Eat global, save local

Today

Today’s typical environmentalist and locavore fancies that he or she possesses more and better knowledge than is contained in market prices. He or she is mistaken in his or her arrogance. The environmentalist who moralizes in favor of recycling cardboard containers and the locavore who boasts that he helps the environment by paying a few cents more for locally grown cabbages and cantaloupes focus on a small handful of visible aspects of production and distribution – such as the wood-pulp contents of the cardboard container or the fuel used to transport agricultural produces over long distances – and leaps without warrant to the conclusion that sticking that used cardboard containers into recycling bins, or reducing the amount of fuel burned to transport produce, generates net benefits for the environment. But there is simply no way that the recycling champion or the locavore can really know what he thinks he knows.

How much energy is used to recycle cardboard containers compared to the amount of energy used to produce new cardboard containers? What is the environmental impact of the chemicals used to cleanse used cardboard of the residue from its earlier uses so that that cardboard can be recycled for another use? How much fertilizer and energy – and what sorts – does your local small-scale farmer use to grow kale and cucumbers compared to the amounts and sorts used by the more-distant, larger-scale farmer? What is the full environmental impact of using land in suburbs such as Fairfax, VA, and Dobbs Ferry, NY, to grow vegetables for sale a local farmers’ markets compared to the impact of using that land differently?

The above are only a tiny fraction of all the relevant questions that must be asked and answered with reasonable accuracy before anyone can possess enough knowledge to be confident that recycling or ‘buying local’ are in fact good for the environment. (“Good for the economy” raises a largely separate set of myriad questions, all equally unasked and, hence, equally unanswered by typical environmentalists and enthusiasts of ‘localism.’)

As Pierre and Hiroko correctly note above, the best that anyone can do is to use market prices as guides. These prices are never perfect – such is unavoidable reality – but these prices are far more reliable guides to action than are the suppositions and priors and book knowledge (and book “knowledge”) of any individual person. If the price in Fairfax, VA, of cabbages grown in Texas is lower than is the price in Fairfax, VA, of cabbages grown in nearby Culpeper, VA, then the market is saying that, all things considered, the amount of resources used to grow cabbages in Texas and to make those Texas-grown cabbages available for sale at a Fairfax, VA, supermarket likely is less than is the amount of resources used to grow cabbages in Culpeper, VA, and to make those Culpeper-grown cabbages available for sale at a Fairfax, VA, farmers’ market.

The environmentalist or locavore might not – indeed, almost surely does not – understand why this conclusion is valid. That environmentalist or locavore resists having his or her romantic fancies about reality challenged by something as rational and analytic as economic analysis. But the environmentalist and the locavore are wrong; the prices are right.

All natural?

Apparently, the Dr. Pepper/Snapple group is being sued over its use of the phrase "All Natural" in its product.

If I were managing a beverage company, I'd love to try marketing a brand of drinks with the label "All Chemical".  A small picture of the periodic table of the elements would be optional, I suppose.

Any beverage company CEO wishing to use this idea can contact me through this blog to negotiate terms for licensing this idea.

What's the harm?

Linked from Hit and Run, a website which lays out bad consequences stemming from belief in various things, ranging from acupuncture to numerology to UFOs (most of the site documents deaths related to stupid or anti-scientific systems of thought.

Friend o ' Reason Penn Jillette talks up the very interesting website What's the Harm?, which lays out bad consequences stemming from belief in various things, ranging from acupuncture to numerology to UFOs (most of the site documents deaths related to stupid or anti-scientific systems of thought.

Pop psychology in the workplace

In a recent Forbes magazine, a piece titled "I Feel Your Pain" discusses the varioius fads that businesses buy in to. They promise to enhance performance, promote understanding, resolve dischord and make things generally better. Somehow, they never quite seem to.

The theory originated in education, as a way of helping teachers and students communicate more effectively. Since it made the leap to the workplace a few years ago, companies like Bank of America, Cendant, Adidas and Levi Strauss have climbed aboard the learning-style bandwagon. Most workplace problems, believers explain, stem from a clash of cognitive styles: when a visual manager sends a written memo to an "auditory" employee, for example, or when a pragmatic manager rejects as too pie-in-the-sky the contributions of a theoretical subordinate. The sales pitch of one learning-style tester declares: "Knowing exactly how to speak to each individual will eliminate this problem forever!" Proponents claim that its application can work wonders, increasing efficiency, boosting morale and reducing turnover. Sounds good, as an auditory learner might say–except that there's little scientific evidence to support learning style, in theory or in practice. Despite decades of research on students and teachers, the concept is still highly controversial within educational circles, and it's almost completely unproven in workplace settings. Studies, where they exist, are conducted with small groups, may not be peer-reviewed or published and are frequently carried out by learning-style proponents rather than neutral investigators.

And a lot of stuff seems to be picked up without proper evaluation.

If you ever want to give your supervisors or the people offering the course a hard time, you can ask questions like: "Where are the studies validating this method published?" "How was this test validated?" "What sample group was this tested on?" "Do you have data showing improvement, and how much improvement?"

For many of the employees on whom it is imposed, learning style will inspire only a sense of déjà vu. It wasn't so long ago that we were supposed to develop our workplace "EQ"–that's Emotional Intelligence–and before that, to remember our Myers-Briggs personality type. (Now was it "ExtrovertedIntuitive FeelingPerceiver" or "Introverted Sensing Thinking Judger"?) Corporate America, it seems, has an unappeasable hunger for the newest, hottest management concepts–all of which, on closer examination, appear eerily similar. Like learning style, they are determinedly inoffensive, careful not to wound feelings or bruise egos. They make everybody feel "special," gifted with some unique talent or ability. And all leave the problems they purport to address–sluggish productivity, poor communication, sagging morale, high turnover–essentially untouched. Perhaps that's because these instruments are not so much diagnostic as therapeutic, not about solving problems but about making people feel warm and fuzzy.

Indeed, the courses I've had seem to present only the diagnistic information. You can diagnose yourself and others as falling into one or another group. Unfortunately, only the most general strategies are ever presented for dealing with these different groups.

So far, the best rules for getting along seem to be two basic ones: Try not to offend, and try not to be too easily offended.

Well, look on the bright side. It may turn out some day that membership in a particular Myers-Briggs personality group might allow you to claim discrimination if you're fired for clashing with your boss.