Overview
Talking about the weather has never been a sexy topic. Years of dads cheerfully and extensively chewing the fat over the impending rain, predictably unpredictable daily meteorology reports in the papers, and the weather’s unfortunate status as the go-to topic for strangers and awkward acquaintances has meant that conversations about weather have become shorthand for mental anaesthesia.
However, it’s actually the most important, challenging discussion we all should be having currently. Climate change is happening right now, and it's getting worse, and it's all our fault. Yes, it really is our fault. Not convinced? Just ask NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Or, for those of you who like your facts served with a side of humour, here's John Oliver:
The problem is that while we’ve been twirling our thumbs, contemplating our navels and throwing snowballs around, carbon emissions have continued to increase, getting us further and further away from our limit of 350 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If we keep frolicking along as we are currently (at our current amount of around 400 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, as well as adding 2 ppm each year), by the end of the century we'll basically trigger a tipping point in the weather causing a situation that looks a lot like your favourite end-of-the-world Hollywood blockbuster; except a lot less fun and without the happy ending/survival guarantee.
It'll be a world where millions of dollars will get systematically drained from the government piggy bank by natural disasters, where giant chunks of Antarctica and the Arctic will slide their way into the ocean causing sea level rises that will swallow up many Pacific Islands (something already set in motion), and a world without beer (we'll get to that in a minute).
And as Naomi Klein would say, to get that kind of future, all we need to do is nothing. Worse still, we’re also sitting with a classic game theory prisoner’s dilemma. No one wins unless we cooperate. Everyone loses to varying significant degrees if we don’t. So either we deal with it through mass denial/burning of all the evidence and pay ludicrously for it –
– Or we face the sobering truth, stop with the status quo and fight to make the future, which will get harsher, a more manageable one.
So, let’s talk about the weather, and more specifically in this article we'd like to talk about the way it will affect one of Concrete Playground’s favourite things in existence: food.
1. Chocolate
What? No. If there’s one thing to make people come together and act, surely it must be chocolate.
According to a 2011 study from the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, chocolate's key ingredient, cacao beans, are under threat and will decrease in supply. The key culprits in the decrease of cacao are the rise in temperatures and a falling water supply. In the African nations of Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire (where more than half of the world's chocolate comes from), temperatures are predicted to rise by at least 2C by 2050. These changes will increase “evapotranspiration” in the cocoa trees, causing them to lose more water, which decreases their yield.
2. Beer
Make it stop already. Unfortunately for humanity, a good beer requires its malting barley (a key ingredient) to grow with tender loving care, irrigation and a colder climate in order to flourish. According to Jim Salinger from the New Zealand National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, climate change will be hitting the brewing regions of New Zealand and Australia hard and is set to cause a crash in malting barley production.
Elsewhere in the world, researchers are having trouble finding areas which will be suitable to grow the quite sensitive hop plants (a key element for brews like Pale Ale). In a bid for survival, twenty four US beer companies – microbreweries and international brands like Guinness – have even banded together to sign the Climate Declaration and Brewery Climate Declaration, which urges policymakers to seize the economic opportunity of tackling climate change.
On the flip side, while beer will be having quite a hard time, New Zealand wine will be flourishing. Most winemaking regions will be suffering worldwide, but New Zealand’s wine growing regions will likely expand.
3. Kiwifruit
Goodbye, sweet friends. According to the Ministry of Environment, Hayward kiwifruit may become uneconomical to grow in the next 50 years. The report wasn't prepared to rule out the patriotic fruit's future completely, but in a world where even the price of basic necessities will skyrocket, who has spare change for an extortionately priced kiwifruit?
4. Beef
Although the Ministry of Environment has reported that the dairy and beef industry is pretty well adjusted to environmental variability, there is still the little niggle of the amount of methane cows produce.
Fun fact: the two key reasons New Zealand didn't made its Kyoto Protocol target for carbon emissions is due to methane produced by cows (cows and sheep forming 1/3 of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions) and petrol emissions. Oh, and thanks to the impending forecasted droughts in certain regions (mainly Hawke’s Bay, Wairarapa, the eastern South Island and Central Otago), the report also found that the decrease in feed quality due to low soil moisture will also further increase sheep and cow methane release.
So if austerity measures were to start kicking in, the beef industry may be one of the first industries to see a radical cutback. Which means no more steaks, no more juicy patties on your burgers. None of that.
There is a little hope in this field though, as scientists are developing a feed supplement they can give cows to decrease their methane emissions by 30%. However, you should probably still look at swapping out your beef for an alternative – some sustainably caught fish or perhaps a vegetarian meal, even if it is only one day a week.
5. Cheese, Milk and Other Dairy Products
Ditto above.
6. Coffee
Coffee is currently the second most traded commodity after oil. And while scientists aren't saying that coffee will be completely off the cards, it may become something akin to caviar in terms of pricing due to low supply and high demand. The reason for the shift in supply? Higher-than-average temperatures and shifting weather patterns in the tropics. These basically cause something called "coffee rust" which has made fungus and invasive species commonplace on coffee plantations. Droughts have also been affecting certain coffee regions, with one recent drought in Brazil causing a giant price spike. In Africa, the number of areas suitable for growing coffee will drop anywhere from 65% to 100%.