Why not balance out a local beer extravaganza with a talk about the state of our Carbon Dioxide emissions? I did just that by attending back-to-back evenings of Philly Beer Week-sponsored Bathtub Beer Fest and Bill McKibben’s 350 Do the Math tour!

(This post is intentionallly highly visual for the light-hearted, shorter Thanksgiving week.)

The Bathtub Beer Fest for Philly Beer Week was quite a delightful local event. Over 20 local breweries participated so you could sample the finest craft beers around. The shorter the trip from the beers to your bar, the lower the carbon footprint for those kegs. (Disclaimer: Obviously, there’s other factors that go into sustainability levels.)

I enjoyed Neshaminy Creek’s new brew, located right outside of Philly.

The usual suspects like sustainable Yards Brewery, Victory, Stoudts, Flying Fish & Nodding Head all had sampling tables set up. But there were some lesser known varieties like Fegley’s Brew Works, Tenth & Blake & Evil Genius to round out my curious palate.

Straub’s crew (located in St. Mary’s PA, about an hour from my alma mater PSU) were hard at work for the event:

The “Bathtub” part of the title wasn’t a joke – they wanted to showcase how the beers were still in business during prohibition. This living, bubbling example was concocted by the folks of Home Sweet Homebrew, serving those Philly homebrewers:

And I got to play with the “Hammer of Glory” which kicks off Philly Beer Week every year:

Friday night I headed up to NYC on the Bolt Bus to check out Bill McKibben’s 350 “Do the Math” tour.

The tour with Bill McKibben, Naomi Klein, Josh Fox & more focused on our Carbon Dioxide output versus how much we can put into the atmosphere before hell breaks loose. 350 parts per million (PPM) is the amount of carbon dioxide which is the safe upper limit in our atmosphere. We currently are at 390 PPM.

Essentially, the Fossil Fuel industry currently has 5 x’s the amount (2795 gigatons) of nonrenewable energy (read: Oil, Natural Gas & coal) in reserve than the atmosphere can take. (We can burn 565 more gigatons and stay below 2* C for our earth’s temperature rising.) This doesn’t even include what they ‘want’ to continue to frack and drill. Fossil fuel giants like Exxon, BP, Chevron & more want o burn all they can since this affects their profits and guarantees fat paychecks.

McKibben encourages participants to push for legislative change for more reusable energy. Germany’s on their way to 100% renewable energy – Why can’t we follow this example?

Philly, did you attend either the Bathtub Beer Fest or 350 Do the Math tour?  Any feedback?

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Julie Hancher is Editor-in-Chief of Green Philly, sharing her expertise of all things sustainable in the city of brotherly love. She enjoys long walks in the park with local beer and greening her travels, cooking & cat, Sir Floofus Drake. View all posts by Julie Hancher