“Buying locally” is a different concept than “Buying Local”.  One focuses on where the final transaction/relationship exists and the other focuses on where the product was produced.

If you confuse the two concepts, you may think that walking or biking to shop is “greener” because it’s local.

“Buying locally” builds local relationships and may support neighborhood stores and people, etc., BUT when you “buy locally” you may well be not be “buying local”. That product may have traveled far.

The Alternative Consumer article re online shopping being greener notes that “Brick and mortar stores typically have items shipped from distributors to regional warehouses and then to individual stores.” And the distributor may have received the product from a container ship by way of cross-country truck.

So, even if you walk or bike to shop, your product may have been shipped from China or Chile.

And most people, under our present conditions, cannot walk or bike to shop. The distances are too far, the time is too short, the options too few, or health too poor. Let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Let’s also not forget that online offers “the long tail” when it comes to products that accords much greater diversity of producst AND that allows small producers to survive, even prosper, even though their local market may not be big enough to support their artisanal, and perhaps, greener, work.

The human animal has been involved in trade since the beginning. We’ll never lose that. We should buy local when we can, and access the internet’s long tail when we can’t.