Climate Change Will Cause Beer Shortages and Price Hikes, Study Says (vice.com) 317
A new study from Nature Plants has identified the one climate-related issue that can unite people from myriad political backgrounds -- beer. From a report: Led by Wei Xie, an agricultural scientist at Peking University, the paper finds that regions that grow barley, the primary crop used to brew beer, are projected to experience severe droughts and heat waves due to anthropogenic climate change. According to five climate models that used different projected temperature increases for the coming century, extreme weather events could reduce barley yields by 3 to 17 percent. Barley harvests are mostly sold as livestock fodder, so beer availability could be further hindered by the likely prioritization of grain yields to feed cattle and other farm animals, rather than for brewing beer.
The net result will be a decline in affordable access to beer, which is the most commonly imbibed alcoholic beverage in the world. Within a few decades, this luxury may be out of reach for hundreds of millions of people, including those in affluent nations where breweries are a major industry. Price spikes are estimated to range from $4 to over $20 for a standard six-pack in nations like the US, Ireland, Denmark, and Poland.
The net result will be a decline in affordable access to beer, which is the most commonly imbibed alcoholic beverage in the world. Within a few decades, this luxury may be out of reach for hundreds of millions of people, including those in affluent nations where breweries are a major industry. Price spikes are estimated to range from $4 to over $20 for a standard six-pack in nations like the US, Ireland, Denmark, and Poland.
Main concern (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, that's the thing I was worried about with climate change.
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Yes, that's the thing I was worried about with climate change.
Watch what happens when climate change reduces the availability of porn.
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Climate change will make it so humans require less clothing.
Re:Main concern (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, this is the reason so many people focus on extremely unlikely consequences, like human extinction or the complete collapse of civilization. You just can't get most people to focus on the likely consequences, even some pretty serious ones, because twenty or thirty years in the future they seem trivial. Some people can't get their asses in gear unless they're facing catastrophe.
If complete catastrophe were likely, then even the people bankrolling the denialist movement [scientificamerican.com] would be concerned. But it's not. There will still be beer, coffee, beef and holiday resorts in a world that's 2C warmer, and if those things cost a lot more, they're counting on making enough money now by externalizing their costs that it wont' matter to them.
It's basically a scheme to transfer wealth, one that exploits most peoples' present bias [wikipedia.org].
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A 2C rise in global temperature would INCREASE agricultural land and reduce the % of people who die from cold.
(a)Nope and (b) Yep, but more people die from heat and drought.
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No, but when they sober up it's 'walk of shame/chew off the arm' time.
Re: Main concern (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, no shit... not to mention, alcohol has driven a lot more people apart than it has brought together.
Actually, there's an archaeological case to be made that the switch from humans as hunter-gatherers to humans as farmers was because of beer. At least, this is one interpretation of the fact that evidence of brewing is a common feature of many of the earliest farming communities. And thus, bringing everyone together in this "civilization" thing.
Of course, even if the motivation was Sumerian bros looking for keggers, the useful side effects (steady source of food, source of water that won't kill you because up till recently the only way to get antiseptic water was brew up the alchohol content or boil something (tea, coffeee)) certainly made the farming thing stick.
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up till recently the only way to get antiseptic water was brew up the alchohol content or boil something (tea, coffeee))
The alcohol content of beer or wine is far too low to be antiseptic. You have to get near 60 proof to accomplish that, and beer was instead often watered down to produce more safe liquid to consume.
What makes beer safe is that, unlike water, you can tell immediately if it's contaminated, as that "skunks" the beer. Beer was also one of the few ways to store calories through the winter, which makes a huge difference.
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You don't need the alcohol to work as an antiseptic. You need it to work as a preservative. And it works as a preservative at a far lower concentration than as an antiseptic.
After all, that's why things like beer and wine top out at a relatively low alcohol concentration - the alcohol starts killing the yeast.
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There's plenty of dangerous bacteria that can survive the alcohol concentration of beer. The key is that you'll know, because they'll run wild consuming the beer. Even if you water down the beer to below 1% ("small beer"), as was typical for most drinking, as long as you give it a while you'll know the new mix is safe.
Re: Main concern (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure it does. You're not disinfecting. You're restricting growth. Doesn't take much alcohol (and competition from yeast) to do that.
Re: Main concern (Score:5, Interesting)
The first part of the beermaking process is boiling the grain to extract the sugars. As a convenient side-effect it kills most nasty germs.
Skunking is caused by exposure to light altering the alpha-acids, it's nothing to do with whether it's safe or not. If it's really off it will smell of vinegar, cheese and puke in various charming combinations.
Re: Main concern (Score:4, Insightful)
The first part of the beermaking process is boiling the grain to extract the sugars. As a convenient side-effect it kills most nasty germs.
Skunking is caused by exposure to light altering the alpha-acids, it's nothing to do with whether it's safe or not.
