The fuck.

This is a giant stack of groundless assertions masked as data points in order to support an allegation that has no basis in reality.

First, charging for carbon emissions will solve the problem more comprehensively.

...because gas taxes have handled this so well. Has this fuck priced diesel lately?

In particular, if the local food movement manages to reduce carbon emissions in food production because it reduces fuel consumption, that will just free up the saved fuel to be used elsewhere.

Right. When everyone in Los Angeles lost their service-sector job in 2008 and didn't need to commute from West Covina to Malibu twice a day any longer, traffic didn't get better because more people weren't staying home, they were driving around in circles for no good goddamn reason. That's exactly what happened.

The notion that "you should sell your produce as close to your farm as possible" is expounded upon at length in Ten Acres Enough, which was written in 1864. "Carbon tax." Whatever.

Reducing demand will, in all likelihood, just cause the price of fossil fuels to fall, which will lead to others buying up and using the fuels for other purposes.

Yup. When the DVD came out, all those cheap VCRs on the shelves were snapped up by...

For instance, suppose John drives 1 lbs of tomatoes 1 mile to the farmer’s market. Now suppose, Sally drives 3 lbs of tomatoes 2 miles to the farmer’s market. John’s food has fewer food miles, but Sally’s food has less miles per unit of food and, all else equal, less emissions per unit of food.

Let's not pretend that food isn't shipped by the truckload and that one semi-trailer worth of lettuce driven a mile doesn't use half the gas of two semi-trailers worth of lettuce driven a mile.

Moving a unit of food by train is way less fuel-intensive than moving it by road vehicle for instance.

...but the infrastructure in North America transports food primarily by surface so what the fuck's your point?

Third, local food flies in the face of specialization and the kinds of gains it allows.

So wait a sec - y'all were all "OMG THERE'S MORE THAN FIVE KINDS OF APPLE ZOMG ZOMG ZOMG" yesterday but today you're all "whoa! Food specialization is impossible with local food!"

Srsly? seven fucking shares for this drivel?

Where's my "block mattbruenig.com" button @mk?@