All those baseball-sized and Rubik's Cube-sized ice cubes that you enjoy in your Old Fashioneds at [insert name of favorite local craft cocktail bar] may in fact be contributing to the death of the planet. Mother Jones is unapologetically doing what environmentally conscious liberals have been doing for some time now, and by way of a stern warning, taking away one of the last pleasures shared by liberals and conservatives alike, at the end of a long day, when the world feels hopeless and ready to end for a variety of reasons: a stiff, well mixed drink.

It turns out that the Clinebell machines that are used to freeze large, crystal-clear, bubble-free blocks of ice for carving at bars like Third Rail and Trick Dog require three days of power to freeze 2 300-pound blocks. Doing the environmental math here, that means that pound for pound, the machine spends three days doing what a standard restaurant ice-maker does in one.

There's also the issue of people who buy such blocks of ice from others, who then need to transport it by truck or van.

And I'll note that the title of the Mother Jones piece is "Lay Off the Artisanal Ice, You Ignorant Hipsters."

So — sigh — setting aside the fact that the energy expended in aging a barrel of bourbon for five or more years and then transporting it from Kentucky is also probably killing the environment, you should perhaps consider, if you are this conscientious, requesting non-artisanal ice in your next drink.

Otherwise, drink up, toast to surviving climate change so far, and enjoy your perfect chunk of ice — our urban ancestors could only enjoy such stuff when it was transported on ships in huge blocks from rivers and lakes in Maine and Canada, because they didn't have freezers. That wasn't all that practical either — but maybe slightly more sustainable.

[h/t: Uptown Almanac]