Eat local organic food if you like, but don’t kid yourself that it’s ‘green’ – James Delingpole

September 21, 2010

Don’t get me wrong, I love farmers’ markets. I love going to the fashionable one in Borough, London, and that wonderful rich feeling you get whenever you don’t buy anything. And I love going to the one near me in south London and bantering and haggling with the fish man till he succumbs to giving me some amazing bargain like five decent-size Dover sole for a tenner.

I also really like the idea of putting money direct into the farmer’s pocket rather than helping finance yet another bloody edge-of-town Tesco. And I like the espresso man with his espresso machine. And the jolly sausage ladies. And the free-range eggs. And the Eastern European man who gives me a discount on the veg. All these are the kind of good reason as to why one might support one’s local farmers’ market. But what isn’t a good reason is this notion many people have that by shopping local they’re helping to save the planet. Because they’re not. Quite the opposite is true, in fact.

(to read more, click here)

Related posts:

1. Memo to Prince Charles: CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is plant food.
2. Stung into stupidity – or heroism
3. What Dave and his chum Barack don’t want you to know about green jobs and green energy
4. How green activist scientists rigged the EU pesticide ban which has cost farmers and businesses billions

2 thoughts on “Eat local organic food if you like, but don’t kid yourself that it’s ‘green’”

1. Tom Forrester-Paton says:22nd September 2010 at 9:28 amAn anuvver fing: The locavores are not just wrong in the terms that prevail in this bastion of reason, they are wrong in their own terms, as well. In deploring the use of “airfreight” to deliver Kenyan beans to Dutch markets, the locavores overlook the fact that the beans travel as a cheap backhaul cargo, usually in the bellies of passenger aircraft which, if the locavores succeeded in forbidding the traffic, would still fly the same route, repatriating holidaying Europeans – the “carbon footprint” of their journey is practically zero.

   That’s of course if the Moonbat Tendency hasn’t succeeded in shutting down that remaining source of Kenyan economic betterment, tourism (for purposes other than attending climate conferences). Which is another argument. I suppose.

   What particularly pisses me off about this Kenyan green bean crap is that in general, and by and large, and on the whole, I approve of the British Empire, including the benign way it wound itself down. But my approval depends critically on the post-colonial states being allowed by the developed world to go about the business of developing themselves (properly, I mean, not just as aid-junkies) unmolested. Examples of cogent African business development are rare enough without their pitch being queered by a bunch of ignorant, pharisaical harpies.

2. pola says:27th September 2010 at 2:11 amit’s not about the carbon footprint which is a scam anyway as you seem to understand judging from your latest article in the telegraph about bilderberg and global cooling. the point is that the industrialized countries move more and more towards economies which do not produce anything but are pure ‘serve’ societies. this is not sustainable for any country – if it doesn’t produce anything and has to import everything. that’s the whole problem that the us, uk, and many european countries are facing. and even if your crop is destroyed by one bad season you still have the knowledge, you still have food stored from the previous season and if not you then your neighbor. it doesn’t take a scientific paper to understand the sanity behind the idea of being independent in your food supply either as individual or as a country. just common sense.

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