> If we want to count these emissions from moving fertilizers, tractors etc. around as 'food miles' then the logical conclusion would not be 'eat local'.
> Instead, 'eat from countries that manufacture fertilisers & pesticides' so they don't have to export elsewhere.
When I walk to the farmer's market by my house, I always shudder at all the cars that have driven there and parked. The quantity of emissions from driving a personal gasoline vehicle is really staggering compared to any food related emissions.
And it's really shocking that people are so ignorant of the toll their personal vehicles take. I think that if people had to manually lift all the fuel that they pumped into their cars, maybe even for one filling per year, they would get a better feel for just how bad driving is. And the CO2 is far heavier than even the fuel, pre combustion. A 20 gallon refill of a tank is 400 pounds of CO2, a fifth of a ton.
If we even legalized corner stores for US neighborhoods, we could probably start driving down emissions.