Regional: Green Buildings Open House, October 4th
On Saturday, October 4, 2008, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association is welcoming the public to visit local sustainable homes and buildings throughout New Jersey and the Northeast to see clean renewable energy at work. Visitors to these buildings will be able to see how their neighbors and businesses are reducing their carbon footprint and cutting their energy bills through the power of the sun, wind, and smart building design.

The Green Buildings Open House operates in conjunction with the National Solar Tour. Homeowners and facility managers across all 50 states will be showing visitors the latest in recycling, renewable energy technologies, sustainable building materials, and energy efficient appliances.

Take a local tour to learn how you, too, can save by going green.

To find the Green Buildings Open House sites nearest you, visit http://www.nesea.org

Regional businesses, Basil Bandwagon Natural Market, 908-788-5737 – basilbandwagon.com – and Basil Brook Organic Pharm 908-788-6864, will participate in the open house again this year and provide information on Energy Star rated products, solar electric, Solatubes, Solar Star attic fans, passive solar design, solar pool heating, solar hot water, kickbikes, and an all electric car “charged by the sun.”
Posted by Michael Shapiro, Editor at 12:30 AM

However, I don’t think the above makes any argument for protectionism. Any US protectionism and it’s accompanying nationalism should be opposed. But the idea that the buy local or slow food movements are the cause of poverty in the developing world is false.

To take the example of Sub-Saharan Africa, every country there except for Chad is a net EXPORTER of food. People starve in Africa because they are forced to sell their food as cash crops on the world market. Often this is to pay massive debts incurred to institutions like the IMF or World Bank, which are essentially how the developed world (led by the US) steals the developing world’s resources.

The US and other countries have essentially ripped off these countries and then left them to starve. In this context, it is precisely the world food market that is the source of their hunger.

A good book to check out that goes through the real roots of world hunger is World Hunger, Twelve Myths by Frances Moore Lappe et al.

Buy local is useful and should be encouraged if you go the extra mile and actually do the research yourself—factor everything into the cost of your local food: including the greater inefficiency (in some cases) of trying to grow crops in hostile places, cost of irrigation, subsidies doled out. Don’t take the word of someone who is selling something to you.

In certain cases, food (especially crops like rice, which require a lot of water) grown in the US in some near-desert states is 2 to 3 times as inefficient as food that is grown in a more conducive place *and* transported from Africa/Asia—shipping does not have a large carbon footprint, and refrigeration is unnecessary for grains.

Like everything, “buy local” is a catchy slogan, and like every slogan, it is sometimes covering up something nasty.