^^ He's got it. The boiling part of making beer is what made beer safer to drink than water in medieval times. People then didn't understand why at the time, but they did notice people who drank more beer got sick less than people who drank more water.
...If it's really off it will smell of vinegar, cheese and puke in various charming combinations.
Even then drinking it usually won't sicken or kill someone like fecal coliform or dysentery commonly found in medieval water supplies. In fact, most medieval beer probably was sour to some degree by natural bacteria/yeasts in floating through the air or from the wood of the barrels beer was stored in and would have been considered normal.
Re: Main concern (Score:3)
Yeah, about that...
People went from gathering abundant and easily sourced food for a couple of hours a day to working in fields for 12 hours a day.
A bad trade if you research it.
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Beat me to it. Agriculture is probably humanity's worst invention. It created a shitload of terrible problems that have plagued humanity for millennia and the few problems it fixed were also problems that it created.
Re: Main concern (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, no shit... not to mention, alcohol has driven a lot more people apart than it has brought together.
While I do not dismiss your fact, you obviously haven't thought this through.
If you think a world full of drunks is hard to deal with, imagine a world full of sober people.
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He probably read it in the Koran.
Re: Main concern (Score:2, Funny)
Once the Democrats finally take over, we will only be drinking victory gin in between 15 minute hates. So who cares about beer? Things will be double plus good then.
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"In 2017, US had largest decline in CO2 emissions in the world for 9th time this century"
"U.S. carbon dioxide emissions in 2017 fell by 42 million tons compared with the previous yearâ"a bigger drop than any other country"
In contrast Europeâ(TM)s carbon dioxide emissions rose 92 million tons, or 2.5 percent. That includes increases in France (2 percent), Germany (0.1 percent), and Spain (7 percent). Carbon emissions rose in a majority of European countries last year, (This is based on data collect
Math Seems Very Odd (Score:5, Insightful)
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A 3-17% yield decrease leads to a 80-350% increase in price? Call me skeptical, but this seems a bit out of band.
Your calculator must be broken. Math comes out exactly what I would expect Greed N. Corruption to deliver on mine.
Remember to factor for demand-driven capitalism that already defines $20 for a six-pack as cheap. Whoever labeled that as a price hike hasn't been forced to buy a "craft" beer lately.
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Do you know people who have been forced to buy craft beer?
Forced is perhaps too strong a term. Coerced is more accurate when describing those who are suckered into going to the latest hipster brew pub by a craft beer fanacoholic who's convinced that one sip of a smoked vanilla-bacon-habanero-fuckleberry porter is all it takes to justify a $10/bottle price tag.
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6 500ml bottles of lager will cost $12-$15 in Ireland in an off-licence, and obviously something decent is more expensive. That would make the spike range for cheap piss 27% to 167%, not 80% to 350%.
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Your beer may be $15, but only a few pennies of that is the cost of the barley.
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Trust me, mine is significantly more expensive than that. But it's mostly taxes.
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Price of the barley is still the same, even if someone takes more profit for mixing it with water, hops, and yeast.
Re:Math Seems Very Odd (Score:5, Informative)
Barley is currently selling for about $4 per bushel.
A bushel of barley weighs about 60 lbs.
A pint of beer uses about 1.5 ounces of grain.
$4/bushel / 60 lbs/bushel / 16 ounces/lb * 1.5 ounces = $0.00625.
So the barley in a pint of beer costs a bit less than a cent.
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Yes, and 17% swings in price aren't really a big deal if you look at historic prices:
https://www.indexmundi.com/com... [indexmundi.com]
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Your beer may be $15, but only a few pennies of that is the cost of the barley.
If we are to stop this beerflation, we must make a solemn vow: John Barleycorn must die. [youtu.be]
Re:Math Seems Very Odd (Score:5, Insightful)
It's even worse, because the price of beer is only in a very small part determined by price of barley. Relative increase in price for beer should be much less than 3-17%.
Also, it's pretty much guaranteed that crop yield will improve more than 17% through clever engineering between now and 2100.
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Past performance in biology is not indicator (Score:4, Interesting)
no, it isn't guaranteed, and in some case there could be a reversion as some crop/vegetable need a certain medium low stable temperature which could actually with a more chaotic continental climate, not be a given, and thus in some case we could have for certain country a lower yield.
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There's a thing called price elasticity of supply, and it isn't necessarily equal to 1.
Having said that, the barley is a pretty small component of the final price so its overall effect will be diluted accordingly (sorry).
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Yeah, exactly.
Many people will switch to potato vodka, or apple vodka, or mouthwash, if beer becomes expensive enough.
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A 3-17% yield decrease leads to a 80-350% increase in price? Call me skeptical, but this seems a bit out of band.
Not only that, as the climate warms other areas are able to grow barley and will do so. Nothing will change except a certain farm will no longer be able to grow barley and another one will be able to do so that couldn't before.
