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Climate Change Will Cause Beer Shortages and Price Hikes, Study Says (vice.com)

A new study from Nature Plants has identified the one climate-related issue that can unite people from myriad political backgrounds -- beer. From a report: Led by Wei Xie, an agricultural scientist at Peking University, the paper finds that regions that grow barley, the primary crop used to brew beer, are projected to experience severe droughts and heat waves due to anthropogenic climate change. According to five climate models that used different projected temperature increases for the coming century, extreme weather events could reduce barley yields by 3 to 17 percent. Barley harvests are mostly sold as livestock fodder, so beer availability could be further hindered by the likely prioritization of grain yields to feed cattle and other farm animals, rather than for brewing beer.

The net result will be a decline in affordable access to beer, which is the most commonly imbibed alcoholic beverage in the world. Within a few decades, this luxury may be out of reach for hundreds of millions of people, including those in affluent nations where breweries are a major industry. Price spikes are estimated to range from $4 to over $20 for a standard six-pack in nations like the US, Ireland, Denmark, and Poland.

317 comments

  1. Main concern by theurge14 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yes, that's the thing I was worried about with climate change.

    1. Re: Main concern by Type44Q · · Score: 0

      Yeah, no shit... not to mention, alcohol has driven a lot more people apart than it has brought together.

    2. Re: Main concern by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      No, but when they sober up it's 'walk of shame/chew off the arm' time.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    3. Re:Main concern by Holi · · Score: 1

      When clean water is hard to find you will be.

      --
      Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
    4. Re: Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Citation? I think you wish that to be true, but it isn't.

    5. Re:Main concern by DogDude · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      So many people (in the US, mainly Republicans), don't care unless it affects *them* in *their wallet*, that it's not a bad idea to throw this kind of stuff out there, in the hopes that maybe a few of those self-centered assholes will wake up. If telling dummies that their beer will get more expensive is what it takes for some of them to be concerned about climate change, so be it (as sad as that may be).

      --
      I don't respond to AC's.
    6. Re: Main concern by habig · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yeah, no shit... not to mention, alcohol has driven a lot more people apart than it has brought together.

      Actually, there's an archaeological case to be made that the switch from humans as hunter-gatherers to humans as farmers was because of beer. At least, this is one interpretation of the fact that evidence of brewing is a common feature of many of the earliest farming communities. And thus, bringing everyone together in this "civilization" thing.

      Of course, even if the motivation was Sumerian bros looking for keggers, the useful side effects (steady source of food, source of water that won't kill you because up till recently the only way to get antiseptic water was brew up the alchohol content or boil something (tea, coffeee)) certainly made the farming thing stick.

    7. Re: Main concern by lgw · · Score: 1

      up till recently the only way to get antiseptic water was brew up the alchohol content or boil something (tea, coffeee))

      The alcohol content of beer or wine is far too low to be antiseptic. You have to get near 60 proof to accomplish that, and beer was instead often watered down to produce more safe liquid to consume.

      What makes beer safe is that, unlike water, you can tell immediately if it's contaminated, as that "skunks" the beer. Beer was also one of the few ways to store calories through the winter, which makes a huge difference.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    8. Re: Main concern by jeff4747 · · Score: 2

      You don't need the alcohol to work as an antiseptic. You need it to work as a preservative. And it works as a preservative at a far lower concentration than as an antiseptic.

      After all, that's why things like beer and wine top out at a relatively low alcohol concentration - the alcohol starts killing the yeast.

    9. Re:Main concern by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

      Yes, that's the thing I was worried about with climate change.

      Watch what happens when climate change reduces the availability of porn.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    10. Re:Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Yes, that's the thing I was worried about with climate change.

      Well, people don't seem to be particularly moved by the catastrophe-if-not-fixed-in-ten-years predictions that have been issued periodically for the last twenty years or so, or the warning that the Arctic would be ice-free by 2012, or the more than fifteen years of climate summits that were billed as the "last chance" to stop global warming, or the other claims and deadlines that have passed without issue, so in an attempt to make people care about their latest apocalyptic prediction, they're switching their dire predictions to hit them where they live.

    11. Re:Main concern by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

      Climate change will make it so humans require less clothing.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    12. Re:Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, that's the thing I was worried about with climate change.

      Sadly, this is probably the only way some people will actually start caring about the subject. (Assuming that they don't believe it's Chinese conspiracy.)

    13. Re:Main concern by hey! · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, this is the reason so many people focus on extremely unlikely consequences, like human extinction or the complete collapse of civilization. You just can't get most people to focus on the likely consequences, even some pretty serious ones, because twenty or thirty years in the future they seem trivial. Some people can't get their asses in gear unless they're facing catastrophe.

      If complete catastrophe were likely, then even the people bankrolling the denialist movement would be concerned. But it's not. There will still be beer, coffee, beef and holiday resorts in a world that's 2C warmer, and if those things cost a lot more, they're counting on making enough money now by externalizing their costs that it wont' matter to them.

      It's basically a scheme to transfer wealth, one that exploits most peoples' present bias.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    14. Re: Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Climate Change has already swamped Slashot with just about every other posting.

      Fuck this noise - you can slashclimate.org all you want. It's all giant propaganda anyhow

    15. Re:Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So many people (in the US, mainly Republicans), don't care unless it affects *them* in *their wallet*, that it's not a bad idea to throw this kind of stuff out there, in the hopes that maybe a few of those self-centered assholes will wake up. If telling dummies that their beer will get more expensive is what it takes for some of them to be concerned about climate change, so be it (as sad as that may be).

      Nice stereotyping. Why don't you be first to get your wallet out.

    16. Re:Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      lol fag

    17. Re: Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think the heating process during brewing has something to do with it.

    18. Re: Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Once the Democrats finally take over, we will only be drinking victory gin in between 15 minute hates. So who cares about beer? Things will be double plus good then.

    19. Re: Main concern by Hognoxious · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The first part of the beermaking process is boiling the grain to extract the sugars. As a convenient side-effect it kills most nasty germs.

      Skunking is caused by exposure to light altering the alpha-acids, it's nothing to do with whether it's safe or not. If it's really off it will smell of vinegar, cheese and puke in various charming combinations.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    20. Re: Main concern by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      He probably read it in the Koran.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    21. Re: Main concern by lgw · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There's plenty of dangerous bacteria that can survive the alcohol concentration of beer. The key is that you'll know, because they'll run wild consuming the beer. Even if you water down the beer to below 1% ("small beer"), as was typical for most drinking, as long as you give it a while you'll know the new mix is safe.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    22. Re:Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "In 2017, US had largest decline in CO2 emissions in the world for 9th time this century"

      "U.S. carbon dioxide emissions in 2017 fell by 42 million tons compared with the previous yearâ"a bigger drop than any other country"

      In contrast Europeâ(TM)s carbon dioxide emissions rose 92 million tons, or 2.5 percent. That includes increases in France (2 percent), Germany (0.1 percent), and Spain (7 percent). Carbon emissions rose in a majority of European countries last year, (This is based on data collected by the EU)

      "Asia's growing economies contributed about two-thirds of the global increase in carbon emissions, the IEA found"

      "China, the worldâ(TM)s biggest polluter, saw an increase of 119 million tons, or 1.6 percent. while Canadaâ(TM)s also rose 3.4 percent.

      If you dispute these statistics do a little research and you will see the same statistics being supported by the commercial sector, government sector, and various climate scientists from across the political spectrum.

      Seems like someone is taking climate change seriously in the US. And the US didn't need an international treaty to do so. I see people from all around the world waiting for the US to solve the problem for them. The various US administrations didn't want to sign up for the Paris Climate treaty because hidden underneath the high and mighty rhetoric and goal setting was the obliged the US to provide the aid money to help countries meet their pledged reductions. And all the negotiators, activists, and politicians making these grandiose emission reductions will most likely not be around in 25 years to see if any country had fulfilled the promises made in the treaty. There was no mention on how to enforce the dictates contained within the treaty. With no enforcement mechanism any agreement or treaty is worthless. And like the UN the US was going to be expected to absorb the largest percentage of any under lying costs related to the treaty.

    23. Re: Main concern by Dread_ed · · Score: 2

      Yeah, about that...

      People went from gathering abundant and easily sourced food for a couple of hours a day to working in fields for 12 hours a day.

      A bad trade if you research it.

      --
      When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
    24. Re:Main concern by Dawn+R+Stover · · Score: 1

      Finally, a reason for Brett "I like beer" Kavanaugh to look more favorably upon regulatory action to prevent climate change.

    25. Re: Main concern by geekmux · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yeah, no shit... not to mention, alcohol has driven a lot more people apart than it has brought together.

      While I do not dismiss your fact, you obviously haven't thought this through.

      If you think a world full of drunks is hard to deal with, imagine a world full of sober people.

    26. Re:Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But think about all the Republican-loving, god-fucking, science-hating, yokels out there that love nothing more than to drink, shoot guns, praise god, and fuck up the planet.

      This may be enough of a push to get those morons on board.

    27. Re: Main concern by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

      Beat me to it. Agriculture is probably humanity's worst invention. It created a shitload of terrible problems that have plagued humanity for millennia and the few problems it fixed were also problems that it created.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    28. Re: Main concern by Ranbot · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The first part of the beermaking process is boiling the grain to extract the sugars. As a convenient side-effect it kills most nasty germs.

      Skunking is caused by exposure to light altering the alpha-acids, it's nothing to do with whether it's safe or not.

      ^^ He's got it. The boiling part of making beer is what made beer safer to drink than water in medieval times. People then didn't understand why at the time, but they did notice people who drank more beer got sick less than people who drank more water.

      ...If it's really off it will smell of vinegar, cheese and puke in various charming combinations.

      Even then drinking it usually won't sicken or kill someone like fecal coliform or dysentery commonly found in medieval water supplies. In fact, most medieval beer probably was sour to some degree by natural bacteria/yeasts in floating through the air or from the wood of the barrels beer was stored in and would have been considered normal.

    29. Re: Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not so much CC being taken seriously as gas being so cheap.

    30. Re: Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Beat me to it. Agriculture is probably humanity's worst invention. It created a shitload of terrible problems that have plagued humanity for millennia and the few problems it fixed were also problems that it created.

      Retard.

    31. Re:Main concern by fatwilbur · · Score: 1

      I trust the data I see from NASA on climate change, though I sometimes disagree with the interpretations of how much disaster this is going to be for us.

      The one thing that makes me most leery is we never see stories on what will get better or improve due to climate change. You can't tell me a slow, slight warming of the planet (on a life cycle, not geological, timescale) won't have some very positive results. We live on a very cold planet, more cold that it is warm. In my major city, we had our first snowfall on Sept 21, and have maybe 3-4 months of reliably above-0 temperatures. Why is anyone extolling positives labelled a denier?

    32. Re: Main concern by jeff4747 · · Score: 1

      There's plenty of dangerous bacteria that can survive the alcohol concentration of beer.

      Yes, and they're not as common as other dangerous bacteria the alcohol kills. So the alcohol still acts as a preservative the majority of the time.

      Just like there's dangerous bacteria that can survive pasteurization, but they are not as common as the other dangerous bacteria found in milk.

    33. Re: Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's not particularly relevant is it? The point would be, are these dangerous bacteria you're talking about pertinent to the discussion, and where they even a problem in a historical perspective?

