Friday, November 23, 2007
Carbon connoisseurs
Posted by Harold Henderson on Fri, Nov 23, 2007 at 7:10 AM
I am not astonished at the existence of Dr. Vino's blog, but who knew there was an American Association of Wine Economists? (Thanks, Whet.)
Dr. Vino in a recent post waxes lengthy and eloquent on the carbon footprint of various wines, and reaches a conclusion I think somewhat similar to that of the omniscient Michael Pollan: local makes a lot of difference. A few tidbits:
"Shipping premium wine, bottled at the winery, around the world mostly involves shipping glass with some wine in it. In this regard, drinking wine from a magnum is the more carbon-friendly choice since the glass-to-wine ratio is less. Half-bottles, by contrast, worsen the ratio.
"Shipping wine in bulk from the source and bottling closer to the point of consumption lowers carbon intensity.
"Light packaging material such as Tetra-Pak or bag-in-a-box has much less carbon intensity...
"There’s a 'green line' that runs down the middle of Ohio. For points to the West of that line, it is more carbon efficient to consume wine trucked from California. To the East of that line, it’s more efficient to consume the same sized bottle of wine from Bordeaux, which has had benefited from the efficiencies of container shipping, followed by a shorter truck trip."
And on and on. If you like this sort of thing, you'll want to read the whole thing, or better yet, the full study titled "Red, White and 'Green': The Cost of Carbon in the Global Wine Trade," (pdf), which is AAWE Working Paper no. 9.
But nerdliness has its limits. Speaking as someone who can lose all focus when confronted with the wonderful maps that show how many days it will take to ship something from La Porte to Laramie, I say stop it! Environmentalist wine connoisseurs shouldn't spend their time on such things. They should lobby Congress to impose a hefty carbon tax ASAP, so that we all get the message loud and clear from the price stickers on Ripple and everything else.
Nothing less will help, because nobody has time to go around calculating the carbon footprint of every damn thing they do/eat/drink. That's what markets are for.
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OMG! As a wino, I'm not environmentally friendly! Geez. I don't own a car, I walk almost everywhere, I recycle almost everything and now I'm getting a countertop composter to take care of the rest of my garbage. I thought I was rivalling Ed Begley, Jr. But now I find out that I'm environmentally unsound because I drink a lot of wine. I give up. Screw it all. I'm buying a Hummer and a Cigarette boat and I'm going to start burning huge amounts of coal for no good reason.
Moon -- hence the conclusion of Harold's post. too many people get so caught up in little details of "being green" that they miss the big picture. not driving is probably the best thing you can do. the impact of wine i think is something that should concern the wine industry, rather than individual wine drinkers.
As someone who rarely drinks wine and who drives All The Time, I have to second Lee's motion.
Lee, you posted too late! I already bought the Hummer and the Cigarette boat and burned a ton of coal! :D
The wing and a fine time. Listening to the sound of a delicate hovel, and recalling a wonder, I see magic profiles near the heart of a luminous pine-tree; the wind fades away, the care of a blackbird describes and emotion and always, in silence, your beautiful mind returns in the sky. http://www.newsturkish.com/discboard/viewtopic.php?t=49 Francesco Sinibaldi
Another good reason to stock up on the Target Merlot in a box!
While I can't fathom Target Merlot being any good, other than being sold in a box; WHole Foods does sell some wine in a box that's totally recyclable. The Chardonnay was plenty decent, but the reds were...not terrible. As some one who doesn't own a car but does drink wine, the topic is certainly interesting, even if it should be more so to the industry than to consumers on the whole. I think we'll see more of this eco-friendly packaging in the near future; for now if we could get people to not buy/throw away all those convenient water bottles, that'd be some more substantial progress.
The land of a little promise. There’s a land where beautiful lapels transform in emotion the care of a blackbird, and over that lamp-post the rise of a kingdom describes an intention in the light of a fountain; there’s even the sunshine, a soul and the prayer.
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