Should I switch to organic to reduce my carbon footprint?

So how green am I for kegging and brewing using propane? I was wondering, I am myself in Eastern Canada, and most of our grain is kilned either in British-Columbia or Montreal and grown in the Canadian Prairies, it's the canadian beer basket.

All this trucking being already a lot, I try to offset my carbon footprint by using less packaging etc; and obviously brewing myself on my porch.

Would switching to organic improve that by not using synthetic fertilizers,pesticides etc?

The kilners would be the same brands.

Someone would have to do a life-cycle analysis to answer whether switching your grain would make an appreciable difference. Organic doesn't necessarily correlate to being more energy efficient.

In your scenario you are a small piece of the pie. Would your actions make much of a difference in the scheme of things?

I doubt it, but do think everybody should pursue what they believe in.

You are right that in the great cosmic dance of the stars, it is non-significant on a cosmic level.

But I still bike to work and eat my greens to stay fit. It's just a piece of mind thing for a post-industrial human to fantasize about Guess it makes me feel warm and fuzzy to think i'm using less to fill my addiction.:fro: Tap water is also good I guess..

fbaillargeon said:

You are right that in the great cosmic dance of the stars, it is non-significant on a cosmic level.

But I still bike to work and eat my greens to stay fit. It's just a piece of mind thing for a post-industrial human to fantasize about Guess it makes me feel wark and fuzzy to think i'm using less to fill my addiction.:fro: Tap water is also good I guess..

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How much energy was burned extracting the oil that made the rubber for the tires on your bike, same for the steel or aluminum in the frame. Steel-making is very energy intensive; aluminum even more so. You would have to ride a LONG ways to simply offset the energy used to create your bike.

Switching to organic barley might not decrease the carbon footprint. All it does is eliminate pesticide use and produce the barley with only natural organic fertilizer. The yield per acre might go down sufficiently so that there is more energy used in the planting, maintenance and harvesting of the crop, increasing the carbon footprint of the process.

Of course you know you are makeing a hell of a lot of Carbon Dioxide in this process....

You are converting a Solid into a Gas...

You can probably measure how many pound you produce by weighing a fermentor at the start and end of the process. The gas will escape and it weighs "something".

If reducing your carbon foot print is important to you YOU SHOULD NOT BREW!

Gee,,, next you are going to tell me you believe that Global Warming is because of man!!!!

"Carbon footprint" and "going green" are just marketing terms anyway. If you want to pollute less, be into organic foods (separate issue entirely), and pursue potential renewable or alternative energy sources, then by all means do it for yourself. As George Carlin once said, "The planet is fine. The people are f@cked! The planet isn't going anywhere....WE are!!!"

Dan said:

In your scenario you are a small piece of the pie. Would your actions make much of a difference in the scheme of things?

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I don't see how this is a good argument against being more eco-friendly. (I haven't done the investigation to determine if organic malt is more eco-friendly, mind you.) It's like saying "Is helping one starving kid really going to make a big difference in the scheme of things?"

Why not just buy carbon credits and call it a day?

DPBISME said:

Of course you know you are makeing a hell of a lot of Carbon Dioxide in this process....

You are converting a Solid into a Gas...

You can probably measure how many pound you produce by weighing a fermentor at the start and end of the process. The gas will escape and it weighs "something".

If reducing your carbon foot print is important to you YOU SHOULD NOT BREW!

Gee,,, next you are going to tell me you believe that Global Warming is because of man!!!!

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I think his point was to be as eco-friendly as possible with his brewing. And yes, the VAST majority of scientists agree that global climate change is a result of man.

Well I like to think that having a good production of non fossil fuel derived grain source nationally could be important in the coming years.

What does organic farming have to do with carbon output levels?

Actually, organic usually means manure as fertilizer, which means increased carbon footprint (via methane) from cow farts.

bovineblitz said:

What does organic farming have to do with carbon output levels?

Actually, organic usually means manure as fertilizer, which means increased carbon footprint (via methane) from cow farts.

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You do realize that they use carbon to produce chemical fertilizers right? We're talking about whether organic produces less carbon output than "conventional farming." The methane may push organic to the top, or it may not.

ChuckO said:

Switching to organic barley might not decrease the carbon footprint. All it does is eliminate pesticide use and produce the barley with only natural organic fertilizer. The yield per acre might go down sufficiently so that there is more energy used in the planting, maintenance and harvesting of the crop, increasing the carbon footprint of the process.

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This is the only good advice on here. No offense, to anyone of course. I enjoyed many of the satirical comments.

Organic farming is much more management intensive. Diesel is consumed at a much higher rate. The products used to fertilize and treat pests could also be traveling farther.

Many products for human consumption cannot be fertilized with animal manure for health reasons.

In Canada, manure abundance is part of the problem, I wouldnt bother with organic brew ingredients for that reason.