    34. Re: Main concern by mSparks43 · · Score: 1

      oh my god, we must act now, the best solution is to double the Tax rate for American wage slaves immediately, and use the money to fund mass beer production in China.

    35. Re: Main concern by lgw · · Score: 1

      1% alcohol content doesn't meaningfully act as a preservative.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    36. Re: Main concern by mSparks43 · · Score: 1

      i don't, after they posted winter 2000 polar sat images and compared them with summer 2016 polar sat images.

    37. Re: Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How often do you think about poking faggots in a given day?

    38. Re: Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A succinct but interesting point, there are a lot more retards because of agriculture.

    39. Re:Main concern by DogDude · · Score: 1

      I'm happy to pay more in taxes, gasoline, electricity, etc., if it'll be better for our environment, thank you, troll.

      --
      I don't respond to AC's.
    40. Re: Main concern by vipvop · · Score: 1

      The combination of alcohol and the lowered pH however will keep a lot of the bad things away. You can look at all the brewers doing spontaneous fermentation to see that it's really not that hard to keep your beer safe to drink, as long as you don't get mold in the aging process.

    41. Re: Main concern by barakn · · Score: 1

      Sudanese Nubians were drinking beer with tetracycline in it 2000 years ago.

      --
      "I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
    42. Re: Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Explain to me why I should care about the cause of the CO2 reduction. Is it not more important that CO2 emissions are reduced than whether or not the people reducing their CO2 care about global warming?

      If the USA is beating the EU in CO2 reductions by happenstance then just imagine what they could do if they took global warming seriously. If the EU is seeing increases in CO2 while spending all kinds of money on reducing their output then I have to wonder about their sanity, doing the same things over and over expecting different results.

      Here's what seems to come up again and again, when deploying wind power there is an obvious CO2 reduction at the start but at some point as more and more wind farms go up so does the CO2 output. This is because to cover for when the wind is still there must be generators on standby. A thermal plant that's idle is still burning fuel to keep the water hot even though it's not producing any power, this means more CO2 but no more electricity. A turbine generator is not as efficient as a thermal plant but it's not burning fuel while idle, still more CO2 per MWh because of this inefficiency.

      Maybe the EU shouldn't be expanding their wind power so much until they get some storage or something. Oh, and tell Germany to stop digging up so much coal. Idiots.

    43. Re: Main concern by jeff4747 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Sure it does. You're not disinfecting. You're restricting growth. Doesn't take much alcohol (and competition from yeast) to do that.

    44. Re:Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The climate change experts are desperate to get through to those stupid hillbillies that keep voting those evil republicans, am I right? It's only a matter of time until you'll see them cite bible verses in the name of science. Emotions are the most important thing. Facts be damned - it's science after all.

    45. Re: Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah the only thing that sucks worse than farming is failing to farm and the resultant massive starvation die-offs or wars when hunter-gatherer types clean out their local ecosystem.

      You know what else ancient hunter-gatherers lacked? Efficient birth control.

      Yes, humanity has problems. We are working on solving them, one by one, the same as we have worked for thousands of years to solve them. And unless you have a personal little grow-space, maybe a balcony garden or a pet bee hive, you are still contributing to the problems of farming.

    46. Re: Main concern by illiac_1962 · · Score: 0

      We all need to stop commenting on these click bait bullshit articles.

    47. Re:Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well here's to this shit show burning up ASAP! I can't wait for climate change to fuck up the planet so bad that all that is left is the rich elite to live in their bunkers. I will be long dead and won't give two fucks. Instagram that shit! MTV caves!

    48. Re: Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pirates added rum to their water barrels to preserve it. It wasn't higher than 3% alcohol and it worked in preventing algae growth and the prevalence of bacteria. They called it Grog, now shutup maties.

    49. Re:Main concern by ahodgson · · Score: 1

      Paying taxes doesn't help. You need to pay so much more taxes that it actually forces you to stop using those things. If you're that anxious to help, then you could just voluntarily stop using those things now.

    50. Re: Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Close.

      You don't boil the water to steep the grains. You steep them in water that is 65C, or 155F.

      The second step is to boil the resulting sugars.

      The third step, fermentation, clears up anything else that might be harmful to humans.

    51. Re: Main concern by lgw · · Score: 1

      Pirates added rum to their water barrels to preserve it. It wasn't higher than 3% alcohol and it worked in preventing algae growth and the prevalence of bacteria. They called it Grog, now shutup maties.

      Admiral Edward "Old Grog" Vernon, of the Royal Navy and very much not a pirate, in 1740 ordered that the rum his sailors were given be watered down, to reduce the problems with alcoholism in the fleet. The ration at the time was one half pint of run a day, which sailors would save for several days and get totally hammered. Watering down the rum would make the rum spoil faster, limiting the number of days it could be collected and still be worth drinking.

      BTW, sailors would mix beer or rum with stagnant water to make it taste better, not to purify it.

      The more you know ...

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    52. Re: Main concern by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Not alchohol just beer. You can get algae to create sugars to let fungi convert it into alchohol, distill it, add back the water and flavourings and well and the social costs of alchohol are back to equalling the privatised revenue of alcohol, in fact society loses more money than the profits of the private interests, well profiting on the harm they cause to society but pot that you can grow yourself must be kept illegal because it is a threat. Why, well, it's a threat to the profits from alchohol and the even greater losses it causes to society.

      So beer bad, good riddance ;D. I would rather a nice alkalised hot cocoa (the alkalising process strips away the bitterness obviating the need for sugar, so a healthy light beany broth, you are drinking the finely ground bean itself) with some nice melicious herbs, they go so well together, so much better than beer bad for body and mind good riddance ?!?

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    53. Re: Main concern by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Lots of different recipes, most boil the grain. Some add the boiling Wort to more fresh water for a steep.

      The boil recipes generally add additional malt after, for the large sugar breaking enzymes.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    54. Re:Main concern by dryeo · · Score: 1

      Why? It's not like he is going to be one of the 90% that can no longer afford beer, instead he has made sure he is in the .01%, or at least has the support of the .001%.
      Having to worry about the costs of common stuff is for the common folk, not the elite.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
    55. Re: Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The rising use of renewable energy sources accounts for a big chunk of the US CO2 reduction. The reductions are not created by "happenstance ". The reductions are driven by companies wanting to make a profit now and in the future. Add in government provided tax breaks tied to renewable energy and everyone from the largest corporation to the single family home can benefit.

      And here is a fun fact: Corporations controlling the fossil fuel industry represent the largest investors in renewable and alternative energy research. The big oil executives are not stupid. They know fossil fuel use will decrease in the not so distant future. These are not the type of people who are just going to stand around and watch all the power they wield evaporate. They are investing in alternative energy research to make sure they rule the alternative energy markets just as they have with the oil industry.

    56. Re: Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Given the low pH, alcohol, and hop content of beer, no human pathogen can survive. Plenty of other organisms can grow, but they will just spoil the beer, not infect you.

    57. Re: Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wrong

    58. Re: Main concern by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      What the parent and you don't grasp: beer is actually pasteurized or even boiled.

      And yes, the alcohol content, albeit only 5% in beer and 12% in wine is enough to "keep bacteria out". It is not enough to sterilize a wound, but that are completely different concepts/requirements.

      The water ersatz in the middle ages was so called "small beer", it had only 2% - 3% Alcohol.

      An then again: drinking fresh water from a well is pretty save anyway. Humans are made to kill bacteria.
      Every animal living outside is drinking random water ....

      And then again: water is easy to clean anyway. Or does anyone here think the Sumerian civilization did not drink mostly water instead of beer?

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    59. Re:Main concern by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Picking a single year is completely meaningless.
      The EU has reduced their CO2 emissions over the last 20 years by more than 30% ...
      Who cares what happened 2017?

      Well, I do: we had a relatively harsh winter ... oops. There is no real "increase" we just to heat our houses a bit more that winter. Wow, that was so simple again: idiot.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    60. Re: Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just when you thought you had heard all 500 types of climate change articles. Who gets paid to think these up!?

    61. Re: Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Whatever works

    62. Re:Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I'm scientist by trade and by inclination a conservative voter with a fairly dry economic rationalist outlook on most things. One of the things that sh^ts me about the climate change debacle is that the scientist in me says we are facing the defining issue of the millennium and meanwhile my entire side of politics is missing in action. I don't want a leftie solution that involves living a sparse existence, wearing hemp, or pointlessly transferring my wealth to corrupt governments of unsustainable countries. It's time the conservative pollies got off their lazy arses, sobered up and did some proper work to come up with solutions that fit both the conservative narrative and deliver proper results before IPCC requires them.

    63. Re: Main concern by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      imagine a world full of sober people.

      I did that once. Now I'm sitting in the bar trying hard hard to forget.

    64. Re:Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You sure are a snobby cunt. I love how you eurosnobs can do no wrong and everything is the fault of the USA. Maybe we should have let hitler play a little longer before we stepped in. The USA can do no good until you fucks start acting like little kids and cant share a piece of land. snobby piece of shit you are.

    65. Re:Main concern by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 1

      A couple things:

      1) We're not talking slow, we're talking fast, as such things go.

      2) But yes, we live on a very cold planet. All of human civilization has happened during an interglcial in the ongoing Ice Age that this planet has been in for better than two megayears. Note that if the temps went up 2C, we'd still be below average temps over the last 100 megayears. That said, note (1) above - a slow change is one thing, a fast one is another....

      Okay, three things: going from a glaciation to an interglacial (or vice versa) happens fast too. Perhaps not as fast as AGW seems to be happening, but really fast in geological terms....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    66. Re: Main concern by stealth_finger · · Score: 1

      Yeah but try and keep it away from people and then they lose their shit. They might even pay attention to the whole climate change thing and probably start crying why wasn't anything done.

      --
      Wanna buy a shirt?
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    67. Re: Main concern by stealth_finger · · Score: 1

      So you think it would be better it humans were still small tribes of hunter gatherer cavemen? Interesting.

      --
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    68. Re: Main concern by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Hunting and gathering is risky, and there is always a risk that some kind of disaster will mean no food this year and you have to move a very very long way or starve.

      Agriculture and permanent settlements overall provide much more stability and safety than being nomadic hunter/gatherers. It also allows the land to be much more productive so your population can grow beyond what nature alone can provide.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    69. Re:Main concern by FredThompson · · Score: 0

      This seems more like at attempt at fearmongering to get young males on the "burning earth" cult.

      A 2C rise in global temperature would INCREASE agricultural land and reduce the % of people who die from cold.

      More land = more food. More food = a threat to the powermongers who control people through artificial scarcity.

    70. Re:Main concern by hey! · · Score: 2

      A 2C rise in global temperature would INCREASE agricultural land and reduce the % of people who die from cold.

      (a)Nope and (b) Yep, but more people die from heat and drought.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    71. Re:Main concern by hey! · · Score: 1

      Hemp is actually quite nice. Spun into a fiber it is a lot like cotton, but silkier.

      Now I can't speak for *everyone* on the left, but most of the solutions don't involve making everyone where hemp, or transfer money to to the government. That's a straw man. The most prominent solution is a market-based solution which does not transfer wealth the government, but between capitalists, namely, cap and trade. That's what the left has been proposing while the right has had its head in the sand.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    72. Re: Main concern by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

      No, but it would be much better to if humans were still hunter-gatherers. This is compatible with every form of advancement we've enjoyed since humans invented agriculture and more - in general the only thing agriculture enables us to do is support a large population, which we don't need, and never would've had if not for agriculture. Plus we never would have been burdened with any form of royalty, from early tribal royalty to today's capitalist hyper-royalty.

