Use Global Warming, Save the World

The ham and cheese? Look around, every town and city has farms, creameries, smallgoods producers, and other local food sources.  Part of the fun of eating as much local produce as possible is to find these places and check out their range of foods.  The warm fuzzy feeling of saving the planet from a kilo of pollution is a bonus…

Yes it is more expensive.  Initially.  But two things will balance that out.  One is your patronage of local food producers, because as more business comes their way, they will be able to apply economies of scale.  The other is that as global warming strikes harder and hotter, and fuel prices go up in response to emissions control legislation, supermarkets will be raising their prices to compensate.  

And there’s of course another thing that you can do to reduce your overall costs, and which is the point of this article.  Even if you only have a small apartment, you can grow some of this food yourself.  Because even growing out of season food is no longer quite the problem it was, with warmer weather being the order of the era.  I’m growing very successful crops of tomatoes in the winter, out in the open.  Milder winters is the only reason I can put this down to, and very welcome the fresh addition to my diet is, too.

As the weather warms on average, many things will change, including the season that you grow vegetables and food crops.  Large “factory farms” are run to a formula, and will not be flexible enough to take advantage of the extended growing seasons.  It’s doubtful they will even recognise that there is a change in the seasonal pattern, so this is an opportunity for smaller local producers to wrestle the market back.  You can be the producer that wrests your own shopping dollars back into your pocket, be your own ultralocal primary producer.

It won’t supply all your food needs, but slowly, imperceptibly, it will make a dent in them.  Then it’ll make a dent in the amount of fuel the supermarkets need to ship your food and your neighbor’s food and your neighborhood’s food.  Eventually, it may even save the planet, who knows?  The main thing that growing some of your own foods will do though, is that your bank balance and your health will improve.

So I’m saying to use global warming to give a twofold benefit – grow as much food as you can, yourself, and thereby reduce your food costs and increase your health benefits - and reduce greenhouse gas emission at the same time.  

I won’t attempt to give step by step instructions on how to grow yourself a garden here – there are other articles which you can find.  My hope is that you’ll read this article, and next time you have to make the choice between convenience and the right thing, you’ll choose the alternative that will ultimately benefit you the most, and plant something yummy or at least eat something local and yummy . . .