Final Blog Post

Global to Local was about the rising push to make a more conscious effort to eat locally sourced food. This has been a trending response to globalization, where more and more people want to feel connected to where they live, and feel some unique sense of place, along with pride in their community. This desire has manifested in many ways, and one of them is to spend money on locally grown food, and locally produced goods. CSAs, as mentioned in the article, are about much more than growing food though, it is about connecting with the land you live on, and many CSAs are educational in nature. I like the idea of these CSAs, and I think anyone could benefit from knowing more about what they put in their bodies. I would like to see more food cooperatives pop up in urban areas, like Philly, where many parts are known as “food deserts”, as people could benefit much more from consistent access to quality food.

Conserving Communities was mainly about the negative impacts of globalization on small, rural communities. One of these issues addressed in this article is the tendency for large corporations to move into a small town, undercut the prices of small business, and completely control the market. The article also talks about what a disaster for the environment these large corporations have been. From warehousing and data centers to the building of new pipelines, many lands which were once forested and full of wildlife have become polluted or destroyed. While emissions and pollution exist at every scale of business in some capacity, small businesses, which source goods locally, and sell to their local communities, contribute far less to environmental destruction. This in many ways contrasts last week's readings, specifically The Local Trap, which talked about how strictly shopping local does not necessarily mean the product is more ethically produced. I do think however there is great benefit to being conscious of what you consume, and there is value to promoting local business, from both an environmental standpoint but also economically as well.