      In practice the invention of agriculture was probably unavoidable, but I imagine a hypothetical world without agriculture would produce a relatively small and very equal society that's gentle on the environment, where people have far more free time and some people's jobs are to be hunters and gatherers. Giving people more free time would vastly accelerate scientific, technological, and social progress.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    73. Re: Main concern by stealth_finger · · Score: 1

      where people have far more free time and some people's jobs are to be hunters and gatherers.

      This is step one to agriculture. It's all but inevitable. You set up a subset to do the hunting and gathering. It's not long before they figure out hey, if we get all the animals in one place and keep them there this will be a lot easier and boom, you have a farm.

      --
      Wanna buy a shirt?
      https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
    74. Re:Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Conservatives in the US have defined themselves by their bigotry and their inability to reason.

      If you identify as that, fuck you are one stupid motherfucker.

      numbnuts

    75. Re:Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Russia beat the Nazi's but ignoring history and making up bullshit to make you feel heroic is the American cunty way. America couldn't even beat a small island country in the pacific without resorting to killing millions of innocent people.

      numbnuts

    76. Re:Main concern by Kyr+Arvin · · Score: 1

      There's nothing snobby about it, and the numbers are fairly plain. There are always going to be minor variations year to year, usually driven by weather events. A harsh winter or summer in one area means that area is more likely to have a blip increase that year. You need to look at multi-year trends to figure out where things are headed. The EU got a head start on the US; EU emissions have been declining since their high in 1980, but the US's emissions have been increasing year over year during that period until our decline started around 2007(ish?). Our emissions levels since then have declined faster than the EU's, but they had increased for so long, that the US is about at 1995-levels of CO2 emissions, while the EU's have fallen to roughly 1960s levels. But the biggest takeaway is that China's CO2 emissions dwarfs that of the US and EU combined. India has been climbing quickly, yet still not as fast as China has been.

    77. Re: Main concern by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

      I agree that the invention of agriculture was inevitable...but perhaps its adoption wasn't? What if societies had property laws that forbade agriculture? It's unlikely that any society would be clever enough to know why they should do that ahead of time. but that's one way a society could exist without agriculture.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    78. Re:Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Conservatives in Australia just voted to replace resigning former PM Malcolm Turnball with a gay, jewish, female on a platform that includes drastic action on climate change. Stillvery much a conservative. Croney capitalist religious nut jobs such that populates the ranks of the Australian conservative right and dominates the GOP aren't real conservatives, they just don't fit anywhere else..

    79. Re:Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why worry? Climate change means warmer climate, we are told. Warm is good.

    80. Re:Main concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is zero evidence man can do anything about warming which is mostly natural.

      The consequences, if there are any, will be positive.

  2. As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The sad thing is, those of us that really would like to take issues like this seriously wind up getting lumped in with the hysterical Chicken Littles.

    1. Re:As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, I don't like getting cooties either.

    2. Re:As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The sad thing is, those of us that really would like to take issues like this seriously wind up getting lumped in with the hysterical Chicken Littles.

      Indeed. TFA is Chicken Littleism at its worst. It is based on ridiculous assumptions. It assumes that barley will still be grown in the same fields. Obviously, as the climate changes the "barley belt" will shift northwards. It assumes that using barley as livestock feed will take priority over brewing, which is unlikely. Lastly, it assumes that the cost of barley is a significant factor in the price of beer. The barley in a pint of beer costs less than a cent.

    3. Re:As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by TomGreenhaw · · Score: 1

      Moving cropland toward the pole may not work very well because the soil up there may not be nearly as fertile and the temperature swings will be wild with short turbulent growing seasons...

      --
      Greed is the root of all evil.
    4. Re:As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Indeed. TFA is Chicken Littleism at its worst. It is based on ridiculous assumptions. It assumes that barley will still be grown in the same fields. Obviously, as the climate changes the "barley belt" will shift northwards. It assumes that using barley as livestock feed will take priority over brewing, which is unlikely. Lastly, it assumes that the cost of barley is a significant factor in the price of beer. The barley in a pint of beer costs less than a cent.

      Exactly. Climate change can do a lot of things but barley shortage or even food shortage (at least in first world countries) is likely not one of them. Currently 40% of the corn in the USA is turned into ethanol and could easily replace barley as livestock feed. On top of that, an additional 36% of corn is fed to livestock so overall we have over 75% of the corn grown is either turned into ethanol or livestock feed. We would likely see a significant reduction of both ethanol production and livestock feed before we ever have to worry about famine (or running out of beer)

    5. Re:As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      the soil up there may not be nearly as fertile

      Or it may be more fertile. I can't find anything about barley specifically, but wheat has higher yields per acre in the northern part of its range (average of 46 bushels/acre in the USA, but 49 in Canada).

      the temperature swings will be wild

      Barley is frost tolerant.

      with short turbulent growing seasons...

      The whole point of shifting north is that the growing seasons are getting longer. Also the hours of summer daylight needed for photosynthesis increases as you go north.

    6. Re:As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by TomGreenhaw · · Score: 1

      This is all welcome good news and a case where I'm glad to be wrong. I like beer :-)

      --
      Greed is the root of all evil.
    7. Re:As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by Nidi62 · · Score: 1

      Obviously, as the climate changes the "barley belt" will shift northwards.

      Except you realize that the land that is now in the "barley belt" is already owned by people who may not have the desire or ability to grow barley (or do so effectively if the land is held by many people-modern commercial farms are really big). So now what do you do? This is the danger of climate change-as temperate zones move, people will inevitably move with them, often to the determent of the people who were already there.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    8. Re:As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      I like beer :-)

      Really? Do you know Brett?

    9. Re:As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      Except you realize that the land that is now in the "barley belt" is already owned by people

      It is at least conceivable that some of these people are motivated by money.

      So now what do you do?

      Allow the free market to function.

    10. Re:As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      wheat has higher yields per acre in the northern part of its range (average of 46 bushels/acre in the USA, but 49 in Canada).

      Sure, but that's growing on the soil where it is now - soil that's built up over hundreds if not thousands of years. You can't extrapolate that and say that it would produce 60 bushels per acre if you moved even further north.

      I haven't personally been and dug it up, but I've heard from several sources that the soil up there is thin and poor quality. Also, the Earth gets smaller as you get towards the poles, so there's less land. It's not rectangular like maps often make it appear.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    11. Re:As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by TomGreenhaw · · Score: 2

      Not that I can recall :-)

      --
      Greed is the root of all evil.
    12. Re:As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not that I can recall :-)

      But did you ever throw ice?

    13. Re:As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by Nidi62 · · Score: 1

      Except you realize that the land that is now in the "barley belt" is already owned by people

      It is at least conceivable that some of these people are motivated by money.

      If there's one thing that degrees in history and political science have taught me, it's that people quite often do not act rationally, nor are they often capable of operating it what would objectively be their best interest.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    14. Re:As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by Ranbot · · Score: 1

      The sad thing is, those of us that really would like to take issues like this seriously wind up getting lumped in with the hysterical Chicken Littles.

      This OP needs to be up-voted. There are a lot of important issues to raise around climate change, but beer barley is not one of them. The analysis and conclusion of the article makes the environmental position look as dumb as a climate denier who points at a blizzard and says "See? Global warming is a hoax." Neither is helping their side.

    15. Re: As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Come on, the world is flat.

    16. Re:As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by outlander · · Score: 1

      Much modern beer - or at any rate, most modern mass-produced beer - has a very high corn content. Hopefully corn can move north too. And hopefully the soils will be adequately fertile and the growing season adequately free of damaging temperature swings. BC if the weather keeps being weird, we'll need more acres under cultivation just to break even...

      (and I'm not even a particularly avid beer-drinker).

      --
      "Truth is what works" -- William James "It works!!" -- o-dark-AM comment
    17. Re:As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Obviously, as the climate changes the "barley belt" will shift northwards.

      And a few decades later it will be so far north that it will to go south.

      But there is a way out. Just switch to wheat beer and be done with it.

    18. Re:As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      If there's one thing that degrees in history and political science have taught me, it's that people quite often do not act rationally

      Have you ever worked on a farm? My first paid job was stacking hay bales. By the end of the season, I had gained about 10 pounds of muscle, and an understanding that farmers focus very much on their finances (I wasn't paid much).

      A few farmers may fail to grow the most profitable crop, but regardless of how many degrees you have, it is absurd to believe that there will be a vast continent wide shortage of barley because farmers are too stupid to grow it.

    19. Re:As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Bear in mind that the average temperature gradient over the earth means 1 degree C is 145 km or 150 m in altitude.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    20. Re:As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      So: 'Smash Capitalism'?

      Funny how that's always the answer.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    21. Re:As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

      If it has corn in it, it's not beer by definition.

      You are thinking of Buttwieser.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    22. Re:As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      Hopefully corn can move north too.

      Corn (maize to Europeans) doesn't need to move. It originated in Mexico and is highly heat tolerant. It is a very common crop in equatorial areas of Africa and South America.

    23. Re: As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by Nidi62 · · Score: 1

      You misunderstand. I'm not saying they would be too stupid to figure it out. Im saying they would either not own enough land to grow it efficiently or, as you yourself note, not be willing to put in the very hard work of farming

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    24. Re: As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mod down this denier

    25. Re: As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      There is plenty of farmland north of barley's current range. Much of it is used for canola (rapeseed), a cool climate crop.

      This may mean less canola, but Canadians can trade their beer for American soybean oil.

    26. Re:As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Or it may be more fertile.
      And why would it?

      Thawing permafrost has the characteristics of a swamp. Not very fertile.

      The whole point of shifting north is that the growing seasons are getting longer
      But they don't. Where did you get this idea from?

      Also the hours of summer daylight needed for photosynthesis increases as you go north.
      Yes. But the "summer" is shorter ...

      You sound like the guy who suggested that 9 women will produce one child after one month ...

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    27. Re: As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But the issue is beer, and there is no actual mass produced actual beer in the USA

    28. Re:As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by bored_engineer · · Score: 1

      Nah. The soil up here is just fine. In my distant youth, I worked for barley farmers at about 64 degrees N Latitude, about 100 miles south of Fairbanks, AK. It's hard, poor-paying work, but it put gas in my car and paid for a portion of my schooling.

      Here's an article if you want a few minutes reading.

    29. Re:As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by TomGreenhaw · · Score: 1

      Good to know. Maybe it will soon be time to move to Alaska :-)

      Alaska is next up on our bucket list of places to visit for a week or two.

      --
      Greed is the root of all evil.
    30. Re: As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Define 'mass produced'.

      Samuel Adams, Gordon Biersch and Sierra Nevada all qualify IMHO.

      Also American Beck's is now made in St Louis. Apparent InBev knows their other American breweries make an inferior product, as does anybody who ever had the misfortune of drinking anything that comes out of their CA brewery.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  3. distraction... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is to distract you peasants from the upcoming water shortage.

    1. Re:distraction... by bobbied · · Score: 0

      This is to distract you peasants from the upcoming water shortage.

      Water shortage? Where I live we get almost all our water from man-made surface lakes. Usually they are reaching their yearly lows as we approach late fall, but right now they are ALL above the conservation pool, some well into 50% of the flood pools. Not to mention it's actually going to rain, hard, for the next two or three days. Usually we don't fill the lakes until spring after the wet winter/spring season.

