So, we're watching 20/20 tonight like good dorks, and this review of
Superfreakeconomics comes on. The wife is all excited, because she
loves this kind of thing, and read Freakonomics.
Then, they start talking about the environment and how cozy they are
with Nathan Myhrvold and all they learned from him about it. I felt
all the respect I had for Levitt and Dubner drain slowly away. Need to
know how to get your Windows box to stop blue screening all the time?
Talk to Nathan. Fix the planet? Um, no. Not even close. He's the guy
who blue screened your computer in the first place.
For more about all they got wrong, see
this takedown at Climate
Progress. As a non-scientist into local foods, I am really curious
about how they determined agribusiness is better than local farms.
They talk first about how much more efficient mass transportation is,
even from half a world away, than local transportation, then mention
how production accounts for 85% of energy use and transportation is
more or less inconsequential.
I am really curious to see that 85% breakdown and how they determine
efficiency. If it's nutritive quality, it's not completely conclusive
that local foods provide better nutrition, but it seems to be that
way. If it's in the volume of food produced, agribusiness will win
that one, everytime, but at what cost? Did they consider the impact of
the chemicals, fertilizer, machinery and groundwater runoff?
Really disappointed, but happy to have added
Climate Progress to my RSS feeds.