No Beer Or Coffee: Would It Compel Climate Change Deniers To Change?
Would conservatives stop voting for climate change denying politicians if it meant the ever-increasing cost and disappearing availability of their favorite beverages?
Two of the world’s top selling brews, coffee and beer face an inevitable demise from climate change, because the crop yields are already becoming increasingly unstable due to weather extremes. Hops and coffee beans require optimal conditions in the regions they are grown, which have seen drastic temperature changes that experts have been warning about for years.
If the knowledge of imminent mass extinctions, rising sea levels, increased wildfires, massive hurricanes, catastrophic floods and snowstorms aren’t enough to convince science deniers of climate change existence, perhaps facing the extinction of their favorite brews would do the trick.
Most critics say probably not, because many Republicans conservative deniers believe everything is in “God’s hands”, because their ignorant leaders in Congress, like Oklahoma’s Sen. James Inhofe and Rep. Lamar Smith from Texas, who hold key committee positions, are good at convincing their voters of such absolute rubbish.
Republicans aren’t even practical enough about climate change to look at it from an economic stand point, much less the loss of recreational alcohol and caffeine consumption.
Coffee producers alone “Coffee supports the livelihoods of 125 million people around the world, including some of the most marginalized and poor people in developing countries,” states a report from the International Coffee Association.
Starbucks has been working with their suppliers for years to ensure the viability of their farms, but report that climate change is impossible to tackle as a single industry.
According to recent studies, warming climates in the world’s “bean belt,” have already caused a stark effect on crops with the increase of crop loss from diseases and insects, which “will reduce the global area suitable for coffee by about 50 percent across emission scenarios.”
A very precise combination of rain and temperature is required for good bean crops that aren’t bitter.
“It’s a severe threat,” said Doug Welsh, a member of the board of World Coffee Research. “No one, of course, would want to see any coffee species go extinct, but we have to prepare for the distinct possibility that that could happen.”
Weather variables are impacting the production of beer hops in similar ways in specific areas of Germany and the Czech Republic, with studies indicating the culprit has been increasingly warmer temperatures.
Scientists have concluded that climate change is the most urgent problem faced by the world today, but Republicans and key lawmakers in Congress and at state levels shun the idea of regulating greenhouse gases that choke the atmosphere in favor of sheltering their fossil fuel cronies.
If their conservative base doesn’t want to see a future without the comforts of the planet’s most popular beverages, maybe, just maybe, they might reconsider the totality of what’s at stake.
But would it happen in time? The rest of the world shouldn’t count on it.
Feature image courtesy of JustDoc
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