I caught most of the movie Brazil the other day. While I am hardly anywhere near the libertarian fringes politically once in a while I do find my betters somewhat lacking, their words foreshadowing a world like that in the movie, a world with committees of well suited people creating rules and social values which I just wouldn't want, values like these:

The study also found that alcoholic drinks contribute significantly to emissions, with the growing and processing of hops and malt into beer and whisky producing 1.5 per cent of Britain's greenhouse gases. "Changing our lifestyles, including our diets, is going to be one of the crucial elements in cutting carbon emissions," said David Kennedy, chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change. Mr Kennedy, who says he has stopped eating doner kebabs because they contain lamb...

Gee, I stopped eating what we know as "donairs" over here because I graduated from university, left my twenties behind and no longer found myself pickled at 2:30 am. How was it that I didn't realize I was saving the planet, too. How jolly. The Committee on Climate Change appears to be a UK government body operating under the Climate Change Act 2008. Its website is wonky today. Apparently other bureaucracies are at it as Germans are being told to cut out schnitzel and bratwurst to save the planet. Oh dear. One wonders what a schnitzel-less Teutonic culture might look like.

Things can't be that bad. What about the power of lamb poo to accelerate photosynthesis? That must count for something. Surely the CO2 sucking power of barley, too, must stand for something in the whole natural cycle. Surely, given the amount of actual barley in the cost of beer, science should be able to show how carbon offsets would be easily available in other aspects of brewing. And while we are at it, surely a "buying local" campaign for brewing has sustainable aspect. You can very obsessed about such things as this 37 page pdf explaining the carbon footprint of Fat Tire beer shows. Beer Activist posted a handy summary of the Fat Tire study last summer.

Oddly - quite oddly in fact - I do not see the growing process getting any credit for the plant itself taking in CO2 during its life cycle. Let alone any reference to how scientists are studying lots of things about barley like how barley grows in salty conditions and may help in the future world of higher sea levels. One would think we are talking about net results here and not just one side of the gross. Otherwise, there is no difference from agricultural production and, say, an inorganic system like a mining operation. Hmm. I wonder what the carbon footprint of the planet's consultants who don't use net results in their research adds up to?