> If we move away from an expectation for year-round availability
So, here's a question: do you think you could convince people to give up smartphones?
Because I think it'd be about the same level of difficulty.
People really, really, really don't like to surrender convenience or comfort.
I realize you aren't advocating this -- you have great intentions -- but crazy long shelf lives keep a lot of people from starving.
I'm interested in the micro-farming idea primarily because (a) I like the idea of adding more redundancy into the food supply; (b) because fresh food tastes amazing; and (c) because it's an interesting problem to solve.
But I'd rather see that we roll the clock forward, and develop better technology to enable both year-round availability and healthy ultra-long-life foods, while at the same time deploying indefinitely sustainable agricultural practices.
We are definitely on the same page regarding the likelihood of people giving up their comforts of their own accord, I am just an optimist first and a pragmatist second!
In practice however, you may see carbon taxes change the way people consume international goods as prices on food would most certainly go up. Bananas in Australia are a good example, occasionally they fluctuate in price and you can see consumers aren't willing to wear the higer costs. Maybe it wouldn't be a disaster if Australians could only eat local fruits for example, I think it would ruffle the status quo but pretty quickly people would adapt.
I feel like a carbon tax on shipping would level the playing field toward local microfarming as well, and I would love to see agrofarming become a part of big country landscapes. Both the US and Australia are characterized by a vast majority of land being a patchwork quilt of cleared fields. I would love to see that change in my life time.
So, here's a question: do you think you could convince people to give up smartphones?
Because I think it'd be about the same level of difficulty.
People really, really, really don't like to surrender convenience or comfort.
I realize you aren't advocating this -- you have great intentions -- but crazy long shelf lives keep a lot of people from starving.
I'm interested in the micro-farming idea primarily because (a) I like the idea of adding more redundancy into the food supply; (b) because fresh food tastes amazing; and (c) because it's an interesting problem to solve. But I'd rather see that we roll the clock forward, and develop better technology to enable both year-round availability and healthy ultra-long-life foods, while at the same time deploying indefinitely sustainable agricultural practices.