The true benefit to the environment is eluded to by the above post.

As to the CO2 blowing off, Ive wondered if it would be safe to bubble through a planted aquarium. Aquarium plants are often limited by the CO2 in solution for growth. Im sure there are other ideas on this.

Pezedorado said:

Many products for human consumption cannot be fertilized with animal manure for health reasons.

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I've not heard this before. Do you have examples, a link?

Egad, people. Answer the fooking question or keep it in the Debate Forum.

Here's an interesting article with a good bibliography: http://www.ifoam.org/about_ifoam/around_world/eu_group-new/events/climatecamp/ppt/JohnHermansen.pdf

The differences in CO2 emissions are not huge between organic and non-organic.

jhoyda said:

How much energy was burned extracting the oil that made the rubber for the tires on your bike, same for the steel or aluminum in the frame. Steel-making is very energy intensive; aluminum even more so. You would have to ride a LONG ways to simply offset the energy used to create your bike.

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This is a lousy argument! Compare the bike to a car which would be the usual alternative. More rubber, more steel, more aluminum. And it burns fossil fuels to make it go.

So you can never offset the energy used to create it.

afr0byte said:

I've not heard this before. Do you have examples, a link?

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Lettuce greens. If you spread manure, people would all get E.coli. Hence all the recalls due to contamination of cucumbers, tomatoes, etc.

Pezedorado said:

Lettuce greens. If you spread manure, people would all get E.coli. Hence all the recalls due to contamination of cucumbers, tomatoes, etc.

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Those were the result of run off from fresh manure. Normally manure is composted to kill off ecoli/etc. Either that or the manure is allowed to rot for 6 months to a year so that ecoli/etc aren't a problem.

Pezedorado said:

Lettuce greens. If you spread manure, people would all get E.coli. Hence all the recalls due to contamination of cucumbers, tomatoes, etc.

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OMG! My grandparents (and theirs) always used manure on the farm! They must have been infested with E.Coli!

MC

afr0byte said:

Those were the result of run off from fresh manure. Normally manure is composted to kill off ecoli/etc. Either that or the manure is allowed to rot for 6 months to a year so that ecoli/etc aren't a problem.

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You're right, but composted manure is never spread atop raw veg. Too much risk for commercial organics.

afr0byte said:

You do realize that they use carbon to produce chemical fertilizers right? We're talking about whether organic produces less carbon output than "conventional farming." The methane may push organic to the top, or it may not.

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You do realize how much carbon farm animals eat, right?

Pezedorado said:

You're right, but composted manure is never spread atop raw veg. Too much risk for commercial organics.

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No, you're correct, it's spread before they're planted.

bovineblitz said:

Actually, organic usually means manure as fertilizer, which means increased carbon footprint (via methane) from cow farts.

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I doubt many animals are kept simply to produce manure... that's usually a side product of meat and dairy production - the alternative would be to landfill the manure. It's mostly cow burps, not farts, that contribute to the (once again) rising methane concentrations in the atmosphere.

bovineblitz said:

You do realize how much carbon farm animals eat, right?

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Yes I do. My point was that you can't automatically say that organic increases the carbon foot print, relative to chemical fertilizers, simply because cows produce methane. Besides, organic farms also recycle food scraps with composts/etc.

While a life-cycle analysis is the only way to know for sure, but I suspect that the lower yield and increased effort required to manage the crop successfully would be more energy intensive.

afr0byte said:

Yes I do. My point was that you can't automatically say that organic increases the carbon foot print, relative to chemical fertilizers, simply because cows produce methane. Besides, organic farms also recycle food scraps with composts/etc.

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I think you have a different idea of an organic farm than one that produces barley or hops on a commercial scale.

Now I understand where you are coming from. There is no way that a commercial organic hop or barley farm is less of a C footprint than a conventional. Too much management using diesel. Its a non-starter.

Buying labeled "organic" only promotes the labeling process that is maligned by many farmers who opt to sell locally as unlabeled "conventional/sensible organic".

Neither organic or regular malt and hops should make an appreciable difference on the carbon footprint of your homebrew. Get whatever you can, as local as you can. If you go organic, do it for reasons other than GHGs.

Pezedorado said:

Now I understand where you are coming from. There is no way that a commercial organic hop or barley farm is less of a C footprint than a conventional. Too much management using diesel. Its a non-starter.

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I never said I knew the truth either way. You saying it's a non-starter doesn't make it so. Show me some numbers and maybe I'll believe you.

I work with organic farmers all the time. They always complain about fuel costs cutting into their margin that is supposed to be so much higher. If they are spending more on fuel than the conventional farmers that I work with, they are using more. Just first hand hearsay, but I trust what I hear from them.