      It may be temporary, but our problem around here right now is an excess of surface water, the likes of which we've not seen since the beginning of the 20th century.

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    2. Re:distraction... by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      Climate change actually means more rain. Warmer seas means more evaporation, and if that water goes into the air it has to come down again too, which means more precipitation. Of more concern that the amount of rain is where it goes - shifting patterns mean certain regions could still get dryer even as global rainfall grows, and if those regions happen to be major agricultural areas, famine is certainly a possibility.

    3. Re:distraction... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Climate change actually means more rain. Warmer seas means more evaporation, and if that water goes into the air it has to come down again too, which means more precipitation. Of more concern that the amount of rain is where it goes - shifting patterns mean certain regions could still get dryer even as global rainfall grows, and if those regions happen to be major agricultural areas, famine is certainly a possibility.

      You can have the air saturated with humidity and still not get rain. Please do inform yourself better. Things are not simple as they seem when it comes to this subject.

      Normally people that say the things you've said are lazy, so I prepared this link for you. You're welcome.

    4. Re:distraction... by bobbied · · Score: 1

      Climate change actually means more rain. Warmer seas means more evaporation, and if that water goes into the air it has to come down again too, which means more precipitation. Of more concern that the amount of rain is where it goes - shifting patterns mean certain regions could still get dryer even as global rainfall grows, and if those regions happen to be major agricultural areas, famine is certainly a possibility.

      Wow, and here I was thinking history was about to repeat itself and we where headed towards another "dust bowl" like drought. As I recall, there was a similar period of above average rainfall and abundant water in this area just before the skies dried up and everything started blowing around. Now you tell me that climate change (which really didn't exist prior to the dust bowl I guess) is just going to keep the rain coming here in Texas and that we needn't worry about the natural variations of the amount of water falling from the sky because it's going to increase. Good to know..

      However, I'm just a wee bit skeptical about this, because you KNOW if we had a massive drought again the climate change narrative would be it was being caused by climate change, just like the current over abundance of water is blamed on it. It's what they do with ALL negative weather events you know, because nothing good could ever come from climate change.

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    5. Re:distraction... by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      I am very much aware that I gave a tremendously simplified explanation. I think I made the important point clear: How much rain falls is not as important as where it falls.

  4. love your Mother! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did you know this is the only planet in the universe that has BEER ?!!!
    Mull on that, Elon.

    1. Re:love your Mother! by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

      How do you KNOW that no other planet has BEER???

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    2. Re:love your Mother! by nitehawk214 · · Score: 3, Informative
      --
      I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
    3. Re:love your Mother! by dcooper_db9 · · Score: 3, Funny

      It's an interplanetary treaty thing. It can look, taste and smell exactly the same but you can't call it beer unless it came from Earth.

      --
      I do not block ads. I do block third party scripts.
    4. Re:love your Mother! by bobbied · · Score: 1

      In fact, There are Giant Clouds of Alcohol Floating in Space.

      I hear that stuff in space is more like Vodka than beer.. Vodka pored over ice cubes made of mud.

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    5. Re:love your Mother! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hear that stuff in space is more like Vodka than beer.. Vodka pored over ice cubes made of mud.

      Dirty martinis?

    6. Re:love your Mother! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One way to make a dirty martini.

    7. Re: love your Mother! by Nidi62 · · Score: 1

      Everyone else is drinking Pangalactic gargleblasters

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
  5. Math Seems Very Odd by Gaggme · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A 3-17% yield decrease leads to a 80-350% increase in price? Call me skeptical, but this seems a bit out of band.

    --
    My ignorance is a perfect shield against your logic.
    1. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by geekmux · · Score: 1

      A 3-17% yield decrease leads to a 80-350% increase in price? Call me skeptical, but this seems a bit out of band.

      Your calculator must be broken. Math comes out exactly what I would expect Greed N. Corruption to deliver on mine.

      Remember to factor for demand-driven capitalism that already defines $20 for a six-pack as cheap. Whoever labeled that as a price hike hasn't been forced to buy a "craft" beer lately.

    2. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by Muros · · Score: 1

      6 500ml bottles of lager will cost $12-$15 in Ireland in an off-licence, and obviously something decent is more expensive. That would make the spike range for cheap piss 27% to 167%, not 80% to 350%.

    3. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      Your beer may be $15, but only a few pennies of that is the cost of the barley.

    4. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by Muros · · Score: 1

      Trust me, mine is significantly more expensive than that. But it's mostly taxes.

    5. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you know people who have been forced to buy craft beer?

    6. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by religionofpeas · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's even worse, because the price of beer is only in a very small part determined by price of barley. Relative increase in price for beer should be much less than 3-17%.

      Also, it's pretty much guaranteed that crop yield will improve more than 17% through clever engineering between now and 2100.

    7. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      Price of the barley is still the same, even if someone takes more profit for mixing it with water, hops, and yeast.

    8. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by kenai_alpenglow · · Score: 1

      Bingo! Due to climate change (real or not), taxes will go up. Especially beer, as it generates green house gas (tm). Regulation of CO2 generation will also make it harder to get into the market. Thus the headline is true!

    9. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by lgw · · Score: 1

      Your beer may be $15, but only a few pennies of that is the cost of the barley.

      If we are to stop this beerflation, we must make a solemn vow: John Barleycorn must die.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    10. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Informative

      Barley is currently selling for about $4 per bushel.

      A bushel of barley weighs about 60 lbs.

      A pint of beer uses about 1.5 ounces of grain.

      $4/bushel / 60 lbs/bushel / 16 ounces/lb * 1.5 ounces = $0.00625.

      So the barley in a pint of beer costs a bit less than a cent.

    11. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      If you can't produce enough barley, you can charge as much as the largest top segment of potential buyers that you can still satisfy is willing to pay.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    12. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      There's a thing called price elasticity of supply, and it isn't necessarily equal to 1.

      Having said that, the barley is a pretty small component of the final price so its overall effect will be diluted accordingly (sorry).

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    13. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by mycroft16 · · Score: 1

      My only guess here is that with a decrease in availability of the types typically used for animal feed, some used for other purposes would need to be co-opted leading to a shortage for the kind in beer? As for price increase, let's face it, that has never been a straight linear relationship. A 10 cent increase in a part leads to a multi-dollar increase in the final product. Happens all the time.

    14. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      Yes, and 17% swings in price aren't really a big deal if you look at historic prices:

      https://www.indexmundi.com/com...

    15. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes. It's called greed.

    16. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 2

      A 3-17% yield decrease leads to a 80-350% increase in price? Call me skeptical, but this seems a bit out of band.

      Not only that, as the climate warms other areas are able to grow barley and will do so. Nothing will change except a certain farm will no longer be able to grow barley and another one will be able to do so that couldn't before.

    17. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by strikethree · · Score: 1

      A 3-17% yield decrease leads to a 80-350% increase in price? Call me skeptical, but this seems a bit out of band.

      By the time all the middlemen are done sucking "their portion of the profit" out of it, yeah. This seems accurate. If you were growing everything you needed to make beer and then brewed it yourself, a pint of beer would not cost 5 quid.

      --
      "Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
    18. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by scattol · · Score: 1

      That sounds about right. It's true for about every food commodities. Relatively small shortages give rises to large prices increases. A shortage of 10% in produce can easily double the price.

    19. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      By the time all the middlemen are done sucking "their portion of the profit" out of it, yeah.

      The middlemen simply raise to the price to the maximum that the market will bear. The price of the ingredients has little to do with that.

    20. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by geekmux · · Score: 1

      Do you know people who have been forced to buy craft beer?

      Forced is perhaps too strong a term. Coerced is more accurate when describing those who are suckered into going to the latest hipster brew pub by a craft beer fanacoholic who's convinced that one sip of a smoked vanilla-bacon-habanero-fuckleberry porter is all it takes to justify a $10/bottle price tag.

    21. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A 3-17% yield decrease leads to a 80-350% increase in price? Call me skeptical, but this seems a bit out of band.

      Uhhh yeah. Remember the last time Iran (5% of world oil production) sneezed towards Israel and the price doubled?

    22. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by brian.stinar · · Score: 1

      Yeah, exactly.

      Many people will switch to potato vodka, or apple vodka, or mouthwash, if beer becomes expensive enough.

    23. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      screw your facts - i'm jumping all over this article as another data point for everyone go vegan.

      BEER OR COWS, BINARY DECISION.

      Finally something maybe people will pick beer instead of meat on.

    24. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You've never heard the phrase "elasticity of demand" then? Basic microeconomics. Learn it, love it.

      Imagine if, say, 10% of your country - wherever you live - sank into the ocean. Everyone who lives there survives, but they have to crowd on to the remaining 90% with everyone else. What do you think that would do to land values?

      I think 80-350% sounds pretty reasonable.

    25. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by Muros · · Score: 1

      If you were growing everything you needed to make beer and then brewed it yourself, a pint of beer would not cost 5 quid.

      If you buy a pre-made kit where all you have to do is boil water, toss in a can of hopped malt and some yeast, and then wait 2 weeks, it comes to about 40 cents for a pint of some pretty good beer. Growing & malting yourself might be cheaper, depending on what your time is worth.

    26. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, the middlemen raise to the price of maximum *profits*, not to maximize *prices*. The price of ingredients absolutely has to do with that.

      If your ingredients cost $1, and 10 people would pay up to $40, 10 would pay $10, 10 people would pay $2, and 100 people would pay up to $5, then the profitable price is $5. That's 120 sales, $600 revenue, $480 profit. If you raised the price to $10 you'd only make $200 revenue and $180 profit. If you raised to $40, you'd have $400 revenue, $390 profit. You could draw a diagram of the profits at different price points but the best price is $5.

      If the price of ingredients is $5, the most profitable price is suddenly $40 -- there's no point targeting the mass-market of 100 people for 0 profit. That's a $400 revenue, $450 profit.

      I chose these numbers in part because this also shows that a 5-fold increase in price of ingredients caused an 8-fold increase in final price. You can see how a change in yield (which is supply and which drives price of ingredients) can cause a seemingly disproportionate increase in price. You can make the argument that people's price limits are more continuous, and they are, but it doesn't really change the thrust of the analysis.

      I make no claim about the validity of the original claim that a 3-17% decrease in yields implies a 80-350% increase in price, but I will say that I don't find that it doesn't ring any "bullshit detector", it's entirely plausible on the face of it.

    27. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This^ Climatologists rarely get anything correct when it involves economics (to be fair, economists usually screw up predictions too :) There are other corps that can be fed to cattle so it is nowhere certain that they would get preference for the barley supply. Also, increased prices will induce farmers in other areas to grow barley.

    28. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OK, if I saw a vanilla-bacon-fuckleberry porter, I would buy a ten-dollar bottle just to find out what fuckleberry tastes like.

      Yeah, ok, maybe it tastes like dick, but it still tastes better than your mom's pussy did last night.

    29. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by nateman1352 · · Score: 1

      1.5 oz would be a very light beer, my guess is that number is taken from Bud Light. Most craft micro-brews would be in the 3-8 oz range. Still your number holds up well. The price for high quality malted barley is more like ~$1/lb, most of that price difference is from the malting though. The ~17% price increase in raw barley would probably translate to a ~1% price increase in malted barley purchased by the brewing company.

      This will hurt meat prices much more than beer prices.

