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"Beyond Food Miles Posted Mar 9, 2011 by Michael Bomford NOTE: The following article is concerned strictly with the energy equation of the food sytem and is intended to stimulate questions about how best to grow, transport, store and prepare (ideally local) foods. There are many reasons to favor local food, including supporting local economies and building local food security.      "There is nothing as deceptive as an obvious fact" -Sherlock Holmes   A locavore is "a person who endeavors to eat only locally produced food."[1] What better diet could there be for an energy constrained world? After all, feeding Americans accounts for about 15% of US energy use,[2] and the average food item travels more than 5,000 miles from farm to fork.[3] It seems obvious that eating locally will go a long way to reducing food system energy use.   Yet cracking the case of America's energy-intensive food system demands that we look beyond the obvious. A local diet can reduce energy use somewhat, but there are even more effective ways to tackle the problem. Single-minded pursuit of local food, without consideration of the bigger picture, can actually make things worse from an energy perspective.[4]   If you realize you're spending too much money, the first thing to do is figure out where it's going. Cutting back on pizza won't make much difference if you're spending most of your money on beer. Similarly, the first step in reducing food system energy use is to figure out where all the energy is going. That's what a team of economists working for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) did last year, in a report called Energy Use in the US Food System.     Where the energy goes: Energy used in the food system as a proportion of total energy used in the US in 2002.[5]     The report contains some surprises. Transportation is the smallest piece of the food system energy pie. Even farming isn't a particularly big contributor. The big energy users t

"he paradox: "Transport is the only development sector that worsens as incomes rise. While sanitation, health, education and employment tend to improve through economic development, traffic congestion tends to worsen." So writes Michael Engelskirchen in his Sourcebook on Sustainable Transport. It's hard to disagree when you look around and see supercars, songtaew, taxis, buses, bikes, pick-ups, and tuk tuks trundling bumper-to-bumper along the Bangkok's clogged arteries. But in 15 years, maybe it won't be so bad. That's when the city could (and should) be the proud owner of a rail system promising change at the fabric of its being. "

"Outside Chengdu, in central China, a 78 million square foot site has been determined for an unconventional sort of construction project. It will be a city built from scratch, for 80,000 people, none of whom will need a car to get around. Click here to see the master plan > The "Great City" is a plan for an ambitious urban center designed to limit its residents environmental impact by producing clean energy, reducing waste, and promoting public transportation over individual car use."

"Inner Bangkok is going through big changes. New public transport routes and rapid property development means that the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) is having to reorganize traditional neighborhood boundaries. Here, BK visits the communities at threat and speaks to residents about their fears for the future."