NO MORE ECO WINE GUILT

BUY LOCAL BUT DON'T GIVE UP FOREIGN GOODIES OUT OF CARBON GUILT

There's a lot of talk lately about off setting one's carbon footprint and being sustainable by buying local products. The buy only local food movement is called Localvore. In this vein, a recent posting on Planet Green titled "Bask in the Warm Glow of Wine, Without Warming the Globe" asked consumers to question retailers about how the wine was shipped and urged them to buy only locally produced wine if possible.

Well, I don't live in a wine region and the few local wines available are in general more expensive then something good from Argentina or Chile and with the slim selection and price tag it's not a reasonable option.

The "wine guilt" article even highlighted a web site called DrVino.com that showed wine drinkers how to map out a carbon footprint for a bottle of wine.

I for one am not going to give up Australian Shiraz anytime in the near future.

And I am not going to stop buying French wine when I want it or Avocados from Mexico or flowers from South America for that matter. Or a TV from China.

Let's be realistic: we should not stop all international trade because there are problems with the way transportation is working now. Does the whole world really want to stop buying and enjoying products from far off places? Isn't one great thing about globalization that we can experience and enjoy other cultures by eating their cuisine, drinking their wine, wearing their clothes, watching their movies, listening to their music, reading their books and benefiting from their indigenous wisdom and new technology?

Here's a few comments about carbon guilt trips:

*Do buy as much local produce as you can and join a local CSA if possible. This is a fantastic idea and it preserves local farmland. But don't feel guilty about buying cheese from Europe or fruit and vegetables from other countries. (Or buying sexy underwear from Asia)

*Packaging Does Matter. If you can buy foreign wine in a box do it. Don't be a snob and worry about sniffing the cork or drooling over some fancy bottle. It's the wine inside that counts and drinking out of a box does not mean you are trailer trash.

*Look at How you can reduce your own carbon footprint at home and in the kind of car you might buy in the future. You can drink Wine from wherever you want - but if you buy another hummer and build a 4,000 sf house without renewable energy I will take you on for that.

*And yes, if you can buy foreign products that are fair trade and produced sustainably do that. I'm not stopping to sip my African Morning Blend java but will try and get my coffee from a company that pays a fair wage and doesn't screw over the local coffee bean growing population to get me my caffeine jolt in the morning.

*Support renewable fuels and technology or just start educating yourself about the issue. The sooner we get all those nasty oil tankers off our seas the sooner all ships and planes and trains and trucks used in transport will be powered by fuel cells or other renewable resources like the sun and wind.

GAY BASHING AND GLOBAL WARMING

GAY BASHING AND GLOBAL WARMING:
Why Social Climate in Gay Rights Mirrors Perception of Global Climate Change

Out of sight. Out of mind. That's what the U.S. military calls accepting gays in the military. We don't see them. They don't exist. We're okay with the problem not existing.

Doesn't this sound much like what lots of people
think about Global Warming and getting off oil? I don't see drowning Polar Bears or rising sea levels so I can just put the notion out of my head, hop in my gas guzzling SUV and go see the last Hollywood flick about the war in Iraq that also does not exist. (But it looks so good when those hot hunks that all look like they are in a Calvin Klein underwear ad take their shirts off in the desert)

And surely there's no gay folk over there fighting in Iraq cause they
don't exist either.

So my point is - if we let ourselves be in denial about or passively accept one thing (like Gay Bashing for instance) it might just help us be in denial about something else. (Global Warming and The War in Iraq maybe?)

Oklahoma State Legislator Sally Kern can give you a good glimpse about how America still accepts either blatantly or passively open gay bashing. If you have not heard Kern's recent diatribe you need to hear it now. She says gay people are worse than terrorists and are a bigger thereat to America. (I guess she means all of us gays should all be killed because that's what our country is supposed to be doing in Iraq, killing terrorists)

Here's a link to a video that viraled on YouTube in response to the Oklahona Legislator's anti gay diatribe. .

Watch it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFxk7glmMbo

Think if all those trillions of dollars we are spending in Iraq were put into research for renewable energy technology. We wouldn't so desperately need all of that oil.

It's time to stop being out of sight out of mind about a lot of things. I have read psychologists who say that being in denial is often a coping mechanism. Well, I don't know about you. But I am not sure if I can cope much longer.

Gays aren't terrorists. The War is totally screwed up on a magnitude so large it is truly scary. And all of us black, yellow, white, gay, straight, Muslim, Jew, Atheist, whatever, better figure out how to fix the problem of how we are addicted to old behavior and clinging to prejudiced notions from the past that are destroying our planet.

Yesterday at Columbia University NYC

On A Campus Building a Quote:

"Speak to the Earth And It Shall Teach Thee"