But, in many ways, as I think about it, local non-organic v. distant organic may well be a zero-sum game in the long term.

However, people rarely make health and nutrition choices based on long term consequences. They are more likely to think about tomorrow rather than ten years from now. I think that’s the shift in thinking that has to occur, and is starting to happen every so slowly.

Then again, I’m also willing to bet that a lot of local produce that people are shouting “HEY THIS IS LOCAL!” about may well also be organic, which changes the balance of things even more.

It all comes back to looking at the factual arguments, I guess. Local food is better because it uses vastly less fossil fuel to transport (thereby conserving a dwindling resource and decreasing pollution). Local also tends to mean “small farmer,” which is better for another host of reasons: more real, decently-paying jobs; fewer chemicals (small farms need to be more diverse in order to compete in the local-food farmer’s market/CSA economy; vast monocultures decrease disease resistance; hence, small farms don’t need to use as many chemicals to keep their crops healthy), etc.

I could go on. But the point is, these needn’t be emotional arguments. There are solid, practical reasons why these choices are better — no need to go to “we’re getting back to our roots, man” or “those people are all dirty hippies and/or Puritans.”

I’m skeptical of those arguments that resonate most strongly with our basic sense of right-and-wrong.This may be because I’m annoyed at many moralizing tendencies regarding food, whether it be a tendency to value temperance (why the hell would that be a good thing?) or the tendency to speak of food in terms of purity (Whole Foods anyone?) and contamination.

Most people I hear talking about local foods talk not so much in terms of the reality of cost/benefit as in terms of morality. First, the local food argument resonates with the common-sense idea that technological advances are evil and should be paid for. Second, our sense of morality tends to atavistic, so we feel like anything that brings us “back to our roots” should be good. i.e. the same people that has people sticking to 2000 year old religions has people believing that eating local is good.

If it happens to be true that local produce is better for the world than produce shipped across the globe, fine, but the fact that it rings “true” with my common sense actually makes me more skeptical, not less.

But what’s happened to my thinking wasn’t guilt – it was health concerns.

how can environmentalists approach peopple’s fears about their own health?

There are numerous examples of “tragedy of the commons” where guilt is not incentive enough to cause behavioral change. Recycling is easy to induce, probably because you can find recycling bins everywhere, and there is no real cost associated with it to the end-user.

Screw the guilt. I give myself more than enough of that for the extra 16 kg I am carrying around. If my problems with my dating life and my wardrobe have not gotten me to lay off the processed foods (and they have not) a guilt trip based on geeky science stuff or vegetarian stuf or whatever… has not a chance in hell.

On the other hand, if it happens to taste good? Hey! I am all for it!

Actually, here I tend to buy local stuff and stuff in season-cheaper and tastier.

Suddenly, everyone became a convert.

Even more interestingly, the caterer was psyched about getting the sustainable seafood movement at the aq going, while the staff that she had to deal with was the ones dragging their heals because they saw it as an annoyance, rather than something positive.

Anyway, intellectually, I agree that guilt is not useful in converting people to the cause. But I use guilt on myself and others all the time, even though I recognize that it’s annoying. I just keep holding onto that old environmental chestnut that if people only KNEW the consequence of a particular action, then they wouldn’t want to do it.

But I know that’s not true – for example, I love bacon, and I can’t find a sustainable source in San Diego. So I eat it anyway despite knowing that it comes from factory farms. Guilt doesn’t change my actions, it just makes me feel guilty. So anyway, Mark, I agree with you that in the end, guilt is not useful in changing people’s behavior.