Recommended: Math Lessons for Locavores

Its amazing how gullible we all are. We the general public have been taken time and time again by plausible-sounding but fallacious arguments, usually completely unsupported by any credible evidence. Remember the popular advice to drink 8 glasses of water a day (the invention of a Senate staffer, it turns out)?

Stephen Budiansky has written about this in today's New York Times Op Ed page, with a piece about the current fad to "save the environment" by eating only locally-grown foods. His piece Math Lessons for Locavores points out that despite the hype, transportation costs account for only a very small part of the total energy cost of growing and preparing food. And fertilizes and agricultural chemicals account for an even smaller portion. The real energy hogs in the system, it turns out, are our own home preparation and storage energy uses (driving to the store, refrigerators, freezers, dishwashers, ovens).