Print Article 8/6/2006 Posted by Lou Poor 12345 Best

Be a Good Environmentalist—Drink Beer

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, now there’s one more good reason to hoist an extra pint or two at your local pub.

You may have heard the kerfuffle lately about polluted oceans and bad air all over the globe, but I’ll bet you didn’t think you could help out unless you sold your car and became a vegan. Good news, my friends, happy days are here! Drink beer!

The threat of nasty diseases caused by industrial toxins getting you down? Drink beer!

And here’s why: now that they finally solved the problem of Godzilla, Japanese scientists have put their energy into trying to encourage the consumption of beer by finding more good excuses to do so.

That’s right, research at Kobe Pharmaceutical University in Japan has shown that the barley bran left over during the brewing process will cleanse deadly junk like benzene (BAD!) and trichloroethylene (WORSE!) from industrial wastewater. It’s no surprise that trichloroethlyne (hereafter referred to as TCE) is used in paint and adhesives and may cause cancer.

This method’s promise lies in what it could replace. Currently, the task of filtering this stuff out of wastewater is done with activated carbon (does this remind you of an old cigarette slogan regarding “activated charcoal”?).

Apparently activated carbon works pretty well. There only seem to be two problems:

- It’s really expensive
- It’s made from coal that has to be heated to 900º Centigrade. In real temperature, that’s 1,650º Fahrenheit. Even if we’re not facing global warming, that’s gonna warm things up.

But here’s a great idea—when things get hotter, drink more beer, create more barley bran and let the Earth cool off a little. Unless, of course, you’re drinking coal-fired beer.

Now at closing you can say to the bartender, “One more for my baby, and one more for the earth”, and feel good about it.

Skol!

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