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A 3-17% yield decrease leads to a 80-350% increase in price? Call me skeptical, but this seems a bit out of band.
By the time all the middlemen are done sucking "their portion of the profit" out of it, yeah. This seems accurate. If you were growing everything you needed to make beer and then brewed it yourself, a pint of beer would not cost 5 quid.
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By the time all the middlemen are done sucking "their portion of the profit" out of it, yeah.
The middlemen simply raise to the price to the maximum that the market will bear. The price of the ingredients has little to do with that.
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wrong crowd (Score:2)
A few things... (Score:5, Interesting)
The types of Barley you use for beer making is completely different than animal feed. Animal feed is 6-row barley (ie on the grain head, there are six rows of seeds) while the barley used for beer is 2 row. (ie two rows of seed). This is mostly because 6 row has far more flavour involved chemicals in it, whereas 2 row is a much cleaner slate, suitable for things other than dark ales.
Re:A few things... (Score:5, Informative)
Both 6-row and 2-row could be used for making beer, depending on the type of beer, manufacturing process, and how stringent your definition of "beer" is. But the distinction isn't important... in the big picture, both types of barley need similar growing conditions and hence are competing for the same chunks of land. Farms will plant whatever gets them the best money, so a decrease in optimal barley growing space means either beer or meat will get more expensive.
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Both varieties would be harmed by climate change, at least according to the theories in TFS. They both need about the same environment to grow well.
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Protein content is also a factor. You want it in animal feed, but not for making beer. Proteins break down into nasty tasting stuff plus they make it cloudy.
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No, not beer.
Also not beer if made with wheat, corn or rice sugar (looking at American can piss).
Beer is made with malted barley, water, hops, yeast and NOTHING ELSE.
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No, not beer.
Also not beer if made with wheat, corn or rice sugar (looking at American can piss).
Beer is made with malted barley, water, hops, yeast and NOTHING ELSE.
There is a bit of heat involved in boiling the wart.... Not to mention that even the more common verities of beer contain all sorts of "other" types of starch. Many use corn, rice, plain barley and even wheat. Some use various kids of wood and bark during aging too. Sometimes this is for taste, but mostly it's done to make the ingredients cheaper, adjust the alcohol content and/or generally make more money.
Re:A few things... (Score:4, Funny)
The original purpose of the Reinheitsgebot was as much to do with reserving wheat to be used for bread (so the peasants didn't starve) as it was about beer quality.
Currently, it serves the function of a pretentious twat detector, which it does rather well.
Ironically, if you follow it to the letter what you're going to get is a blandish lager, much closer to closer to American piss beer than to Paulaner, Guinness, Hoegaarden or Chimay.
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Drink whatever you want. But don't call it beer. It's a 'cereal malt beverage', like Zima, Spoors and Buttweiser.
Sad news for Brett (Score:2, Funny)
Hope he got a raise with his new job
If Dying in extream weather isn't a motivation. (Score:2)
I doubt a spike in beer prices will get peoples attention.
Also to note, Climate change in term of agriculture will in general shift production locations (further north in the norther hemisphere) So total output will in general remain constant.
Also there can be a lot of other factors that can affect the price of beer, other then just climate change. Factors such changes in demand (people may be wanting less beer, or substitute it with something else (Hard Cider is my preference). Or just other countries no
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Also there can be a lot of other factors that can affect the price of beer, other then just climate change.
The driving price of Beer in Germany are taxes, and in Thailand it is taxes and taxes.
No idea why beer is so expensive in France, though.
Or just other countries not wanting to import American products will lower the cost. Wow, people actually indeed import american beer, and drink it? Or is it used to feed cattle? I believe the Japanese super cattle only gets best beer from Kirin and Asahi ... but not
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I guess it would depend on the beer.
America makes some good beers. I don't remember the last time I went to a party and someone actually served Budwiser or Coors beer. It was normally some sort of craft beer that actually has a a taste.
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Beer in Germany is cheap! Last I was there, it was 9 euro a case for decent beer (Becks grade), about 12 euro for the 'good stuff'.
A German case is about five American six packs.
Your understanding of the American beer market is about 30 years out of date. Not the criticism is 'over hopped IPAs' as far as the eye can see. American can beer is still awful, but only hipsters and trailer trash drink it.
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Your understanding of the American beer market is about 30 years out of date. Not the criticism is 'over hopped IPAs' as far as the eye can see. American can beer is still awful, but only hipsters and trailer trash drink it.
Funny you should say that. I was at a wedding this weekend where out of the blue the German groom told me that the US now has better beer than Germany does. Some people like hop heavy IPAs. Sorry you don't but I'm sure you can find other types of beer in the US too.
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The Germans make good beer in industrial quantities for cheap (unless Oktoberfest, then very expensive).
