On 1 October 2005, I went on the tour at the Red Hook Brewery in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. One of the very first things mentioned was the chemical reaction inherent in the brewing process; hops, barley, yeast, water, etc. yield beer as the desired product, and carbon dioxide (CO₂) is released as a waste product. When I heard that, the requisite light bulb went off over my head. Does brewing beer lead to a net creation of CO₂ in the atmosphere?

Um, no. Brewing beer is actually carbon-neutral. Hops and barley are plants, and therefore they respirate -- they "breathe in" CO₂and "breathe out" oxygen (the reverse is true for animals) -- and that CO₂is released in the very beginning of the brewing process. Some of it goes into the beer (carbonating it), and some of it goes into the atmosphere.

Nonetheless, I ran this idea past a number of professors at the University of New Hampshire, including Dr. Andy Rosenberg. He suggested I look into artificially-carbonated beverages: colas and other soft drinks. Coke, Pepsi, and every other company that makes carbonated beverages needs to artifically inject CO₂ into their products -- specifically, into their syrup solutions. These companies are not sucking CO₂ out of the atmosphere and into their liquids; less than one percent of the atmosphere is made of CO₂! These companies are buying very large amounts of pressurized CO₂ from private suppliers, in large pressurized metal tanks.

More information will be added here as I find the time to add it.