Wine In Cans

So the current stink in the news (pun intended) is word that gas stoves are major pollutants, and calls by some environmentalists for them to be eliminated (Outlawed! Cancel Culture!) and replaced by electric models. Politics of this aside, I confess that I have a gas cooktop, very deliberately, and I'll give it up when they pry my cold dead fingers etc. Oven is electric - dual fuel. Very trendy.

Electric stoves will not solve the climate crisis. What WILL solve the climate crisis is a general agreement across all strata of society that things like gas stoves are a bad idea and should generally be eliminated. This is a perspective with which I heatedly agree (yes, there's another one) but I'm not gonna be the first guy on my block to solve all the problems. My gas range will go the way of all things in time, in the meantime, I'm UP TO FUCKING HERE with being made to feel guilty because I use plastic bags while the real polluters and the voting public and the governments-at-large merrily continue to manufacture, support, and purchase all manner of earth-destroying chemicals and implements.

I'll tell you what - you start drinking wine out of cans and I'll consider taking my cooktop off-line. Wine in cans? Yes, as it turns out, the most carbon-producing, inefficient step in the production of wine is producing glass bottles in which to contain it. Wine bottles generate tons of carbon to make - more than the transportation costs for the vino - and contrary to what you may think, only about 1/3 are actually recycled. What? Wine doesn't age in aluminium cans! So what? The vast majority of wine is produced to be consumed immediately or within the next few years. Ageing wine is mostly a hobby for vineyard owners and the incels who count themselves as connoisseurs. I'll gladly take mine in a can, or carton.

This defending the environment is tricky business. I was down with it on the very first Earth day, and in my younger years considered myself particularly virtuous for riding my bike to work. But at this end of the string, I'm not going to shoulder the whole go on my own. I'm not trying to lead, but if the real polluters ever do take the lead - not in my lifetime, probably - I'll consider falling in line.