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Still nursing a New Year's hangover? Well, here's another reason to feel bad. The makers of your drink of choice are contributing to climate change—and I'm not just talking the carbonation in your beer or bubbly.
Take wine. On the U.S. east coast, it's not the fermenting or the bottling causing the most excessive emissions of heat-trapping gases, it's the transportation. For those east of a line that zig-zags down from eastern Lake Erie to the Rio Grande in west Texas, drinking French wine or a local product lessens emissions from shipping. Everybody west should opt for west coast vintages.
If you were guzzling beer, I hope it was out of a can. Aluminum production is electricity-intensive, but shipping cans causes less global warming pollution than shipping bottles does. And aluminum gets recycled more than glass.
Don't think the hard stuff is clean either. Whether single malt or vodka is your poison, distilling it requires energy that, of course, results in the release of those globe warming gases. Rum might be a good bet, given the efficiency of growing sugarcane and the fact that you can use the stalks for fuel.
There is good news though. By making the thick glass bottles invented by Dom Perignon lighter, champagne makers will save some 8,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas pollution per year with future vintages. So let's toast to a happy, prosperous and environmentally friendly New Year!
