After four weeks of flying, my carbon footprint is embarrassingly huge, leaving me no moral high ground on any green issues. But one of the themes I encountered over in Oz was the exhortation to "buy local" - for green, rather than political, reasons.
Those of us who survived Apartheid SA will remember the era of sanctions, the absence of imported goods in shops and self-reliance on local goods and services that was sugar-coated in spin as one's "patriotic duty". (Aside, of course, from the irony of the nuclear programme sourcing expertise and components from France and others, quietly...) More recently, "buying local" has been the rallying call of the manufacturing industry, struggling against cheap imports from China in particular, in a bid to stave off further retrenchments and further bloating of the unemployment figures.
This "buy local" mindset, though, seemed rather differently focused. Aside from being State, rather than National, in focus, the imperative was an ecological rather than a political or economic one. Local goods don't incur the transport requirements of those from further afield, not only saving in costs, but saving in carbon emissions and other ecological disadvantages.
Yet despite all the rhetoric about "buying local" that rolled off everyone's lips so readily, I was intrigued to note the alacrity with which locals dived into the Chinese shops, to sample exotic wares such as sugared olives, almond jelly and "superfood" (take my word for it - don't...) which were certainly locally manufactured... if you lived in China.
It reminded me of the calls of the Adelle Davis-types of the 80s only to eat the fruit grown locally, in season, for health reasons - a rather meaningless concept these days with modern farming methods and cold storage technology having essentially dispensed with the notion of "seasons", much as professional sport has also done.
But while Oz is one step ahead of us on that, in that all packaging over there reflects the country of origin of not only the product but its constituents, making it easier to implement - it's still a useful orientation to aspire to as one grits one's teeth and trundles the shopping trolley down the aisles once more. Instead of just boycotting grapefruit that are plastered with "Jaffa" stickers or melamine-enhanced dog food from China, we could turn that into a positive affirmation of buying "local" without the cloying nationalism or capitalist nigglings that might otherwise stay our hands.