Pezedorado said:

I work with organic farmers all the time. They always complain about fuel costs cutting into their margin that is supposed to be so much higher. If they are spending more on fuel than the conventional farmers that I work with, they are using more. Just first hand hearsay, but I trust what I hear from them.

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Your logic isn't sound. Diesel isn't the only source of carbon in a carbon foot print. It's possible that organic farmers make up the extra diesel based carbon elsewhere. I admit, I don't know if the other offsets put organic ahead of conventional farming or not.

afr0byte said:

Your logic isn't sound. Diesel isn't the only source of carbon in a carbon foot print. It's possible that organic farmers make up the extra diesel based carbon elsewhere. I admit, I don't know if the other offsets put organic ahead of conventional farming or not.

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Sinks of carbon are increased soil carbon in long term "storage" from organic ferts and plant residue. That's it. Take it from a soil scientist that used to work in a global climate change research institute.
Assuming yields are the same, and its safe to assume organic yields on average are lower, and manure is same, . All conventional farmers use the cheapest form of nutrient available and in most places, that's manure. So assuming organics use more carbon based fert, increasing soil stores, is wrong. Organic farmers are just as likely to sell their plant residue for bedding as any other farmer interested in maintaining soil health. The Dept of Energy has been trying to prove the corn belt can absorb the USA's footprint and unless it all went back to Bison grazed grasslands, it aint happening.

Some pubs on this are listed here: http://www.globalchange.umd.edu/staff/rizaurralde/

MalFet said:

The differences in CO2 emissions are not huge between organic and non-organic.

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^^ This.

Organics is better for the local environment where the barley/hops are produced but the actual impact on emissions is negligible.

If you 'really' wanted to reduce your carbon footprint, you'd have to GYO so you can cut out all of the emissions related to transportation -- not related to the actual growth of the hops/malt.

My porch is a tad small for growing 55 lbs sacks of grain though.

You are all debating and you're not following the fundamental rule of debate.
That rule is that there is no debating on political matters in a technical forum.

If you can't answer the OPs question without injecting your political opinion then shut it.

DPBISME said:

Of course you know you are makeing a hell of a lot of Carbon Dioxide in this process....

You are converting a Solid into a Gas...

You can probably measure how many pound you produce by weighing a fermentor at the start and end of the process. The gas will escape and it weighs "something".

If reducing your carbon foot print is important to you YOU SHOULD NOT BREW!

Gee,,, next you are going to tell me you believe that Global Warming is because of man!!!!

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Fermenting is carbon neutral. the Co2 you are releasing comes from grain which the plants take from the atmosphere. It is a renewable cycle

ajm163 said:

Fermenting is carbon neutral. the Co2 you are releasing comes from grain which the plants take from the atmosphere. It is a renewable cycle

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So I guess what you are saying is that had this grain stayed in the field it would have converted to CO2 anyway...

I see where you are going with this but it would be trapped in the dead plant matter, and soil... It would release every slowly.

When we brew we speed this process up quite a bit, converting the starch to sugar and then the sugar to alcohol and C02....

Since way more grain is trucked into the brewery than could naturally grow there and because og the brewing process... I wonder if it is possible to measure the difference in C02 concentrations around a microbrewery....

Then again since CO2 is only 0.039% of all air... I don't worry about it to much...

To the OP...No, you should not. Next question.

DPBISME said:

So I guess what you are saying is that had this grain stayed in the field it would have converted to CO2 anyway...

I see where you are going with this but it would be trapped in the dead plant matter, and soil... It would release every slowly.

When we brew we speed this process up quite a bit, converting the starch to sugar and then the sugar to alcohol and C02....

Since way more grain is trucked into the brewery than could naturally grow there and because og the brewing process... I wonder if it is possible to measure the difference in C02 concentrations around a microbrewery....

Then again since CO2 is only 0.039% of all air... I don't worry about it to much...

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But that's not really the cycle in question here. It's not "buy barley or let it rot in the field", it's "buy barley or have it not be planted in the first place". Basic food agriculture is on such a short cycle that it isn't really a consideration for this kind of stuff. The ins and the outs balance each other in a very short scale of time. That isn't the case for, say, fossil fuels that we dig out of the earth.

Xpertskir said:

To the OP...No, you should not. Next question.

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Gee, thanks. I'm so glad we have an Xpert here.

MalFet said:

But that's not really the cycle in question here. It's not "buy barley or let it rot in the field", it's "buy barley or have it not be planted in the first place". Basic food agriculture is on such a short cycle that it isn't really a consideration for this kind of stuff. The ins and the outs balance each other in a very short scale of time. That isn't the case for, say, fossil fuels that we dig out of the earth.



Gee, thanks. I'm so glad we have an Xpert here.

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I say we:

Buy Barley... Make beer! It is the one thing we can all agree on!.

Like the lady says "Beer... it's not just for breakfast anymore!"