The unexpected consequences climate change plays on our everyday indulgences
By: Matthew Gavidia
April 17, 2019
Climate change invokes an image of intensified weather patterns that threaten the livelihood of the residents in those affected areas. All those who are rightfully afraid of climate change point to incidents such as Chicago’s new cold weather records in January that confirm the impending danger it poses. In fact, the weather channel recently created a new immersive mixed reality of how American cities could look like in the year 2100 and it is frightening. The video can be seen below.
While the horrors of climate change are often exhibited through examples such as these, this issue affects not only things catastrophic, but, minimal as well. If people choose to ignore intense weather conditions in other areas, the prices of beer will definitely catch their attention. As Adam Rogers of Wired explains “If people don’t stop burning so much carbon-based fossil fuel and emitting greenhouse gases, world beer consumption could drop by 16 percent, and the price of a beer worldwide could double.”
Beer cannot be made without four essential ingredients: water, yeast, hops, and barley. The continued burning of fossil fuel and greenhouse gases create an issue for barley as these climate change inducing actions cause increased cases of droughts and heat waves. In this instance, seed yield for barley can reduce as much as 95 percent which would cause people worldwide to pay an extra $400 each year on beer. The world’s most consumed alcoholic beverage will undoubtedly suffer, as will everyone who loves it.
Say you are not a fan of beer, or alcohol for that matter, and instead enjoy the comfort of a cup of coffee in the morning to get you going for a productive day. Unfortunately, coffee is affected by climate change as well. As Kirk Semple of The New York Times explains, “Gradually rising temperatures, more extreme weather events and increasingly unpredictable patterns — like rain not falling when it should, or pouring when it shouldn’t — have disrupted growing cycles and promoted the relentless spread of pests.”
In Honduras, a major coffee bean distributor in Central America, these changes to their climate have been drastic. As agriculture employs 28 percent of the labor force in Honduras, this has caused many farmers to migrate due to worsening harvests. This labor shortage could account for as many as “1.4 million people to flee their homes in Mexico and Central America” according to the World Bank Group. This drop in farmers would cause coffee cultivation and distribution to plummet, subsequently making our morning cup of joe more costly.
The effects that climate change has on products like coffee and beer is minimal considering the overall impact toward affected residents. Farmers are experiencing the economic difficulties that increased heat waves and droughts pose on agriculture. By understanding how these problems derive from the continued ignorance toward climate change, people can help to stop this rapid decline in crops. Whether people advocate for the planet, or their love of beer, is insignificant as long as climate change resolve is at the forefront of the solution.
