Digg this
| 
Post to del.icio.us
| 
E-mail to a friend
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.
and otherwise. Recently updated blogs are in bold text.
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.
:D
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...
Francesco Sinibaldi
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.
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.