@keithalexander @clairefrwordley Couldn't disagree more with this assessment. It's not that food miles are often a small portion of the overall carbon footprint of a given food (they're right about that), it's the generalization of LCAs to determine 1 average metric for a given commodity....
@keithalexander @clairefrwordley It's a dangerous oversimplification which can lead to completely contradictory outcomes - because there is ZERO context in this figure.
@keithalexander @clairefrwordley Imagine being a neighbour of Mark Shepard's farm and thinking to yourself - "it would be better for the environment if I only purchased nuts from him but not any meat" - which is what this chart basically advocates...
newforestfarm.us/tour-the-farm/
newforestfarm.us/tour-the-farm/
@keithalexander @clairefrwordley Or imagine - same example - thinking "running to town to get nuts at the grocery has the same climatic footprint as getting nuts from Mark" (also what chart suggests).
@keithalexander @clairefrwordley Both of those two ideas would be completely absurd, since animals play an integral role in Mark's permacultural practice; and moreover, we could go get nuts straight from Mark sans plastic, int'l travel, processing, distribution, etc., etc.
@keithalexander @clairefrwordley And that's just a context-specific critique of the GHG footprint. There's more at play than GHGs. Biodiversity. Water use. Water quality. Local development. Community-building.
@keithalexander @clairefrwordley THE LAST THING we should be advocating is for people to ditch local sustainable food producers and instead just get their food at the grocery, regardless of where or how it was produced. IMHO this is terrible advice... 
@keithalexander @clairefrwordley (Just to add, this rant is in no way directed at you Keith - I find your willingness to openly engage debates about the best way to decarbonize commendable; a rare breed in this world! Kudos!)