    30. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by AgentSmith · · Score: 1

      Do you know the price of fuckleberries these days? Through the frickin' roof!

    31. Re: Math Seems Very Odd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Barley destined for malting isn't normal barley, it has much more stringent quality requirements and costs more. Basic pale malt costs $0.70-1.30 per kilogram depending on volume.

    32. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The CO2 Produced through fermentation in beer is carbon neutral, as the CO2 that is released has been fixed from the atmosphere to create the barley, its part of the carbon cycle and doesn't ultimately add CO2 to the atmosphere.

    33. Re: Math Seems Very Odd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At least it's beer unlike the mass produced watery stuff.

    34. Re:Math Seems Very Odd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Using facts with redneck Trumpanzees is an exercise in futility.

      numbnuts

  6. So What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The chinese will just sell fake beer, and it will probably be poisonous but what the fuck do they care? They have no empathy.

    1. Re:So What? by HornWumpus · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I like Tsingtao, so I tried another brand of Chinese beer. 'Sing Ha' (not the Thai malt liquor, the Chinese beer. Both apparently anglicise to almost the same name.)

      Tried one, didn't finish it. Just awful.

      Mentioned how bad it was to a couple of Chinese coworkers...their reaction...That's made with Shanghai city water, it will give you cancer, don't drink it. They're selling that in the USA? How is that possible?

      This was a long time ago, 'poisonous chinese beer' ship has sailed.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    2. Re:So What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tiger beer isn't bad, as far as lagers go.

    3. Re:So What? by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      They're selling that in the USA? How is that possible?

      Was it imported from China or made under commission. It's amazing how few foreign beers are actually foreignly sourced. E.g. in Australia people don't drink Fosters for taste related reasons, however many of the foreign beers are actually brewed at the Foster's Brewery (formerly CUB) such as the iconic Guinnes.

      In the Netherlands I've also seen some foreign beers with "Brewed by Heineken" written in the fine print.

    4. Re:So What? by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      It sure tasted chemical. Pretty sure it was the genuine Shanghai water article.

      This was 10+ years ago, when China's cost advantage was even bigger.

      Haven't seen that beer before or since. I think BevMo just bought a bunch, one time.

      A lot of the outsourced copies in N America are made in Canada. Fosters is just as bad as anywhere, Canadian Kingfisher is undrinkable, the genuine article is a good hot weather lager beer.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  7. Can't stop it so oh well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Even if I could get my country to stop it, there are too many others that won't. Best to just move to places that are least affected by climate change.

  8. whoa whoa whoa by Hugh+Jorgen · · Score: 1

    That is a dirty tactic to get us onboard with doing something about it!

  9. wrong crowd by kiviQr · · Score: 1

    now you are talking... except that decision makers don't not care if price of their single malt scotch tripples.

  10. Livestock by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Beef consumption will likely need to decrease if there are any realistic attempts at reducing greenhouse warming, which might mitigate the effects on beer prices.

  11. A few things... by Strider- · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The types of Barley you use for beer making is completely different than animal feed. Animal feed is 6-row barley (ie on the grain head, there are six rows of seeds) while the barley used for beer is 2 row. (ie two rows of seed). This is mostly because 6 row has far more flavour involved chemicals in it, whereas 2 row is a much cleaner slate, suitable for things other than dark ales.

    --
    ...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
    1. Re:A few things... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Beer can also be made with rye. It's a little different but not bad at all.

    2. Re:A few things... by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

      No, not beer.

      Also not beer if made with wheat, corn or rice sugar (looking at American can piss).

      Beer is made with malted barley, water, hops, yeast and NOTHING ELSE.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    3. Re:A few things... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only if you're a bore when it comes to beer. I personally like a mix of beers, be it that they have fruit in them or my personal favorite, the sours. Nothing wrong with a good wheat either. Ryes aren't my personal thing, but people enjoy them. Had a peanut butter imperial stout that was properly amazing. You can go ahead and say it's not beer, but we'll just roll our eyes and ignore you no matter how much you stomp your feet.

    4. Re:A few things... by c · · Score: 5, Informative

      The types of Barley you use for beer making is completely different than animal feed.

      Both 6-row and 2-row could be used for making beer, depending on the type of beer, manufacturing process, and how stringent your definition of "beer" is. But the distinction isn't important... in the big picture, both types of barley need similar growing conditions and hence are competing for the same chunks of land. Farms will plant whatever gets them the best money, so a decrease in optimal barley growing space means either beer or meat will get more expensive.

      --
      Log in or piss off.
    5. Re:A few things... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      That's not the case anywhere anymore. The Reinheitsgebot allowed coriander, bay leaf, and wheat in the 1500s, and even allows other natural ingredients these days. It also killed off all sorts of historical beer styles in Germany.

    6. Re:A few things... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've made beer with 6-row. It's not really bad. Has more enzymes and also additional hull material, so it's great for working with messy unmalted flaked stuff like rye, oatmeal, or barley. Not that you use those things very often, but when you do, some 6-row makes it work better.

      Even in IPAs.

    7. Re:A few things... by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

      Drink whatever you want. But don't call it beer. It's a 'cereal malt beverage', like Zima, Spoors and Buttweiser.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    8. Re:A few things... by jeff4747 · · Score: 1

      Both varieties would be harmed by climate change, at least according to the theories in TFS. They both need about the same environment to grow well.

    9. Re:A few things... by bobbied · · Score: 1

      No, not beer.

      Also not beer if made with wheat, corn or rice sugar (looking at American can piss).

      Beer is made with malted barley, water, hops, yeast and NOTHING ELSE.

      There is a bit of heat involved in boiling the wart.... Not to mention that even the more common verities of beer contain all sorts of "other" types of starch. Many use corn, rice, plain barley and even wheat. Some use various kids of wood and bark during aging too. Sometimes this is for taste, but mostly it's done to make the ingredients cheaper, adjust the alcohol content and/or generally make more money.

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    10. Re:A few things... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Beer can also be made with rye. It's a little different but not bad at all.

      Bad? No. HORRIBLE.

    11. Re:A few things... by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Protein content is also a factor. You want it in animal feed, but not for making beer. Proteins break down into nasty tasting stuff plus they make it cloudy.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    12. Re:A few things... by Hognoxious · · Score: 3, Funny

      The original purpose of the Reinheitsgebot was as much to do with reserving wheat to be used for bread (so the peasants didn't starve) as it was about beer quality.

      Currently, it serves the function of a pretentious twat detector, which it does rather well.

      Ironically, if you follow it to the letter what you're going to get is a blandish lager, much closer to closer to American piss beer than to Paulaner, Guinness, Hoegaarden or Chimay.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    13. Re:A few things... by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Now you're repeating the neo-prohibitionist story. The law _never_ banned wheat beer. It just couldn't be called beer.

      Most good German Pils and 'Pilsner' complies with the law to this day.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    14. Re:A few things... by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      After you boil the sugar off grain, the remaining material makes great high protein animal feed.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    15. Re:A few things... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm going to have another cereal malt beverage. Do you want another another cereal malt beverage? I really like cereal malt beverages. What kind of cereal malt beverages do you like? The only problem is that if i drink too much I get a cereal malt beverage belly.

      Nah, I think I'll keep calling it beer.

    16. Re:A few things... by houghi · · Score: 1

      Wow, you have so much knowledge. (not really)

      If you look for exceptions to the Reinheidsgebot, look at beers that are REALLY outside of it, like a Kriek. Beer with Cheries, not a Paulaner, that is a Hefewiezen from Bavaria that had an exception to the Reinheidsgebot. The brewing of Hefeweizen was forbidden in many other places due to, well, sort of copyright and patenting issues.
      So because of money.

      And Hoegaarden should not be used as an example of a beer since thet where bought by AB Inbev (Interbrew at that moment) just like Paulaner and several others

      And a good pilsner is still good. It is a complete different taste. Just like some people like red and some people like white wine. One is not better than the other. I personally do not like red wine, (nor Champange), no matter the quality.
      I would never call a good pilsner "bland". It is just hard to find good ones, as most are made for the masses (Stella, not a premium beer.)

      So you have to go to ther smaller breweries in Germany. The margins for special beers are larger, so that is what most brewers go for.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    17. Re:A few things... by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      None of the things you wrote contradicts anything I wrote. Comprehension fail, you little Belgian twat.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    18. Re:A few things... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hurr durr...popular = garbage. Got it. Thanks, Beer Hipster!

  12. Wait .. What? Hold on now .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You didn't say anything about beer before [scientists] .. don't get crazy .. I can live with a hotter summer .. but beer supply problems .. come on now

  13. Now they're holding beer hostage? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Man, these people really are nuts!

    You will NOT take our beer away!

    1. Re:Now they're holding beer hostage? by bobbied · · Score: 1

      Man, these people really are nuts!

      You will NOT take our beer away!

      Don't worry.. We obviously have a pro-beer Justice on the Supreme court now. We can get a "right to beer" case up there in a few years...

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    2. Re:Now they're holding beer hostage? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We can get a "right to beer" case up there in a few years...

      We just might need it. I'm glad he's there.

      I, for one, am happy it's getting warmer outside. I can move up to the second floor when the water starts rising.

  14. 100% backwards by SuperKendall · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    The idiots that keep claiming global warming will result in more arid regions are ignoring the actual effect of warmer overall global temperatures - greater evaporation from the oceans. Global warming means GREATER agricultural range, not less. Deserts are not caused by heat so much as by rain shadowing from geologic features.

    You can easily see this is true with a quick trip to any jungle, which is both hotter and wetter than most other place on Earth, yet also has the greatest abundance of vegetation...

    This refutation is also verified by the medieval warming period, where agriculture greatly expanded in Europe.

    So the projected global warming we see currently will result in a greater range of beer, not reduced.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:100% backwards by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1, Informative

      You can easily see this is true with a quick trip to any jungle, which is both hotter and wetter than most other place on Earth, yet also has the greatest abundance of vegetation...
      I guess you mean "rainforest".
      A rainforest, or simpler jungle is sustained by evaporating water out of its own area, and raining it down again on its own area. It is kinda a closed circle.

      Deserts work the exact same way. They are dry because they evapour the non existing water and let it drop on themselves as non existing rain.

      Fixed that for you ....

      No idea why half of your posts are completely idiotic.

      This refutation is also verified by the medieval warming period, where agriculture greatly expanded in Europe.
      Yeah ... Europe had 2 million inhabitants at that time ... perhaps less.

      The EU alone has 420 million ...

      Did I mention that half of your posts are completely idiotic? Perhaps I did, but you know, this brain diseases spreading via the internet are ontaminous ...

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    2. Re:100% backwards by DDumitru · · Score: 2

      While your "logic" seems OK, I have no reason to doubt the author's research on the specific regions that produce barley. Actual, local, modeling is far more likely to produce accurate results that global ideas. I am not saying that your overall approach is wrong. If the author's research only looks at current locations for barley and what would happen to them, then that research is correct, but the conclusion is flawed. If the research also looks at new areas that can start to grown barley, then it would be reasonable methodology.

      My real problem with the author is the lack of an economic model for the pricing spikes. Price spikes like this don't tend to happen unless the shortage is extreme. Pulling 10% from a source will not be prioritized to some other "more noble" product like animal feed. The market will use the product by whoever can pay the most for it. If beer production is impacted and price doubles, then beer production can pay a lot more, and the price will level out long before it doubles. Perhaps this is a bias based on "centrally controlled" economies. I don't think German barley farmers could be "told" to not sell to beer producers by the German or EU government, even if the government wanted to.

