On the future of beer (climate change)
 

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt...rming-just-yet

First paragraphs:

By Alastair Bland

Research published this week predicting that beer prices could double as increasing global temperatures and more volatile weather cause shortages of barley created a big splash in global media. Twitter and major news outlets widely circulated the dire headlines. But brewers and barley growers say don't drown your sorrows just yet: They have a plan.

The paper, published Monday in the journal Nature Plants, warns of "serious supply disruptions" of barley. Analyzing several possible climate change scenarios, the authors find that global yields could drop 17 percent during severe droughts and heatwaves in the future and that beer prices could spike calamitously.

However, some in the beer industry think the findings are overblown.

"While climate change is a cause for concern, this study isn't a great indicator of what is going to happen in the real world," says Bart Watson, chief economist at the Brewers Association, a trade group based in Boulder, Colo. Watson believes the industry €”especially the agricultural sector €” will adapt as the planet's climate changes, thereby avoiding such significant impacts.

So does Dwight Little, the president of the Idaho Grain Producers Association, which represents wheat and barley farmers in Idaho, the country's top barley growing state.

"If warming happens as they say it will, my impression is that it will come in small incremental increases over a long time, and that allows farmers time to change," he says...

(snip)



Lenona.

On the future of beer (climate change)
 

On 2018-10-18 10:25 AM, wrote:
>
> https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt...rming-just-yet
>
> First paragraphs:
>
> By Alastair Bland
>
> Research published this week predicting that beer prices could double as increasing global temperatures and more volatile weather cause shortages of barley created a big splash in global media. Twitter and major news outlets widely circulated the dire headlines. But brewers and barley growers say don't drown your sorrows just yet: They have a plan.
>
> The paper, published Monday in the journal Nature Plants, warns of "serious supply disruptions" of barley. Analyzing several possible climate change scenarios, the authors find that global yields could drop 17 percent during severe droughts and heatwaves in the future and that beer prices could spike calamitously.
>
> However, some in the beer industry think the findings are overblown.
>
> "While climate change is a cause for concern, this study isn't a great indicator of what is going to happen in the real world," says Bart Watson, chief economist at the Brewers Association, a trade group based in Boulder, Colo. Watson believes the industry €”especially the agricultural sector €” will adapt as the planet's climate changes, thereby avoiding such significant impacts.
>
> So does Dwight Little, the president of the Idaho Grain Producers Association, which represents wheat and barley farmers in Idaho, the country's top barley growing state.
>
> "If warming happens as they say it will, my impression is that it will come in small incremental increases over a long time, and that allows farmers time to change," he says...
>
I wonder why no-one mentions the considerable amount of CO2 released in
the brewing process.