Thanks, all.
Of course I meant “the cost of a whole cargo hold full of iPods.”
But this is true even when we’re talking about bulk commodities like grain. The cost to ship the grain by rail or cargo ship is very small compared to the other inputs.
Yes, if you had to ship grain overseas via 747 it would get pretty expensive, which is why people don’t ship grain via air.
Localization in this case refers to using whatever resources are available locally as JIT systems fall apart.
I don’t support centralization for its own sake but only in contexts where it works-for example I’d rather not fifty states have contradicting laws on dozens of issues.
You mean the same progressive policies that achieved for the first time in history in Europe, North America, Australia, and East Asia a universal middle-class society?
Your “solutions” are absolutely anti-modernist. Yes, industrial capitalism does cause problems but the solution isn’t to turn back the clock a few centuries.
I did not give solutions. What I gave are activities that are inevitable given peak oil, global warming, and credit crises.
The solution to those problems is adaptation and increased reliance of alternative sources of energy such as natural gas and nuclear power along with expansion of mass transit systems-not going back to the 19th Century.
Indeed, but other sources of energy have both lower energy quality and quantity. At the same time, we have a growing global middle class and a global capitalist economy that requires significant levels of energy and materials resources. More details are found in the peak oil thread.