Local versus global debate ensues

Author: Kaity Potak

"Buy Local" is a familiar mantra to most Vermonters these days. From bumper stickers to facts posted on farmers' market bulletin boards, the movement implores consumers to support their communities and promote environmental conservation by purchasing food locally as often as possible. Scholar-in-residence in Environmental Studies Bill McKibben is a recognized local advocate and was recently invited to partake in a debate at the University of Vermont (UVM) this past Wednesday with George Mason University economist Russell Roberts on the merits of buying locally versus globally.

The inaugural debate in UVM's new Janus Forum, "Buy Local or Buy Global: A Debate," was moderated by Emerson Lynn, editor and publisher of the St. Albans Messenger, in front of a crowded audience of 700. The Janus Forum brings nationally recognized writers and scholars to campus to debate matters of social, economic and environmental interest. In light of the current economic crisis, this debate focused not only on the environmental implications of the Buy Local movement, but on the economic ramifications as well.

Russell Roberts, a self-described "pretty hardcore" economist, has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and is a frequent commentator on NPR. Offering his economics-based opposition to the buy local movement, Roberts offered his view that "the morality of buying local is an open question."

The moderator gave McKibben and Roberts 20 minutes each to present their positions, then a 10 minute rebuttal period, followed by questions from the audience members. McKibben opened the discussion with a request that the audience pull out a pencil and paper to keep track of the arguments that he would make. "Pay attention," he pointedly asked. He then clearly detailed 15 arguments that fell within the two larger categories of "environmental durability" and "community cohesion" and brought up such specific issues as the degradation of topsoil, the loss of genetic diversity and global warming, as well as local employment and community spirit.

"I am proposing a change in the conventional wisdom that globalization is always good, the idea that has driven American policy, on both sides of the aisle in recent years," offered McKibben. Our trajectory as a nation has been increasingly toward the global, McKibben explained, adding that he thinks "we should take action together as a community to reverse that trend."

Citing a variety of studies, statistics and databases throughout the debate, McKibben spoke at one point about a 2003 study that took eight items from a November farmers' market and compared them to the same eight items offered in a supermarket. The carbon emissions from the two groups were analyzed, and it was found that the local items created 119 grams of carbon, while the supermarket items ultimately a 1,887 gram carbon footprint. Offering a more tangible and thus jarring statistic, McKibben went on to explain that those eight local items were found to travel 63 miles, on average, from where they were harvested to the ultimate consumer's home. Their supermarket counterparts? An average of 3,353 miles.

As McKibben concluded his argument about his "focus on food and energy - two commodities that [he] thinks we could furnish more of for ourselves here in Vermont," he reminded the audience to "listen carefully to the data that [Roberts] presents to make sure that it's up-to-date and responsive."

Russell Roberts then stepped up to the podium and offered his reasoning for why "keeping self-sufficient is a recipe for relative poverty," giving explanations for his doubts of the virtues of the buy local philosophy.

"If you're worried about the morality of your purchases, it is not obvious that you should trundle around in your car, stopping at four or five different markets to find the local produce that you want, rather than shopping at a very large supermarket and driving once," Roberts said. While McKibben spoke about the fossil fuels burned to transport food long distances, Roberts looked at the abuse of the environment, but at a more personal level, suggesting that "how far something travels isn't the only measure of its carbon footprint. It's also the distribution network it goes through, how many times you have to run to the store and to different stores."

While he admitted that there is an emotional appeal to buying local, and a certain pleasantness in the knowledge that you are helping someone from your own community, Roberts offered the case of a desperately poor Chilean farmer as an example of the simultaneous reality that other people suffer from the lifestyle choice to only buy local.

Apart from the question of morality regarding buying locally, Roberts also posited that it is not a viable way to function in a market-driven economy. In an interview with Burlington's Seven Days newspaper, Roberts expanded on this topic, saying, "I think the word self-sufficiency has an emotionally attractive ring to it. We don't want to depend on others; we want to be self-sufficient...but in economic activity and in trade generally, no one really has self-sufficiency as a goal."

Given ten minutes to rebut, McKibben launched into a request that Roberts supply something more tangible to support his argument, or as he called it, his "soliloquy."

"He does nothing at all to give us any data to show us any excess cost that comes with [buying locally]," McKibben said of Roberts' economic critique. "You may think I'm being tough in demanding evidence instead of assertion," McKibben said to the audience, "let me just tell you about the kind of trouble that assertion gets us into without evidence to back it up." He then went on to describe an interview with Roberts from last December where Roberts said, "I know the economy news doesn't seem very cheerful, but a lot of it is blown out of proportion. It's designed to scare us. They always tell us the sky is falling, but is doesn't usually fall..."

McKibben then referenced Alan Greenspan's admission just last week that this fantasy of completely unregulated markets lasting interminably is financially destroying much of the world we see around us. He said, "What I'm arguing is that it is destroying the world around us physically, as well, and that that these questions are serious enough, global warming and all the rest, that you should hold anyone that advocates the opposite to at least a high standard of evidence and proof as I have tried to present."

Roberts commented to the audience his surprise that "the guy in the sweater is telling me that we need more data," and continued to defend his positions on the issue of buying locally. He closed his arguments saying that he would "remain an optimist" and posited that "the deep question, the true question" is about the carbon dioxide issue. "What will we sacrifice to keep the Earth unchanged?" he asked the audience.

The answer may just remain unclear, while the issue of buying locally may continue to put scholars at odds with one another. As College Professor John Elder responded to the debate, "It seems that [Roberts] did not do much in the way of bringing figures," making his argument "less robust, to put it mildly." He went on to support McKibben, saying that "there are certainly strong arguments for encouraging as much local eating as possible. The two strongest, I believe, are that local food is more likely to be fresh, and therefore more delicious at the very least, but even more importantly, the tremendous implications it has for saving energy."

The audience's response seemed overwhelmingly in McKibben's favor, suggesting that those "implications" are speaking to Vermonters and that for the time being, those bumper stickers will live to see another day.