You try to eat locally, but do you, um, eat out locally? With the argument that long-distance dating hurts the earth, Slate says you should.
The idea that many folks are “willing to be a locavore but not a locasexual,” as author Barron YoungSmith puts it, builds on the notion of eco-hypocrites who aren’t willing to curtail their air travel, but regularly do things like recycle, buy carbon offsets, or frequent farmers markets. But picking a local date could matter more than what’s on your plate. For a hypothetical San Francisco resident dating someone in D.C., “breaking up would be about 10 times better for the environment than going vegetarian,” the piece says. The Slow Food movement made people aware of where our food comes from, with some calculating food miles and committing to only eat grub within a certain radius. Why not apply that to relationships?
Isn’t it time for a Date Local movement, too? Let’s start thinking about “sex miles”: Just how far was this person shipped to hook up with you? And how many times more efficient would it be to date someone within a 100-mile radius? If the movement spread globally, mirroring either the decentralized development of Local Food co-ops or the manifesto-and-chapter model that built up to the Slow Food movement’s mega-confab this summer, its environmental benefits could multiply many times.
Spewing less CO2, saving money on plane tix, and being closer to your lovah? Sounds like a recipe for sex success.
