulcted by a card issuer. Last week the House of Representatives easily passed a credit card holders' bill of rights. The Senate will take up a similar measure soon. President Obama has signaled his approval.

Someone has to stand up for these companies. I guess it'll have to be me.

"A riot is an ugly sink, unt, I think that it is just about time dat ve had vone!" - Inspector Kemp

Matt Taibbi responds:

Of all the truly revolting political developments of the financial crisis age -- and there have been a lot of them -- probably nothing is more disgusting than the weirdly intense media backlash against "populist anger," anger that is inevitably described by media sages like Hiltzik as irrational, unfounded, and pointedly unhelpful. The public is depicted as a great dumb beast lashing out wildly at shadows and hallucinations, with the poor diligent hardworking members of the financial class (slaving away to pump much-needed capital into the bloodstream of international commerce) suffering the collateral damage. And while commentators are always careful to note that much of the anger "may" or "could" be justified, rhetorically these lines always lead to a but clause. Rick Perlstein of Newsweek, for instance, noted that some populist anger is useful, but it can very easily transform into the " 'bad' kind of populism -- the hateful kind; the violent kind; the demagogic kind." Author Robert Frank talked about the public anger over the AIG bonuses being reasonable up to a point, but "if we're not careful, we could end up shooting ourselves in the foot," as "any broader effort to cap executive salaries would do more harm than good."

This is another of the typical features of the anti-populism argument, the false dichotomy. We are constantly being told that we have to stem this populist anger or we'll have communism, hard caps on executive salaries, lynch mobs, pitchforks, etc. Except that in reality the consequences of "populist" anger in this country are somewhat, uh, less severe. Think about it: when in American history has populist outrage ever led to serious punitive measures directed at rich people?

The media, I suspect, see it as their job to foment populist outrage. They don't like events that stray from the script.

If there have been two seemingly immutable trends for the American consumer, they're that he's eaten more every year and driven more every year. The late 1960s are sometimes assumed to be the height of car culture. But in January 1970, the average American drove only about 393 miles in his vehicle, or about half of what he drove every month until recently.

As Nate Silver, writing for Esquire, scrambled to formulate a reason for why we aren't driving as much, my thoughts turned to a recent webinar by Christopher B. Leinberger, of Brookings, on "drive-able suburban" versus "walkable urban" development.

Leinberger presented the idea that I Love Lucy, Leave it to Beaver and The Dick van Dyke Show had been important in the growth of the suburbs, and thought that more recently, the Millennials had been similarly influenced by Seinfeld, Friends and Sex in the City into wanting to live in walkable urban settings with the sort of active and enjoyable street life seen in those shows. I suspect that many Millennials who had grown up in the suburban wasteland were ready for a change, though I'm sure that popular media fanned the flames.

And, of course, even with $2.00 gas, driving costs money, which is in fairly short supply lately.

I love this recent quote from Leonard Nimoy:

"Canon is only important to certain people because they have to cling to their knowledge of the minutiae," Nimoy told Reuters. "Open your mind! Be a 'Star Trek' fan and open your mind and say, 'Where does Star Trek want to take me now'."

Having followed all the series, films and many of the novels, I spent a little time on Star Trek usenet groups, but ran into precisely the kind of personality that was more concerned with minutiae than possibilities.

Nimoy has become quite the photographer.

"I pledged to deliver a cycling revolution across the city, and there is now a growing excitement about our cycle hire scheme, which will give all Londoners the opportunity to hop on a bike and experience the joys of cycling,"

Mayor Boris Johnson has announced a Bike for Hire scheme to start in Camden and expand throughout central London. Similar, and often free, services are already available in other European cities: Vélib in Lyon, Toulouse and Paris and Bicing in Barcelona. But bike theft and vandalism make the idea less than profitable in more crime-ridden cities, and as many commenters to such articles note, bicycling in London is dangerous without dedicated bike lanes.

I see more of a future in folding bikes that aren't left in plain view of thieves. Brompton, Dahon, BikeFriday and others offer bikes small enough to take on transit, into a store or even into an office meeting.

My own Xootr Swift is typical of bikes that fold somewhat larger but can be ridden more aggressively. I can tuck my Swift under my desk, but it is awfully hard to stuff it in a bag to carry unnoticed through the office - so I don't.

But the problem of dealing with auto traffic remains no matter what bike you choose.

Peak Oil has come and gone rather quietly. Whether you believe oil peaked in 2005 or 2008, we haven't seen the sort of systemic collapse predicted by all sorts of Energy Depletion doomers. Oil Drum editor Gail the Actuary admits as much:

There is a good deal of evidence that we are now a little past "peak oil". Many of us find it doesn't feel quite like we had imagined.

The peak in liquid fuels production seems to have come and gone, but nothing too terrible has happened. The stores are full of food. The price of gasoline is fairly reasonable, compared to a year ago. Here again, I think if we look at our situation in terms of the limits to growth box, it is not just liquid fuels that are important, but a whole group of networked systems, all of which are affected (to varying degrees) by the constraints of the limits to growth box.

I have felt for a long time that energy depletion would manifest itself in a far more subtle, complicated and long term process than that described in novels like World Made by Hand, where the shock of diminishing resources thrusts every economic class in the USA back into a pre-industrial lifestyle in about a decade. Life After the Oil Crash is predicated on such a scenario (assuming we avoid a resource war cum nuclear exchange), selling solar ovens and survivalist gear. Some folks at The Oil Drum have been patiently waiting for the big hurricane that will hamper oil supplies and push us into Post-Peak shock.

Whether impelled by Limits to Growth or Peak Oil, Gail still expects that collapse, or a series of small collapses, is just around the corner:

It is my view that because of this networking, all systems will eventually fail together. A person cannot expect that one system, such as the electrical system, will greatly outlast the other systems. If either the electrical system or the financial system fails, other systems are likely to fail as well.

I see collapse as being stepwise--things may look good for a while, and then there will be a sudden step down. This may happen several times. We are on a step right now.

IMO, small steps of collapse have been happening for years in the poorer corners of the world, like Pakistan, and in the poorer corners of the industrialized world as people slide out of the prosperous middle class into the working poor. The recent financial collapse is an example that some of us will continue to thrive, but the competition in all aspects of life will quietly become more intense and corrupt.