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If there was a direct and maintained electric train route + stronger food regulation in the US you could dine on fresh local produce with a lower carbon footpri

If there was a direct and maintained electric train route + stronger food regulation in the US you could dine on fresh local produce with a lower carbon footprint. International cooperation and trade is great, but in the US specifically the economic behemoths have used globalization to paper over the real problems that we face at home (we haven't truly invested in infrastructure in a long time, the meat we produce is rejected on health standards abroad, etc). I doubt the smokescreen will last much longer with Trump et al blowing up international agreements.

fsckboy 17d ago
NYers dine on fresh local produce without subsidies or government interference. Farm fresh vegetable produce is perishable and goes from fresh to wilted/rotten very quickly. It is in the capitalist interest with no regulation to move fresh produce as quickly as possible to the supermarkets and onto the shelves. Every day trucks bring fresh produce from NJ and LI and upstate NY into the city and it immediately goes onto the shelves for sale. No communist system could do it as well. Produce is an extremely profitable segment of supermarket sales. The markups are very low (no communist could compete) but the turnover is very quick. While a can of beans might sit there a few weeks, customers love fresh produce. So hypothetically, they could make a 0.5% markup (you going to take public transit to NJ to buy produce a half a point cheaper?), but that's every week, so in a year it's a healthy 25% markup for the supermarket's annual investment. I made up the numbers to explain the concept, but that in a nutshell is supermarket economics. Maybe they mark up 2% and the annualized profit is 100%. Tiny margin, healthy profit, point made. Very efficient, happy customers, happy supermarkets. Trucks bring produce farm to table, maybe a distribution stop. Trains are for bulk stuff and not route flexible, so it's not clear they contribute any advantage to the mix, but I love me trains too. And it's not just NYer's, that's just an urban extreme example, every supermarket chain the the country operates like this.
- happyopossum 16d ago
  > Maybe they mark up 2% and the annualized profit is 100%. That's not how profit works. If you spend $100 to make $102, that's a 2% margin. If you do that every week, you've spent $5200 to make $5304: still a 2% margin. You don't get to count only the margin every week, you have to count the outlay every week too...
derektank 17d ago
>If there was a direct and maintained electric train route What do you mean by this? Most US freight trains are already diesel electric. German freight uses overhead electric wires on most of the shared passenger rail network, which is great, but doesn’t make it any easier or faster to deliver freight to consumers. Are you thinking of high speed rail? Bullet and maglev trains aren’t used to deliver freight anywhere globally that I’m aware of.
- Gud 17d ago
  Diesel... electric. Now remove the word diesel. It reduces the carbon footprint considerably if you don't have to fill up your trains with carbon.
  - derektank 16d ago
    Perhaps I misread the parent comment, but the emphasis on that clause seemed to be on the fresh produce, not the lower carbon emissions. I don’t know how swapping out for 100% electric improves people’s access to fresh produce is my point
    - Gud 15d ago
      Diesel electric are not at all the same as an electric train network. Electric trains have a very interesting property, as they work as a grid as both producers, feeding back when they are breaking. You made a second point, that most trains are already "diesel electric", I am pointing out, that the function is very different from an electric train, and much less friendly(and less efficient) to the environment.
- yreg 16d ago
  No, you don't need maglev to compete with a ship sailing from NZ on speed.
  - pbmonster 16d ago
    But you would need maglev if you wanted to compete on energy per ton of cargo per mile. Ships are several times more efficient than classic trains.
bell-cot 17d ago
I'd first question whether the NY Times' accounting included the carbon footprint within NZ, where the lambs are probably raised far from the shipping piers. Then you've got the infrastructure and power requirements for freezing for the long ocean voyage. Then... After that, I'd question local sheep farmers about how suitable upstate NY is for raising lambs, compared to NZ. And about the regulatory and business environment they face. Agriculture in the US is a hellish mess, and the great majority of its problems are caused by neither its associated carbon emissions nor by underinvesting in transportation infrastructure.

fsckboy 17d ago

NYers dine on fresh local produce without subsidies or government interference. Farm fresh vegetable produce is perishable and goes from fresh to wilted/rotten very quickly. It is in the capitalist interest with no regulation to move fresh produce as quickly as possible to the supermarkets and onto the shelves. Every day trucks bring fresh produce from NJ and LI and upstate NY into the city and it immediately goes onto the shelves for sale. No communist system could do it as well. Produce is an extremely profitable segment of supermarket sales. The markups are very low (no communist could compete) but the turnover is very quick. While a can of beans might sit there a few weeks, customers love fresh produce. So hypothetically, they could make a 0.5% markup (you going to take public transit to NJ to buy produce a half a point cheaper?), but that's every week, so in a year it's a healthy 25% markup for the supermarket's annual investment. I made up the numbers to explain the concept, but that in a nutshell is supermarket economics. Maybe they mark up 2% and the annualized profit is 100%. Tiny margin, healthy profit, point made. Very efficient, happy customers, happy supermarkets. Trucks bring produce farm to table, maybe a distribution stop. Trains are for bulk stuff and not route flexible, so it's not clear they contribute any advantage to the mix, but I love me trains too. And it's not just NYer's, that's just an urban extreme example, every supermarket chain the the country operates like this.

happyopossum 16d ago
> Maybe they mark up 2% and the annualized profit is 100%. That's not how profit works. If you spend $100 to make $102, that's a 2% margin. If you do that every week, you've spent $5200 to make $5304: still a 2% margin. You don't get to count only the margin every week, you have to count the outlay every week too...

derektank 17d ago

>If there was a direct and maintained electric train route What do you mean by this? Most US freight trains are already diesel electric. German freight uses overhead electric wires on most of the shared passenger rail network, which is great, but doesn’t make it any easier or faster to deliver freight to consumers. Are you thinking of high speed rail? Bullet and maglev trains aren’t used to deliver freight anywhere globally that I’m aware of.

Gud 17d ago
Diesel... electric. Now remove the word diesel. It reduces the carbon footprint considerably if you don't have to fill up your trains with carbon.
- derektank 16d ago
  Perhaps I misread the parent comment, but the emphasis on that clause seemed to be on the fresh produce, not the lower carbon emissions. I don’t know how swapping out for 100% electric improves people’s access to fresh produce is my point
  - Gud 15d ago
    Diesel electric are not at all the same as an electric train network. Electric trains have a very interesting property, as they work as a grid as both producers, feeding back when they are breaking. You made a second point, that most trains are already "diesel electric", I am pointing out, that the function is very different from an electric train, and much less friendly(and less efficient) to the environment.
yreg 16d ago
No, you don't need maglev to compete with a ship sailing from NZ on speed.
- pbmonster 16d ago
  But you would need maglev if you wanted to compete on energy per ton of cargo per mile. Ships are several times more efficient than classic trains.

bell-cot 17d ago

I'd first question whether the NY Times' accounting included the carbon footprint within NZ, where the lambs are probably raised far from the shipping piers. Then you've got the infrastructure and power requirements for freezing for the long ocean voyage. Then... After that, I'd question local sheep farmers about how suitable upstate NY is for raising lambs, compared to NZ. And about the regulatory and business environment they face. Agriculture in the US is a hellish mess, and the great majority of its problems are caused by neither its associated carbon emissions nor by underinvesting in transportation infrastructure.