As for ecological sustainability, Matt Ridley and others have made good arguments that economic progress is reducing our ecological impact.

All the free market idea is sick. Global warming, polluted water resources, destroyed ecosystem. No matter how wealthy you live for a few centuries which most people don't really, the world will be ruined as a result of it. You need to be completely brainwashed to believe in this kind of stuff.

Your example of lettuce shipped from 1000 miles away being the same as a head of lettuce in the local store is just untrue.

I just bought a head of lettuce from a local farmers market this morning, it was picked out of the field yesterday afternoon and made an enjoyable crispy salad for dinner this evening. Meanwhile, I'm sure there are heads of lettuce picked this morning in California, destined for Southern Ontario (where I live) and may be available to me next weekend. For me, there is no comparison in the taste between the local and California lettuce, the local lettuce is just crisper, fresher and just plain tastes better.

Buying local doesn't need to be an altruistic exercise. I buy local only when it serves my self interest (and my taste buds).

Both of you are missing the point. If you get very serious about buying local, you're going to have to give up consuming products that are produced halfway around the world. People who choose to buy local are not making their decision based on economics, or if they are, they are from your way of thinking making a "bad choice" on purpose. They are choosing to, in most cases, pay _more_ for something that was produced nearby, often by hand or on a very small scale of manufacturing.

Why would they do such a thing? Because it strengthens their community. They are making a pro-community decision, and for that added benefit they are willing to pay more. If you don't think this happens or works, go to your nearest farmer's market or food co-op and spend an hour. Soak up that feeling. Then go to Costco or Walmart and spend an hour. You can feel the difference in every pore, if you choose to open your senses to such differences which are, needless to say, unquantifiable and do not compute in the calculus of your modern economic worldview.

And quickly, re: "self sufficiency is the road to poverty". This statement is only true if you have blinders on. Fair trade and globalization are great, they drive the engines of all our modern economies. But only a fool would think that this boom we are now experiencing will last forever – thinking like that is what causes stock market bubbles, no? When lean times arrive again, globally, self sufficiency will be the road to survival.

But obviously, we don't have that and you failed to even hint at the fact that the link between far away production centers and their far away markets, that would be transportation, is entirely state subsidized.

It the taxpayers and citizens of all the points from here to there that pay for the shipping of Alaskan salmon and Columbian coffee. Roads, ports, fuel subsidies, acess to resources, hard to even get a hint of the true free market in the field of transportation.

Not to mention state subsidies of products, overfishing, state confiscation of lands, etc, that affect and distort local markets relative to the world market.

So, the choice to buy local is just that, a free choice and is a much freer expression of the market than the transportation of far away products to far away markets.

We have no clue what the "real" cost of purchasing far away products might be but we can guess without state intervention it would be much higher. And, at that point it would truly reflect resource use. It doesn't come close at present.

We do know that the choice to buy local is just that, a free choice. I would think those who espouse free markets [me included] have no problem with free choice but maybe i am wrong?