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