    3. Re:100% backwards by ewhenn · · Score: 1

      It's true that a warmer earth is expected to raise overall rainfall. The part you are missing is the rainfall pattern. The rainfall will tend to come in larger rains that have a larger time spread between rainfall events. The hotter temperatures between the rainfall activity will increase effective aridity.

    4. Re:100% backwards by dywolf · · Score: 2

      2 years later, you're still posting the same wrong things.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    5. Re:100% backwards by lgw · · Score: 1

      quote>You can easily see this is true with a quick trip to any jungle, which is both hotter and wetter than most other place on Earth, yet also has the greatest abundance of vegetation...

      If we go back before the current Ice Age, when CO2 was much higher and the dinosaurs weren't just raised on farms for sandwiches, we can see what a sustained Warm Earth is like for flora: there were 40-ton herbivores. An abundance of vegetation unlike anything we see today.

      It's a fair call to point out that the farmable land for current crops will move farther north, and that can be disruptive. But then, we're hardly new to genetically modifyig crops these days. Unlike evolution, we don't have to take centuries to catch up to climate change.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    6. Re:100% backwards by jeff4747 · · Score: 1

      You can easily see this is true with a quick trip to any jungle, which is both hotter and wetter than most other place on Earth, yet also has the greatest abundance of vegetation...

      It's almost like temperature and humidity are different variables. And someday, you might actually understand that. And thus understand why climate change is going to lead to expanding deserts. Hint: It's not all about the temperature.

    7. Re:100% backwards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This refutation is also verified by the medieval warming period, where agriculture greatly expanded in Europe.
      Yeah ... Europe had 2 million inhabitants at that time ... perhaps less.

      It does sort of shoot down the fundamental premise of the AGW community that the concentration of CO2 is an absolute driver of global temperature that the Medieval Warm Period and the Roman Warm Period both occurred when there was so little anthropogenic CO2 compared to the modern era, though.

    8. Re:100% backwards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What idiots ? You mean the hundreds, if not thousands, of climate scientists that have spent years studying numerous fields of science and have years of experience in climate research ?

      As opposed to what ? That one basement dwelling keyboard warrior living in his mother's basement claiming on some forum on the internet that he is more competent in climatology than all of the above ?

      Yeah, I'm sure none of those climate scientist idiots have taken into account the numerous variables involved in global warming, because, you know, they're idiots...

    9. Re:100% backwards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can easily see this is true with a quick trip to any jungle, which is both hotter and wetter than most other place on Earth, yet also has the greatest abundance of vegetation...
      I guess you mean "rainforest".
      A rainforest, or simpler jungle is sustained by evaporating water out of its own area, and raining it down again on its own area. It is kinda a closed circle.

      Nope. It does not work like that. Amazon humidity circles [anti-cyclonically] around the center of the continent [Bolivia] and brings humidity to southeastern/southern Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Northern Argentina. Research Bolivia High [maybe here

    10. Re: 100% backwards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mod this climate change denier down. No better than halocaust deniers... Hell, no better than actual Nazis....

  15. Sad news for Brett by NEDHead · · Score: 1, Funny

    Hope he got a raise with his new job

    1. Re:Sad news for Brett by RickyShade · · Score: 1

      This will cause him to vote in favor of very strict and very progressive climate reforms.

  16. Eco-Alarmism Will Cause... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Eco-Alarmism Will Cause Beer Shortages and Price Hikes, Experience Says

  17. If Dying in extream weather isn't a motivation. by jellomizer · · Score: 1

    I doubt a spike in beer prices will get peoples attention.

    Also to note, Climate change in term of agriculture will in general shift production locations (further north in the norther hemisphere) So total output will in general remain constant.

    Also there can be a lot of other factors that can affect the price of beer, other then just climate change. Factors such changes in demand (people may be wanting less beer, or substitute it with something else (Hard Cider is my preference). Or just other countries not wanting to import American products will lower the cost.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    1. Re:If Dying in extream weather isn't a motivation. by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Also there can be a lot of other factors that can affect the price of beer, other then just climate change.
      The driving price of Beer in Germany are taxes, and in Thailand it is taxes and taxes.
      No idea why beer is so expensive in France, though.

      Or just other countries not wanting to import American products will lower the cost. Wow, people actually indeed import american beer, and drink it? Or is it used to feed cattle? I believe the Japanese super cattle only gets best beer from Kirin and Asahi ... but not sure.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    2. Re:If Dying in extream weather isn't a motivation. by jellomizer · · Score: 2

      I guess it would depend on the beer.
      America makes some good beers. I don't remember the last time I went to a party and someone actually served Budwiser or Coors beer. It was normally some sort of craft beer that actually has a a taste.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    3. Re:If Dying in extream weather isn't a motivation. by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Beer in Germany is cheap! Last I was there, it was 9 euro a case for decent beer (Becks grade), about 12 euro for the 'good stuff'.

      A German case is about five American six packs.

      Your understanding of the American beer market is about 30 years out of date. Not the criticism is 'over hopped IPAs' as far as the eye can see. American can beer is still awful, but only hipsters and trailer trash drink it.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    4. Re:If Dying in extream weather isn't a motivation. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Americans also make good beers. Most of the parties I go to has people bringing a five gallon keg of their latest homebrew.

    5. Re:If Dying in extream weather isn't a motivation. by sfcat · · Score: 1

      Your understanding of the American beer market is about 30 years out of date. Not the criticism is 'over hopped IPAs' as far as the eye can see. American can beer is still awful, but only hipsters and trailer trash drink it.

      Funny you should say that. I was at a wedding this weekend where out of the blue the German groom told me that the US now has better beer than Germany does. Some people like hop heavy IPAs. Sorry you don't but I'm sure you can find other types of beer in the US too.

      --
      "Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
    6. Re:If Dying in extream weather isn't a motivation. by schematix · · Score: 1

      The Germans excel at making technically excellent beer. However, they lack when it comes to variety. Their culture is tied to the idea that there is a right way (process) to make beer and their are traditional styles (recipes). The result is that there isn't much flavor variety even when you hop between breweries in towns hundreds of km apart. Sure you have a few darker styles, some stronger, some lighter, but overall there isn't THAT much difference compared to the variety of beers you regularly see in the US since in the US we aren't bound so much by tradition. Overall the US makes the best beer overall in the world because we have the variety and skill (although there is still a lot of trash). Belgium also makes some really great stuff but i would argue their flavors are too much for mass appeal. Germans make great beer too but their style just isn't that creative and gets boring.

      --
      Scott
    7. Re:If Dying in extream weather isn't a motivation. by jeff4747 · · Score: 1

      Also to note, Climate change in term of agriculture will in general shift production locations (further north in the norther hemisphere) So total output will in general remain constant.

      Nope. As you go further from the equator, the total sunlight landing on the ground is reduced, as well as a shorter growing season just because of the larger difference in daylight hours between summer and winter.

      There's also less land area, but that's probably not going to have an effect since there's a lot of fallow farmland.

    8. Re:If Dying in extream weather isn't a motivation. by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      The Germans make good beer in industrial quantities for cheap (unless Oktoberfest, then very expensive).

      They have some traditional varieties too. Marzen and Berliner Weisse for examples. I'll grant they don't like 'super chewy'.

      The world turns, German kids are starting to drink Jager. For their parents Jagermeister is a stomach tonic, like Underberg. Some Germans drink IPAs now.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    9. Re:If Dying in extream weather isn't a motivation. by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Erm, that was a very uninsightful analysis.

      How many beer variations do we have in Germany? Roughly about 10,000.
      How many beer companies do we have in Germany? Roughly 4 ....

      The "harmonizing" of recipes has nothing to do with "Their culture is tied to the idea that there is a right way (process) to make beer and their are traditional styles (recipes)."

      The craft beer movement is growing because the big companies settled on a few base recipes and put the names of the companies they bought on the labels of the bottles.

      I live in Thailand when I'm not working. Heineken and Carlsberg make big promotion programs in pubs and restaurants every year. The staff is always startled that I buy a Thai beer instead of the cheap promotion. I prefer Chang, but Leo and Singah are fine as well ... sometimes I drink beer from Laos. It has a bad name as it is super cheap: but it is a wonderful beer!

      If you come to Germany, buy beer from the small lesser known brands, and you realize: there is still plenty of good and affordable beer around.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  18. When get done crying in your beer... by The+Original+CDR · · Score: 1

    A shortage of chocolate, coffee and wine will provoke riots in the streets. Stock up while you can!

    1. Re:When get done crying in your beer... by sfcat · · Score: 1

      A shortage of chocolate, coffee and wine will provoke riots in the streets. Stock up while you can!

      This is more insightful than maybe you know. Laws and shortages relating to beer have causes violence on multiple occasions in the US and Europe. Often in less developed countries, a beer shortage can cause riots and civil unrest although often this happens in concert with other shortages including food shortages. Couple this with the fact that beer is a substitute for potable water and keeping the beer flowing is often a serious matter. Also, its a good message in the US where the beer drinking crowd is often against environmental causes.

      --
      "Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
    2. Re:When get done crying in your beer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When get done ...

      You must not be a programmer.

    3. Re:When get done crying in your beer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Neither are you, Chris. You're the fat dummy management looks at with a mix of pity and relief that you show up fully clothed every day.

  19. minimize your risk by cellocgw · · Score: 1

    Fill your basement with 1000000 cases of beer now.

    Worst-case scenario: you sell at huge profit when the disaster strikes.

    Best-case: no need to leave the house for the rest of your life.

    --
    https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
    1. Re:minimize your risk by sfcat · · Score: 1

      Fill your basement with 1000000 cases of beer now.

      Worst-case scenario: you sell at huge profit when the disaster strikes.

      Best-case: no need to leave the house for the rest of your life.

      This is dumb. Beer degrades and its quality is often linked to its freshness.

      --
      "Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
  20. OT: Why still Peking University by berchca · · Score: 1

    This is off topic, but I am wondering why the university still identifies as Peking University, as opposed to Beijing University? It it just because they feel they've already established their brand name, like (on topic) Tsingtao Beer?

    1. Re:OT: Why still Peking University by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Because outside of the american hemisphere, Bejing is written and pronounced Peking.
      Just like outside of the english/american hemisphere Cologne is not Cologne but Koeln :D

      It is actually a bit weird for us Germans that half of our cities have a "wrong" name in english and you have to learnt the english names or no one understands you ... some have even a weird "french name" e.g. Aix la Chapelle ... that is Aachen.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  21. Go vegan! by TeknoHog · · Score: 3, Funny

    Barley harvests are mostly sold as livestock fodder, so beer availability could be further hindered by the likely prioritization of grain yields to feed cattle and other farm animals, rather than for brewing beer.

    Another good reason to stop eating meat.

    --
    Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    1. Re:Go vegan! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Less kids has a much greater impact.

    2. Re:Go vegan! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shame on you all life is precious.

    3. Re:Go vegan! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not a choice. Have less kids or no kids AND become vegan.

    4. Re:Go vegan! by religionofpeas · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's not a choice. Have less kids or no kids AND become vegan

      Have less kids, become a vegan, don't have pets, don't drive, don't heat your house, and commit genocide. There's a lot more you can do.

