Middlebury College environmental scholar-in-residence, Bill McKibben, took on George Mason University economics professor, Russell Roberts, in a recent debate at the University of Vermont on the realities of buying local in the current economy.
Food fight
A crowd packed the Grand Maple Ballroom in the Davis Center at UVM on Wednesday, Oct. 29 for “Buy Local or Buy Global: A Debate.” The debate had the intellectual rivals questioning modern methods of sustainability.
McKibben pressed the need for food networking within communities as a method to improve environmental and economic issues. Roberts countered by emphasizing the value of time and the many cultural gains of productivity.
McKibben cited environmental concerns in erosion of soil and carbon dioxide pollution, andsaid globalizing food supplies destroys communities.
“One, we need an economy that provides more environmental durability than our present arrangement,” McKibben said. “Two we need an economy that provides for cohesive communities.”
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The Grand Maple Ballroom was filled to capacity for the debate.
(Photo by Kathy Ward) |
“Recent studies show that shoppers at the farmers market have 10 times as many conversations per visit,” he said.
Buying local has its benefits in certain aspects of the community, but the concept of economic independence belongs in the past and is impossible to achieve in the modern world, Roberts said.
“Total self-sufficiency is the road to poverty,” he said.
Time is our most valued resource and buying local is more expensive than the non-local alternative, Roberts said.
“You are devoting more of your precious time to earn money necessary to buy what you want,” he said. “Sure, the money stays local, but why do you care if the amount you can buy gets smaller and smaller?”
Roberts attributed the finer qualities in life to the country’s productivity.
“It means that this generation, and the one to follow, will have greater opportunities outside of agriculture than they would have otherwise,” he said.
After each speech was complete, the speakers were allotted ten minutes to respond to the other’s points.
McKibben showed his angst by pacing back and forth behind his podium before accusing Roberts of lacking evidence.
“There are not enough iPods or robotic knees to make up for the fact that you have half as many friends as you did 50 years ago,” McKibben said.
Roberts acknowledged the importance of community, but said that McKibben was only referring to a “food” community. The time saved by not buying local allows for people to create other communities, he said.
“True, when I buy my New Zealand apples I don’t get the pleasure of chatting with the farmer who grew them,” Roberts said. “But why does that mean I have less community?”
Preaching to the converted
The audience members were composed mainly of students and local residents.
Jeri Helen, 28, of Burlington says the state’s strong support to “buy local” creates a bias within the listeners.
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Middlebury College environmental scholar Bill McKibben extolled the benefits that buying local has on the environment and local communities.
(Photo by Kathy Ward) |
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“It's heavy knowledge in an area that most Americans don’t have so it’s tough for someone like Roberts to address an audience like that,” she says.
Helen moved from Seattle to Burlington for the food community that McKibben described. However, she says Roberts’s argument for self-sufficiency did make her reflect on their realistic possibilities of self-sufficiency.
Mariah Senftlever, 41, of Burlington says she felt neither of the speakers made strong presentations.
“Bill’s delivery was a big turn-off for me because it was just too much information,” she says. “Russell Roberts was at the other end of the spectrum, he had almost no content.”
Essex resident Gabriel Earns, 26, says he was disappointed with the information conveyed. Earns was interested in hearing arguments for why globalization could save money and the positive impact on environmental factors, he says.
“I thought [Roberts] would give us a lot of detailed information on carbon footprints and financial information on the advantages of globalization,” Earns says.
Bridging environmentalism and economics
St. Michael’s economics professor Reza Ramazani plans to teach a class called Environmental Economics next semester. Environmentalism and free market economics can absolutely coexist, he says.
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George Mason University economist Russell Roberts said that buying nothing but local food is "the road to poverty."
(Photo by Kathy Ward) |
Consumers need the ability to choose what percentage of products are local and what percentage are global, Ramazani says.
“Yes, we may be helping the local economy buying local,” he says. “The money might stay here, we might reduce our carbon footprint, but I don’t believe that the argument to buy local is so obvious as McKibben makes it seem.”
It is easy to overlook the true cost of producing agricultural products, Ramazani says.
“It’s not that black and white,” he says. “Both groups are exaggerating the benefits and the costs. It's much more complicated, and for that reason we need a class like Environmental Economics to tell the complete story.”
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