Oh oh!

Don't let the eco-fascists read this. We'll have to call in the exorcist.

Let's Ditch Ethanol

You can stop berating yourself for buying that Spanish clementine or New Zealand lamb. Although lists of "what you can do to save the planet" include eating locally—buying food that is grown nearby—to reduce your carbon footprint, the calculation is more complicated than counting up your food's frequent-flier miles. If the local tomato comes from a greenhouse that gobbled up electricity produced from coal and was trucked in via an 8 miles-per-gallon pickup, and a long-distance one was grown in sunny fields and transported by a 400mpg train, you'll leave a smaller carbon footprint if you opt for the latter. Each calculation depends on the food and where you live, but studies find that dairy products imported by Europe from New Zealand leave half the carbon footprint as local ones, while imported New Zealand lamb (which is pasture-raised) leaves one quarter the carbon footprint as local kinds that rely on energy-intensive feed.