Environmental Talk

Elizabeth Edwards: “Just say ‘No’ … to fruit salad.”

One of the great things about politics is that it gets the whole family involved.

You really don’t get that in any other profession. Nobody interviews a doctor’s wife and asks, “Do you think your husband should be using the imported artificial heart or should he be buying local?”

People don’t even ask Katie Holmes whether Tom Cruise should have made his character more emotional in Vanilla Sky, and they’re in the same profession.

As a result, I have some sympathy when people ask the wives of political candidates questions on hot-button political topics. Then again, Elizabeth Edwards is a lawyer … so, screw her.

Much political hay has been made over Ms. Edwards comments to an environmental group in McClellanville, South Carolina a couple days ago. According to published reports, in response to a question about the importance of buying locally as an environmental strategy, she responded:

“We’ve been moving back to ‘buy local,’” Mrs. Edwards said, outlining a trade policy that “acknowledges the carbon footprint” of transporting fruit.

“I live in North Carolina. I’ll probably never eat a tangerine again,” she said, speaking of a time when the fruit is reaches the price that it “needs” to be.

The controversy surrounding Ms. Edwards’ remarks is illuminating. Most of the barbs thrown her way have focused on the hypocrisy and impracticality surrounding much of the “buy local” approach to living your life. In a nutshell, “buying local” is hard to practice consistently and impossible to practice when carried to any significant extent.

If you’re never going to eat a tangerine again, does that mean you won’t drink any orange juice since tangerines are a part of most commercially produced juice? If the concept is right for food, does it extend to other products? Do you only buy televisions, sneakers and telephones that are made locally? Are you even allowed to make a long-distance phone call and use valuable energy all across the country?

The criticism of Ms. Edwards, to me, is misplaced. If she (or anyone else) wants to go through the time and effort of choosing local products at the supermarket, Gaia bless you.

Personally, I don’t want to have to log on to Mapquest and do all kinds of other research just to make dinner. Plus, I’m pretty sure there isn’t a local company near me that makes Hot Pockets.

I’m a lot more concerned with Ms. Edwards’ comments that the the price of fruit (or anything) isn’t where it “needs” to be.

Somehow, millions of individual consumer choices haven’t gotten tangerines or, by extension, cars, airplane flights, recycled clothes, bottled water or whatever Liz Edwards doesn’t agree with or isn’t produced in North Carolina, where they “need” to be.

But Liz, with her advanced degrees, will no doubt be able to tell us exactly where those things should be priced - not only in relation to every other product but also to achieve the social goals that she knows we all should be pursuing but maybe just haven’t become enlightened enough to embrace just yet.

When asked about his wife’s comments, candidate Edwards said, “Would I add to the price of food? I’d have to think about that.”

How could we not elect a couple who possess such massive intelligence to the White House?

Unless I’m just getting massive intelligence confused with unbridled arrogance….

global warming, climate change, John Edwards, Elizabeth Edwards, Katie Holmes, Tom Cruise, Hot Pockets, presidential primary, White House