Alan Greenspan

As a general rule I don't read the business section of the Chronicle but this morning something caught my eye and it was Alan Greenspan. He's cute in a wood gnome kind of way, so I read the article and didn't retain a bit of it except this one sentence which I copied from sfgate: Greenspan said the United States must look at ways to reduce gasoline use both as a matter of national security and to protect the environment.

This isn't new news and yet when I talk about protecting the environment by eating local and seasonal foods people look at me like I need remedial education. My auntie says the cockroaches will take over the world. Great.

But I got excited about Alan Greenspan mentioning our fuel consumption and the environment. He's not a crank or a kook or a former vice president in a scissor lift. He's Alan Greenspan, a complete numbers guy. Maybe folks will listen; take action.

Which leads me back to eating local foods as an easy way to reduce gasoline use with a bonus that the food tastes better. I know that eating every meal local is overboard for nearly everyone; it's overboard for me. But a small step like eating seasonal fruit from the US and not Mexico, New Zealand, Israel or Chile would be a delicious way to be part of the solution. Alan Greenspan would smile.

Think of the gasoline use we could reduce if we limited the obvious gas guzzling fruits such as bananas, pineapples, papayas and foreign mangoes from our fruit bowls. You don't have to be a corporation or the head of the Federal Reserve to calculate the benefit. A lot. And maybe those benefits could be added to Medicare. According to Mr. Greenspan we are going to need them.