Sorry to interrupt your sexy Halloween celebrations, but there’s something truly horrifying that you really need to know.
An article published in the scientific journal Nature Plants (much more highly regarded than its rival scientific journal, Office Plants) looked at future climate scenarios and global economic models and came to the conclusion that climate change could cause massive increases in ... the price of beer.
Noooooo!
The researchers projected heat and drought trends and found that barley production could be severely affected by the shifting climate, forcing the price of beer to go up in many places around the world. Of particular note was the country of Ireland, the world’s leader in beer consumption, which could see beer prices triple as farmers struggle to grow temperature-sensitive barley in a hotter and drier world.
This, surely, must be the last straw for anyone who still thinks that climate change is a hoax or that it isn’t a big deal and won’t do any real harm. Climate change is going to deprive us of beer! Do you hear me!? This is not a drill!! This is not OK!!! Won’t somebody please think of the Irish!?!?
In all seriousness, this study isn’t the most important climate-related crisis our species is facing. It’s not even the thousandth-most important climate-related crisis. But it hits close to home for a segment of the population who previously may have been quick to shrug off climate science as a nothing of their concern. This one hit us beer drinkers right in the gut. It’s a good thing we’ve got a lot of cushion there.
The report certainly created quite a buzz: It was the most-read piece in the history of Nature Plants. Even the authors of the report noted the absurdity of how much attention this particular study got when compared to all of the rest of the truly scary climate science that has come out in recent years.
“Not sure what to make of the fact that in one day our paper on climate and beer has garnered considerably more attention than any of my previous work on energy transitions or even air pollution deaths,” one of the report’s authors, Steven J. Davis, wrote on Twitter.
The beer-reviewed study came on the heels of a truly scary report. The latest study from the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change, a United Nations sponsored report that was co-authored by 90 scientists from 40 countries around the world, painted a chilling picture – or, more accurately, a melting picture – of the earth’s current state and what is in store in the very near future if we don’t make drastic changes.
The IPCC study concluded that if climate change continues at its current pace, the globe will be 1.5 degrees warmer than pre-industrial times by 2040 or sooner. That temperature change – the six warmest years ever recorded have all occurred in this decade – will put coastlines in danger due to rising sea levels and cause extreme heat waves, drought and famine that will affect hundreds of millions of people, the report says. The researchers estimated that the worldwide damage would be in the neighbourhood of US$54-trillion.
The only problem, buzzwise, was that the report had all the drama and excitement of an instruction manual for a small toaster oven. Maybe that’s why people are still ignoring all the warnings.
Just this week Ontario premier Doug Ford continued his fight against carbon pricing – the method favoured by many economists for reducing global-warming emissions – by saying that prices on everything will rise, because “everything is made of carbon.”
Hoo boy. Now THAT seems like a guy who should be worried about a beer shortage. In fact, maybe the beer report folks have finally cracked the code of what needs to be done to finally wake the world up to the dangers of man-made climate change. Maybe we need to focus on the lowest common denominator, break it down in ways that are understandable to the dullest among us, those with diminished intellectual capacity who are only fit for the simplest of tasks such as President of the United States.
We need a scientific study on what food shortages will do to the Kardashians. Are you prepared to face a world with a 60 per cent reduction in booty?
What effect will uncontrollable wild fires have on our cellphone reception? If Manhattan is under water, what will that do to the programming available on Netflix?
We need to make this personal. I mean, more personal than the fact that your children and grandchildren may live in a scorched hellscape, sucking bits of water from cactus roots and scavenging for dead squirrels while working on a new formula for SPF 4000 sunblock.
Who cares about that?
But what’s this about beer now? Which way to the solar panel store!?!
Andy Prest is the sports editor for the North Shore News and writes a biweekly humour/lifestyle column. He can be reached via email at [email protected].
