Thursday, February 16, 2012

Name that documentary

I'm trying to find the name of a documentary on eco-friendly efforts in Portland, Oregon.

In this week's episode of Econtalk, guest David Owen mentions such a documentary, but does not mention it by name. Here's what he wrote in his book, as read during the podcast:

A recent documentary about Portland's Green consciousness shows a concerned resident driving her minivan 25 miles to buy two bags of fresh produce from a farmer on the other side of the city's urban growth boundary. And it shows the same farmer in a pickup truck transporting a larger but still very small selection of produce into the city to sell it in an urban farmer's market. Both trips are presented as virtuous acts, but neither makes environmental sense...

If all the worlds groceries traveled from farm to fork in minivans two bags at a time, we'd have exhausted many of the world's resources long ago. Locavorism is appealing because like many of the most popular green strategies, it feels enlightened, yet entails no actual sacrifice even if you don't grant yourself exemptions for coffee and out-of-season fruit.
I haven't had much luck finding the documentary with a Google search, as Portland has a lot of environmentally-focused actions and documentary viewings that cloud the search results. Owen mentioned this same documentary in a 2009 interview, so it must predate that interview, which eliminates the documentary Deep Green.

Do any readers have any ideas? I'd love to view this scene and use it to reference the absurdity of locavorism.

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