    5. Re:Go vegan! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Less dogs has a much greater impact.

      FTFY

    6. Re:Go vegan! by Nidi62 · · Score: 1

      Barley harvests are mostly sold as livestock fodder, so beer availability could be further hindered by the likely prioritization of grain yields to feed cattle and other farm animals, rather than for brewing beer.

      Another good reason to stop eating meat.

      I'll take beef over beer any day. Besides, by the time things get so bad that we would have to choose between beef or beer, lab grown meats should be good enough and cheap enough to cut back on livestock.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    7. Re:Go vegan! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or how about EVERYTHING in moderation. Demanding extremism will simply lead to rebellion.

      Since you're proposing extremism I'll add my own - cut energy usage to zero! Turn off the computer, ditch the refrigerator, no more heating and cooling. Stop utilizing energy powered personal or public transportation. Walk everywhere! These will have an immediate impact. The worlds CO2 and energy issues can be solved right this second! So start now!

    8. Re:Go vegan! by jeff4747 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but yeast is an animal. So this would be stopping eating animals so that you can drink animals.

    9. Re:Go vegan! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeast is a fungus...

    10. Re:Go vegan! by CanHasDIY · · Score: 2

      It's not a choice. Have less kids or no kids AND become vegan

      Have less kids, become a vegan, don't have pets, don't drive, don't heat your house, and commit genocide. There's a lot more you can do.

      Like commit suicide - once you're dead, you stop polluting.

      What? Are you dedicated to the cause of environmentalist or not?

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    11. Re:Go vegan! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Barley harvests are mostly sold as livestock fodder, so beer availability could be further hindered by the likely prioritization of grain yields to feed cattle and other farm animals, rather than for brewing beer.

      Another good reason to stop eating meat.

      I had a vegan sandwich for dinner.

      Cows are vegans, and they make great sandwiches. :-D

    12. Re:Go vegan! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey hey, I have more impact driving others that way than doing it myself.

  22. theres too many microbrews anyhow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the average joes and janes that this would hit the most would still dismiss that anything they can do differently would change things.

  23. Climate Change FUD... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... tailor made for the red state redneck!

    1. Re:Climate Change FUD... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I see more dipshit, self important hipsters drinking PBR then hillbillies at this point.

  24. Ummm NO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    People are so foolish sometimes. We've always known that the calories/energy from raw plants is greater per food unit than meat after those energy units are put into meat production. The increase in costs to produce things like beef will reduce demand for beef.

    We are going to go back to a largely vegetarian diet where meat is a luxury item. It's just a matter of time.

    And yes, beer will cost more. This population crash we will have at some point in our future is goign to be epic. AS is, we are one solar flare away from it to be frank. Grocery stores have a 2 day food supply. Well, let's say what that is. The ability for a community to survive a catastrophic event like a solar flare is extremely limited. People that live on farms will do fine along with survivalists. The rest of us are dead.

    1. Re: Ummm NO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And Christian fundamentalist America is hoping and praying that will happen. Hence, they elect someone who speaks nonsense to reason.

    2. Re: Ummm NO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And Christian fundamentalist America is hoping and praying that will happen. Hence, they elect someone who speaks nonsense to reason.

      So much ignorance in this post. It must be tough being you.

  25. Maybe the SCOTUS will come around now? by damn_registrars · · Score: 2, Funny
    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
  26. Re: Global warming has devolved into medieval hyst by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S2DqCxzszK4

    WAKE THE FUCK UP

  27. Poland is very cheap right now for USD to get beer by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    Poland is very cheap right now for USD to get beer

  28. What about Wine, Cheese, and ... by hAckz0r · · Score: 1

    I can't wait for Wine and Cheese to be affected by Climate Change, because THAT will finally get Congress's attention!

    Oh, and Diet Coke, that will get the presidents attention like no other...

    /s

  29. It's a Lie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A primary component of beer is CO2. Are you telling me that due to an over-abundance of CO2, we will have less beer?

    1. Re:It's a Lie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The overwhelming majority of beers are 90% (and usually much more) water. In no way shape or form is CO2 a primary component of any beer.

  30. Bacon or beer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A terrible choice to make.

  31. Who cares by nospam007 · · Score: 0

    We'll drink Champagne from Scotland instead.

  32. Changing definition incorrect by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Informative

    I guess you mean "rainforest".

    Incorrect. A rainforest is a SPECIFIC TYPE OF JUNGLE.

    Definiton, Jungle:

    "an area of land overgrown with dense forest and tangled vegetation, typically in the tropics."

    Definition, Rainforest:

    "a tropical forest, usually of tall, densely growing, broad-leaved evergreen trees in an area of high annual rainfall"

    I love how you claimed I really meant a totally different word than the one I used, then proceeded to base a whole argument around the word you changed to...

    You see, unlike you I have actually travelled to a lot of places around the Earth, so I have actually been in many different kinds of biomes (I included the link since you seem to have a problem, understanding the meanings of words)

    There are many jungles that exist on the edge of the ocean, that do not exist because it is "evaporating water out of its own area (unless you consider the ocean to be it's area??? Urgh.)". I am really, really curious in fact where you got the idea that even rainforests were some kind of totally self-contained ecosystem since that is not the case either (do you really think all of the water comes from the area the rainforest is in? Oh honey).

    Deserts work the exact same way. They are dry because they evapour the non existing water

    No. Mr "evapour" . You may want to study what makes a region desert (and I'll just assume you are thanking me now for learning there are different kinds of desert). Also wondering what makes you think even what you said in any way disputes my point that deserts are mostly geologically created features.

    Yeah ... Europe had 2 million inhabitants at that time ... perhaps less.

    That completely orthogonal point doesn't change the fact that regions of agricultural use expanded. Why would it? You seem to be utterly confused here to where what you are saying is complete nonsense.

    I'll let you have the last response, it was great to be able to use your very limited understanding of the world as an educational platform but you obviously have nothing intelligent to add to the conversation - I think we've extracted all of the learning points possible from you at this point so I don't see any point in reading what you have to say further.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Changing definition incorrect by jeff4747 · · Score: 2

      That completely orthogonal point doesn't change the fact that regions of agricultural use expanded. Why would it?

      Expanding population and advances in agriculture technology.

      It's not like overall yield was limited by temperature before.

      Also, your terrible analysis forgets one teensy-tiny little detail: The medieval warming period ended in 1250. Yet Europe kept continuing to expand agriculture. Kinda hard to do if the warming period was required to expand agriculture.

    2. Re:Changing definition incorrect by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      "Yeah ... Europe had 2 million inhabitants at that time ... perhaps less."

      That completely orthogonal point doesn't change the fact that regions of agricultural use expanded. Why would it?

      Because for a population of 2million that perhaps covers less than 1% of the area it is super easy to expand its agriculture to lets say 2% of the area? With or without "medieval warms period".

      The fact that you don't grasp this and your nitpicking about the difference between a Jungle and a Rain Forest simply makes you look like an idiot.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    3. Re:Changing definition incorrect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >I love how you claimed I really meant a totally different word than the one I used, then proceeded to base a whole argument around the word you changed to...

      that's all they got these days. really makes debate boring and useless. misinterperet (most often wilfully) and argue a point that isn't held by the party they are engaged with. It's getting really old.

      using a misrepresentation as a tactic to generate a default win (your opponent isn't in the same debate) and painting your opponent as something they aren't as a strategy it is pathetic and dishonest. It's not a win, it's a lie that looks like a win building a mandate on a house of cards.

      I'm a die hard lefty and love my right wing brothers and sisters. let's talk for real so we can sort this out.

    4. Re:Changing definition incorrect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Rain forests are not exclusively tropical.

      numbnuts

  33. Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm looking forward to 30 years from now when I can look back at all these idiotic posts and laugh about how scared some people were over a non-event. Like another "Y2K" crisis.

  34. We need some drunk people to support our cause by micahraleigh · · Score: 0

    If you have critical thinking skills, we are not interested in your support.

    The effort required to convince you is just too bothersome.

    Thank you and have a nice day.

  35. Now listen everyone... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Lets not all hop on the bandwagon for a beer shortage.

  36. It's not even remotely that simple. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Many important crops are restricted to specific latitudes by their requirements for day/night cycle. When you change the climate in those latitudes, they can't just move to other latitudes and survive. This is one reason climate change will have crushing impact on crop species diversity and farming in general.

    Barley, however, is "day neutral" as we say in the farming biz. As it gets pushed out of one region it's likely to become possible to grow it in another.

  37. Where did you get the research was specific by SuperKendall · · Score: 2

    I have no reason to doubt the author's research on the specific regions that produce barley.

    They aren't using research on specific regions, the paper says they are using CMIP5 for future predictions, which is very non-specific (by the way that link is the closest I could find for what they were trying to link to, since the link in the paper itself is actually broken).

    They may know a lot about the regions producing barley but as far as I could tell didn't have a very strong explanation for predictions they were giving as to changes in that region.

    Am I the only one who tried to read the paper? It doesn't seem like a greta paper and the links they use for further evidence are not at all specific.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  38. Climate Cringe Study shows that... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Stupid people between all political spectrums share one commonality; they love to get shit-faced!

  39. Bear shortages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's how I misread it at first glance.

  40. No, it won't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Climate change will NOT cause any such thing to occur, because people will find other places to grow barley.

    Only people with a fixed mindset (I am now an expert on fixed mindsets because I read about them on slashdot today in an earlier article) have trouble adapting to and solving problems created by climate change.

    Fortunately the world is not run by people with a fixed mindset. That part of humanity which can adapt, will adapt. Everyone else will die, and good riddance.

  41. Bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They care, but they don't see a convincing argument to give political power to people who want to destroy their culture and lifestyle.

    1. Re: Bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't worry, there'll always be xenophobia, obsolescence and guns. Y'all doth protest too much.

  42. Beer shortage!?! Noooo! by LostMonk · · Score: 1

    well, maybe that bit of news will finally nudge a few hearts where influencing minds failed.

  43. Well.... by Ferretman · · Score: 1

    ....to be fair the Alarmists have tried saying everything else will increase in cost/die off/etc., so why not beer?

    Ferret

    --
    Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
  44. Any way to filter out these stories? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Tired of seeing fake news on here.

    1. Re:Any way to filter out these stories? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      fake news being, of course, realities that you don't want to see...

  45. What happens when things still get worse? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So what happens when governments, citizens, businesses all speed trillions on stopping the temperature increases and they still increase anyway? Some Pro climate change scientist have now said their predictions were not accurate, and these doomsday predictions are so out of wack that they only are believed by people who ignore the actual trends and skew the numbers in their favor.

  46. Billions of enablers... by Dread_ed · · Score: 0

    Why do we cater to drug addicts like this? Alcohol is a frightful and messy drug, more destructive than any other known.

    We should be very lucky if global climate change makes alcohol harder to produce.

    --
    When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
    1. Re:Billions of enablers... by geekmux · · Score: 0

      Why do we cater to drug addicts like this? Alcohol is a frightful and messy drug, more destructive than any other known.

      We should be very lucky if global climate change makes alcohol harder to produce.

      Did it ever occur to you that one of the main reasons products like alcohol and tobacco are legal is because of their destructive nature?

      Yes, these products are responsible for millions of deaths every year, which is a net positive for resource management, which every government on the planet is responsible for. Population control is a necessary evil. Our legal-yet-deadly products validate this fact every single day.

