Posted by
Average Voter on Sunday, December 30, 2007 12:40:21 PM
Now you are being told because you choose wine at the dinner table that is produced in California, and you live in North Carolina, you are helping to contribute to CO2 pollution, and ultimately global warming.
Wine in a
glass bottle seems to be the problem since it weighs so much more than wine in a box.
A 40-pound case of wine probably has more than 20 pounds of glass in it. Alternative packaging products like Tetra Pak or bag-in-box have less carbon intensity because they are lighter and can be packed more efficiently in a shipping container. The lighter alternative packaging means that the carbon used for transporting wine is used for just that — wine, not glass. (Glass adds mass; the greater the mass, the less efficient the transport is.) I see the point, but why does anyone feel they need to make it?
Maybe all wine should be packaged in cardboard. Imagine your waiter coming to your table to refill your glass...wait a minute; your cardboard wine glass, with a box of wine with a plastic spigot on the end. And do you remember not so long ago when glass was good, because it is easily recyclable? And paper was bad because it destroys so many trees and ends up blowing around in some landfill anyway? Of course paper is recyclable too, but their is so much of it now, I would venture to guess less that 25% of it gets recycled anyhow.
But even if wine is worth more than its weight in carbon, it remains an hors d’oeuvre in our overall carbon diet, and wine consumers, like all consumers, should consider offsetting their consumption. Purchasing a carbon offset is one option, as is turning down the thermostat, riding a bicycle to work and eating less meat, since one cheeseburger has a bigger carbon footprint than a bottle of California wine consumed in New York.
How can anyone take any of this seriously? I should buy a carbon offset when I purchase a bottle of wine? Does this person understand that nearly everything made, everything, gets transported from one place to another? If I could get everybody to believe this than I would start my own carbon offset company. Imagine how much money I could make over the Christmas holidays. Think of all the packages getting sent to every corner of the United States. Every product is shipped either by truck or boat or train to get to its destination to be sold. Even the beloved Toyota Prius, the hybrid savior of cars, is shipped all over the U.S. to wanting customers. And did I mention that the Prius is built only in Japan? How many carbon offsets do you need to buy to equal that one out?
So why is this guy picking on the wine industry? If I made wine I would call this guy out.