Former POTUS and general beacon of hope Barack Obama was spotted in the wild last week talking about one of the few good things we've got going for us: wine. Specifically, he talked about the role wine has in protecting the planet.
Ever since current POTUS and general embarrassment to American values Donald Trump announced his plans to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement, Obama has been quietly advocating for climate protections. The 2015 accord was one of his crowning achievements, after all, bringing together nearly 200 countries in a huge show of support for environmental protections.
On Friday, Obama dropped by a wine industry summit in Porto, Portugal, to urge winemakers to adopt and share climate-friendly practices.
"For winemakers to share best practice in the face of rising temperatures makes perfect sense," he said, adding that the industry has a "problem" when it comes to being organized.
"Too late, and the solutions are sub-optimal," he warned, Decanter reports.
The summit marked the launch of the Porto Protocol, an initiative to get winemakers organized against climate change.
Obama also said that even though Trump pulled out from the Paris climate agreement and is rolling back regulation after regulation, "they have been adopted by commercial interests who see them as good business sense."
In other words, it's pretty dumb to think climate change won't fuck up your money-making plans, especially when those plans depend on soil and weather.
If you want to do like Obama preaches, drink local wines that don't require long-distance shipping, or buy bottles from vineyards with sustainable practices.
Cheers to giving a shit about our planet's future.