      Not to mention the trillions in revenue enjoyed by the Medical Industrial Complex treating related afflictions. I'm certain ruthless capitalism is another priority for our government too. Go figure.

    2. Re:Billions of enablers... by TheDarkener · · Score: 1

      Uhhh, are you sure that maybe people just like beer? Even people in politics? Maybe population control is just a "happy side-effect" that they let slide? Of course there's the other side of the coin that means that's one less person paying taxes....uh oh, your theory just sprung a leak.

      --
      It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
    3. Re:Billions of enablers... by geekmux · · Score: 1

      Uhhh, are you sure that maybe people just like beer? Even people in politics? Maybe population control is just a "happy side-effect" that they let slide? Of course there's the other side of the coin that means that's one less person paying taxes....uh oh, your theory just sprung a leak.

      There is no leak here. Only a endless stream of profits being enjoyed by the Medical Industrial Complex treating tobacco addicts and the "disease" of alcoholism. Taxes are chicken shit compared to draining entire nest eggs, which happens quite often as alcohol and tobacco addicts are forced to pay for treatments that might delay their demise.

      Every side effect of legal-but-deadly products has been carefully thought out. It is sometimes beneficial to both treat and kill humans by keeping certain products legal. If the benefits were simply not there, the product would be illegal. Plain and simple. Cannabis being classified as a Schedule I drug is a perfect example of this. Obviously a war on drugs that includes marijuana creates far more of a benefit than legalization does. At least for those who profit the most from it.

    4. Re:Billions of enablers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, which is why heroin is legal and meth, cocaine and PCP are heavily regulated being schedule II drugs in the US.

      numbnuts

  47. Re:Climate is changing every day by 10-20 degrees by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah, because we all know that the global conglomerate of evil scientists fighting for their few millions grants in tax money have much more influence on nations and politicians that the oil and gas industry with their hundreds of billions.

    Climate-change denying little shitfuck like you make as much sense as fucking flat-earthers.

    Tell me, does it pay well to be an oil and gas industry shill on the internet ?

  48. Load of bullshit, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wow, anything to scare the sheeple. If this does really happen I can substitute Rice, Oat, Corn, Sorghum, Wheat or Rye. I make ciders as well, so I'll just go that route.

  49. What a crazy mixed up world by petes_PoV · · Score: 2

    so beer availability could be further hindered by the likely prioritization of grain yields to feed cattle and other farm animals, rather than for brewing beer.

    Dumbest set of priorities ever!

    --
    politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
  50. A few things not modeled ... by Tjp($)pjT · · Score: 1

    First, the models keep being changed to match current weather trends. They don’t have an accurate model that has survived five years yet, let along 50 needed for “climate change”.

    Second, they aren’t considering the wider growing regions a cycle of global warming provides. The equatorial regions barely have a change, the closer to the poles the more the increase. So the corn belt will widen into Canada and the wheat belt will move to the northern territories.

    So fear not beer swilling public, the region for growing barley will expand not dwindle.

    --
    - Tjp

    I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!

  51. If and IF and IF and MAYBE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    IF climate change occurs in the direction we predict (why is it not called Global Warming? Because they wanted to claim cooler temps were part of "climate change" too. You know standard Pseudo science).

    IF the climate gets hot at the predicted rate. Of course, the UK just released a study that says we only have 10 years left... for the 3rd time. That's right! They have been saying we only have 10 years left for 30 years!

    IF droughts are caused by additional heat (last time I checked it rains more in Houston than in California which is much cooler).

    IF all of this happens, production can be moved NORTH to places that didn't used to support barley growth.

    Maybe it's all a HOAX!

    1. Re:If and IF and IF and MAYBE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cooler temps are part of it idiot. When the ocean rises to the point that the gulf stream shifts, England will be as livable as Alaska or Siberia.

      They changed the name because morons like you can't grasp simple concepts.

      numbnuts

  52. NOW IT'S GETTING SERIOUS!! by sproketboy · · Score: 1

    ntr

  53. Just maybe... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The year of the Linux desktop and wheat beer, will coincide.

  54. Beer Shortage! by jjbenz · · Score: 1

    That's the worst news I've heard today.

  55. "Sapiens" by Yuval Harari... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    has a pretty good discussion of this exact point of view. Interesting book,
    not quite sure I buy all of it, but worthwhile if you're interested in who we
    are and how we got here.

  56. Beer over beef in a heartbeat... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    plenty of other delicious things to eat, but there's no replacement for a cold one on a hot day.

  57. No more beer for Brett Kavanaw by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    couldn't have happened to a better guy

  58. Ok now I'm convinced by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I admit I'm one who doesn't accept the doom and gloom scenarios regarding increasing temperatures, I don't believe CO2 has anything to do with it and I don't believe man is the culprit or could stop it even if we wanted to. I'm the person that always asks, ok so what is the correct temperature supposed to be?

    Well, if this story is true then I think that my question has finally been answered, the correct temperature is the one that doesn't affect my beer.

    So let's get busy destroying all the cars and coal fired power plants to protect the beer. It is our moral obligation to defend beer for the future generations.

  59. The Smart Money by PPH · · Score: 1

    ... is getting ahead of this trend.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  60. Now I WILL buy an electric car by ripvlan · · Score: 1

    Something that finally hits home on climate change, a beer shortage!

    We all need something to drink ourselves silly as the water rises up over our ankles.

  61. Dog bites man by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A better way to phrase things is demand for beer may exceed the supply temporarily causing prices to rise. Not world shattering news by any means. Shortages to agricultural products occur all the time - we had a lime shortage last year. And since alcohol taxes are a large part of the price of beer at least in the US perhaps harried politicians might reduce "sin" taxes.

  62. Past performance in biology is not indicator by aepervius · · Score: 3, Interesting
    That should be a mantra for you "Past performance in biology is not indicator of future performance". To convince yourself take yield before the haber revolution to a few year after and project to what yield we have by now. To make a more clear example, the potatoe yield since 1990 has stayed the same in UK : 40 tons per hectare, after an incredible increase it stayed stable (15 ton per hectare in 1885 , then nearly 80 years later it stayed at 20 tons per hectare, then jumping doubling until 1990). The fact is that such agricultural increase happens by steps, and there is no guarantee of a future steps up. If you want another example, our life expectancy exploded due to easy steps to do, but barely moved up in the last 20 years (in the western world). So to answer this :

    Also, it's pretty much guaranteed that crop yield will improve more than 17% through clever engineering between now and 2100

    no, it isn't guaranteed, and in some case there could be a reversion as some crop/vegetable need a certain medium low stable temperature which could actually with a more chaotic continental climate, not be a given, and thus in some case we could have for certain country a lower yield.

    --
    C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
    visit randi.org
  63. It's about material dialecticalism... by Jerry · · Score: 1, Interesting

    AGW, or "Climate Change", or whatever the Nom de Jur is for it, isn't science. Science isn't "settled" and "settled science" isn't science. Climate Change is closer to Lysenkoism than it is to real science. The most disturbing aspect of today's climate change scientists is their willingness to go back into historical data and "correct" it to agree with their theories about CO2. The changes always cool the past and warm the present to make it appear that we are getting warmer. Yet, all their predictions about the disasters they claim would happen failed to materialize. Al Gore quoted an AGW scientist who predicted in 2007 that "within 5 years" ice would be gone from the North Pole for parts of the summer. It never happened. In fact, ice sheets have waxed and waned as they always have, even with AGW folks cooking, trimming and creating data out of thin air.
    https://www.investors.com/poli...

    Hansen and fellow scientist Michael Oppenheimer reported that if the buildup of carbon dioxide and methane continued at the current rate, the Earth would be between three and nine degrees Fahrenheit warmer by the years 2025-2050, and that sea levels would rise between one and four feet in the same time frame. They've got only 5 years left and our globe has to warm 2.5 to 8.5 degrees during that time.

    https://www.thenewamerican.com...
    Gore’s film predicted a 20-foot sea-level rise in the “near future” owing to ice melt from Greenland and Antarctica. As you can see, it hasn’t happened yet. Gore also predicted the devastation of low-lying Pacific Island nations such as Tuvalu because of sea-level rise. But Tuvalu and some other island nations have actually grown in size since Gore’s pronouncement. A British judge concluded in 2007 that the film contained at least nine factual errors and was, therefore, a political film — not a scientific one.

    Whenever these predictions of doom don’t pan out, the climate charlatans simply move the prediction back another few decades, long past the time when they’ll actually have to answer for them. It’s a shell game. The real global warming is always under a different cup.

    https://polarbearscience.com/2...

    http://www.aei.org/publication...

    https://casf.me/3-decades-fail...

    There was only ONE BIG REASON for the climate hysteria of the last 20 years, which was revealed in the 2009 and 2011 whistleblower release of the CRU emails: redistribute wealth from the Western nations to those ruled by Marxists. So arrogant are they about it that a member of the UN-ICCP stated:
    "We (UN-IPCC) redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy ... One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is an environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore ..."
    -Dr. Ottmar Endenhofer. IPCC co-chair of Wkring Group 3, November 13, 2010 interview (with Dr. Charles Battig)

    --

    Running with Linux for over 20 years!

    1. Re:It's about material dialecticalism... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      When I read bullshit like this, I have to open another beer ...

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  64. But, but.... by TheDarkener · · Score: 1

    Beer helps me live!

    - 21 year old me

    --
    It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
  65. If you are going to do it, do it right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Scream about how it's going to threaten something politicians care about - may I suggest 'ignorance and lies' or 'useful idiots' instead of 'raising the cost of beer 1%'?

  66. Re:Poland is very cheap right now for USD to get b by guacamole · · Score: 1

    The always happened in the past right before the repartitioning of this country.

  67. Don't tell Brett Kavanaugh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Apparently he REALLY likes beer!

  68. the comments in this forum prove... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...once and for all, that these people are a bunch of kooks!

  69. Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    People want others to pay for CC prevention. They want higher pay without higher costs. I dont get it. Something has to give somewhere. Go green. Get ofc your puter. Quit driving ANY car. Bike. Live like you preach. Dont reproduce. Since Dems apparently vastly outnumber conservatives, sounds like the group that should do more. Think of the beer, man!

  70. I like beer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Soon: Brett Kavanaugh announces plans to combat climate change from the Supreme Court.

  71. Predictable statements from the 1% by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So the tl;dr is, as always:

    "bla bla bla...YOU MUST PAY MORE...bla bla bla!!!"

  72. Silver lining by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It could potentially kill all the American swill "brewers". The sooner embarrassing shit like Bud, Coors, Miller and all the even cheaper brands die the better off we will be.

    For fucks sake, there is cheap beer that is at least passable. From cheap imports like Killians to American microbrews like Pyramid Wheat Ale. There is no valid reason for the big beer brands to even exist.

    numbnuts

  73. and wine will become better and plentiful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Northern Europe switched from wine to beer during the Little Ice Age and haven't switched back yet (still too cold).

  74. nice post by examresultsind1 · · Score: 1

    MBA in Canada without GMAT- Get here information regarding How to pursue MBA without GMAT Score in Universities of Canada if you are planning to go Canada Read More about us visit https://www.meetuniversity.com...

  75. Wheat beer FTW by XNormal · · Score: 1

    I donâ(TM)t care. I like german wheat beers like Weihenstefaner, Paulaner, and the microbrew made by a friend.

    Is that the best you can come up with for global warming? Youâ(TM)ll have to try harder...

    --
    Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.