April 20th, 2005 - more on buying locally
I haven’t written in a few days for a couple reasons. One is that I was wearing a wrist brace and typing 1.5-handed just isn’t very fun. (I can type one-handed, too, but that’s even more difficult!) so I was avoiding unnecessary typing. I also had this feeling that I need to write a “perfect” response to Roger…but I finally convinced myself that wasn’t necessary. I’ve really appreciated your comments, Roger, as they’ve made me think a LOT about why I think buying locally is important. I don’t think I can really articulate some of it…part of it is just a feeling that local is better. so, as I think of them or Roger suggests something I disagree with, I’ll write more reasons why this is right for me.
Cheapest isn’t the main thing for me. I believe that cheap can lead to problems in other areas. For example, cheap beef = worse slaughterhouses. Cheap clothes = sweatshops with child workers. Cheap = environmentally unsound. And so on. Not true in all cases, but cutting back costs means prices have to go down somewhere. That somewhere is either in the product itself (lower quality goods going into it, unripe fruit being sprayed to ripen later), and/or the labor force (lower qualified workers willing to work for lower wages, overworking personnel, cutting benefits) and/or factories (more pollution, fewer safety precautions). I don’t like the drawbacks of these situations.
I also don’t like our dependence on fossil fuels. Every mile farther away from me something comes, the greater my dependence on fuel to get it to me.
April 29th, 2005 at 7:04 am EDT
Everything costs something — either right now, or later. And while it is “cheaper” to buy that chinese-made shirt at WalMart, the longer-costs of higher taxes (since WalMart workers are underpaid and under-benefitted, they consume a much higher amount of Public Services) and trade imbalance, and human rights, etc etc etc.
yeah, it’s tough. what battle do you want to fight today?