Food, energy woes can change people’s ideas of community

In her first monthly column on these pages, Jennifer Wilkins made it clear how our food system is joined at the hip with our energy crisis. As she characterized it, “Today’s food system is ‘a real Hummer,’ ” because of the large amount of fossil fuel consumed in packaging, fertilizers and transport that goes into feeding ourselves.

The food we eat and how we move around determine much of the way we live. Can we walk to work and to the market and get food from a farm in our region?

This is not the norm today. We have been seduced and addicted by an abundance of low priced food and gasoline. Health problems and suburban sprawl are among the less than desirable results.

The crisis of food and energy should be a tipping point creating the political will to plan and build communities and regions where the key elements — home, work, recreation and agricultural spaces — fit neatly together without auto dependence. Yet, we may slide by this crisis without real changes.

Albany Times-Union (New York)