Recent spikes in fuel prices combined with dire predictions of global warming caused by the use of these fuels has the American public clamoring for two seemingly contradictory government actions. We apparently want the government to save us from high gas costs and global warming at the same time.

Televised “man-on-the-street” interviews depict average folks lamenting heartbrokenly that high gas prices will cause them to cut back on their driving, woebegone college students sadly describe having to car pool, and middle-class Americans admit being forced to contemplate mass transit.

Even so gasoline use has increased over this time last year, and SUV sales, considered the bane of the environment, have risen like yeast to the top of a batch of ale.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, “The numbers for large SUVs rose nearly 6 percent in the first quarter of 2007, and the April figures were up 25 percent from April 2006, according to automakers’ statistics provided by Edmunds.com, an automotive research Web site. The bigger the guzzler, the better the numbers. Sales of GMC’s Yukon XL were up a whopping 72 percent last month, and the totals for its Chevrolet sister, the Suburban, rose 38 percent. Topping off the tank on either one can cost as much as $120.”

That’s bad, right? How about this. According to Bon Appetit Management Company (not the magazine) it turns out that food (and all the energy it takes to make it) is one of the largest human activities contributing to global warming. The average American creates 2.8 tons of CO2 emissions each year by eating — even more than the 2.2 tons each person generates by driving, according to recent research (Echel and Martin, 2006). Bon Appetit Management runs food services in over 400 venues, mostly universities and corporations, and recommends what it calls a “low-carb diet” that will reduce our carbon use in acquiring, processing, and preparing our foods.

Yet absent from its guidelines is any mention of the environmental advantage of draft beer over bottled beer.

Roughly 12.7 billion glass beer bottles are produced annually in the US, with another billion or so being imported. Nearly three-quarters of these bottles end up in landfill somewhere, where their chemical structure enables them to endure just about forever. They are the very opposite of “biodegradable”, and we’re tossing out about 10 billion of them every year.

So we’re using incredible amounts of electricity to melt glass into bottles, then we use each one once and throw it away. Even the amount of electricity used recycling the 2.7 billion bottles that are recycled is environmentally prohibitive.

Draft beer offers us some help. A metal beer keg can usually be used hundreds of times and then recycled back into a keg again.

Do your part…insist on draft beer at your local pubs and restaurants. Then drink lots of it. You’ll feel better about your part in saving the world.