The system has evolved to make change very difficult. One part of this post on ZeroHedge shows you the supply chain involved with just a ketchup. 52 transport and process stages. Fifty-two.
"Just how energy inefficient the food system is can be seen in the crazy case of the Swedish tomato ketchup. Researchers at the Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology analysed the production of tomato ketchup. The study considered the production of inputs to agriculture, tomato cultivation and conversion to tomato paste (in Italy), the processing and packaging of the paste and other ingredients into tomato ketchup in Sweden and the retail and storage of the final product. All this involved more than 52 transport and process stages.
The aseptic bags used to package the tomato paste were produced in the Netherlands and transported to Italy to be filled, placed in steel barrels, and then moved to Sweden. The five layered, red bottles were either produced in the UK or Sweden with materials form Japan, Italy, Belgium, the USA and Denmark. The polypropylene (PP) screw-cap of the bottle and plug, made from low density polyethylene (LDPE), was produced in Denmark and transported to Sweden. Additionally, LDPE shrink-film and corrugated cardboard were used to distribute the final product. Labels, glue and ink were not included in the analysis."
How does an individual affect change when something as basic as a bottle of ketchup is clearly part of the world that'd built itself with disregard for its impact on the planet?
Re-optimizing said supply chains in an oil constrained, and eventually oil free world seems extremely non-trivial. I wonder if we will soon have to scale up the methods (both computationally, & in human/practical industrial re-organization terms) to plot new paths and then connect them, before the graph changes so much that the potential for profit disappears.
In the near term,I could see human engineers using deep learning or other computational methods for multi-scale optimization to reduce costs and carbon footprint based on locality of original sources (food/biofuels/..) In the medium term, I would bet that AI agents will exist precisely to optimize these tasks. There's hundreds of billions to be (re)-made in (re)-wiring the economy properly.
You should read Homebrew Industrial Revolution by Kevin Carson, particularly his break down of the Industrial Revolution. Mostly the IR was driven by state actors or those who could influence them such as with the UK's Enclosure Act which forced peasants to work in factories and in the US with the transcontinental railroad which was lobbied for by industrial interests on the East coast who wanted a slice of the West coast pie of regional production/consumption. Basically, everything up to this point is the result of capitalism and its owners who are protected from market forces of regional and local production/consumption which would follow more closely than what we have today where companies literally throw away brand new shoes and electronics to keep their prices high.
How is this inefficient? I definitely think that markets have the potential to be very inefficient, but do we know that the alternatives to this are any more efficient? Economies of scale often do make it more efficient for all of a particular kind of product to be produced in one location and then shipped to wherever they're needed. The fact that there are 52 steps to the process says nothing about the actual efficiency of it. It's just a play to ignorance to the fact that almost all products we enjoy go through a similarly complicated supply chain.
It's only inefficient in the sense that it expends more gas (thus leading to higher emissions) than is strictly necessary. However, I also assume that it is cheaper for food to be distributed and processed in this manner; this is usually what people mean by "efficient".
"Just how energy inefficient the food system is can be seen in the crazy case of the Swedish tomato ketchup. Researchers at the Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology analysed the production of tomato ketchup. The study considered the production of inputs to agriculture, tomato cultivation and conversion to tomato paste (in Italy), the processing and packaging of the paste and other ingredients into tomato ketchup in Sweden and the retail and storage of the final product. All this involved more than 52 transport and process stages.
The aseptic bags used to package the tomato paste were produced in the Netherlands and transported to Italy to be filled, placed in steel barrels, and then moved to Sweden. The five layered, red bottles were either produced in the UK or Sweden with materials form Japan, Italy, Belgium, the USA and Denmark. The polypropylene (PP) screw-cap of the bottle and plug, made from low density polyethylene (LDPE), was produced in Denmark and transported to Sweden. Additionally, LDPE shrink-film and corrugated cardboard were used to distribute the final product. Labels, glue and ink were not included in the analysis."
Source: http://www.321energy.com/editorials/church/church040205.html
How does an individual affect change when something as basic as a bottle of ketchup is clearly part of the world that'd built itself with disregard for its impact on the planet?
ZeroHedge Post: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-24/why-next-recession-...