They have some traditional varieties too. Marzen and Berliner Weisse for examples. I'll grant they don't like 'super chewy'.
The world turns, German kids are starting to drink Jager. For their parents Jagermeister is a stomach tonic, like Underberg. Some Germans drink IPAs now.
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Also to note, Climate change in term of agriculture will in general shift production locations (further north in the norther hemisphere) So total output will in general remain constant.
Nope. As you go further from the equator, the total sunlight landing on the ground is reduced, as well as a shorter growing season just because of the larger difference in daylight hours between summer and winter.
There's also less land area, but that's probably not going to have an effect since there's a lot of fallow farmland.
When get done crying in your beer... (Score:2)
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A shortage of chocolate, coffee and wine will provoke riots in the streets. Stock up while you can!
This is more insightful than maybe you know. Laws and shortages relating to beer [beerhistory.com] have causes violence on multiple occasions in the US and Europe. Often in less developed countries, a beer shortage can cause riots and civil unrest although often this happens in concert with other shortages including food shortages. Couple this with the fact that beer is a substitute for potable water and keeping the beer flowing is often a serious matter. Also, its a good message in the US where the beer drinking crowd i
minimize your risk (Score:2)
Fill your basement with 1000000 cases of beer now.
Worst-case scenario: you sell at huge profit when the disaster strikes.
Best-case: no need to leave the house for the rest of your life.
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Fill your basement with 1000000 cases of beer now.
Worst-case scenario: you sell at huge profit when the disaster strikes.
Best-case: no need to leave the house for the rest of your life.
This is dumb. Beer degrades and its quality is often linked to its freshness.
OT: Why still Peking University (Score:2)
This is off topic, but I am wondering why the university still identifies as Peking University, as opposed to Beijing University? It it just because they feel they've already established their brand name, like (on topic) Tsingtao Beer?
Go vegan! (Score:4, Funny)
Barley harvests are mostly sold as livestock fodder, so beer availability could be further hindered by the likely prioritization of grain yields to feed cattle and other farm animals, rather than for brewing beer.
Another good reason to stop eating meat.
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Barley harvests are mostly sold as livestock fodder, so beer availability could be further hindered by the likely prioritization of grain yields to feed cattle and other farm animals, rather than for brewing beer.
Another good reason to stop eating meat.
I'll take beef over beer any day. Besides, by the time things get so bad that we would have to choose between beef or beer, lab grown meats should be good enough and cheap enough to cut back on livestock.
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Yeah, but yeast is an animal. So this would be stopping eating animals so that you can drink animals.
Re:Go vegan! (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not a choice. Have less kids or no kids AND become vegan
Have less kids, become a vegan, don't have pets, don't drive, don't heat your house, and commit genocide. There's a lot more you can do.
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It's not a choice. Have less kids or no kids AND become vegan
Have less kids, become a vegan, don't have pets, don't drive, don't heat your house, and commit genocide. There's a lot more you can do.
Like commit suicide - once you're dead, you stop polluting.
What? Are you dedicated to the cause of environmentalist or not?
Maybe the SCOTUS will come around now? (Score:3, Funny)
Poland is very cheap right now for USD to get beer (Score:2)
Poland is very cheap right now for USD to get beer
What about Wine, Cheese, and ... (Score:2)
I can't wait for Wine and Cheese to be affected by Climate Change, because THAT will finally get Congress's attention!
Oh, and Diet Coke, that will get the presidents attention like no other...
Beer shortage!?! Noooo! (Score:2)
well, maybe that bit of news will finally nudge a few hearts where influencing minds failed.
What a crazy mixed up world (Score:3)
so beer availability could be further hindered by the likely prioritization of grain yields to feed cattle and other farm animals, rather than for brewing beer.
Dumbest set of priorities ever!
A few things not modeled ... (Score:2)
Second, they aren’t considering the wider growing regions a cycle of global warming provides. The equatorial regions barely have a change, the closer to the poles the more the increase. So the corn belt will widen into Canada and the wheat belt will move to the northern territories.
So fear not beer swilli
Re:So What? (Score:5, Interesting)
I like Tsingtao, so I tried another brand of Chinese beer. 'Sing Ha' (not the Thai malt liquor, the Chinese beer. Both apparently anglicise to almost the same name.)
Tried one, didn't finish it. Just awful.
Mentioned how bad it was to a couple of Chinese coworkers...their reaction...That's made with Shanghai city water, it will give you cancer, don't drink it. They're selling that in the USA? How is that possible?
This was a long time ago, 'poisonous chinese beer' ship has sailed.
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While your "logic" seems OK, I have no reason to doubt the author's research on the specific regions that produce barley. Actual, local, modeling is far more likely to produce accurate results that global ideas. I am not saying that your overall approach is wrong. If the author's research only looks at current locations for barley and what would happen to them, then that research is correct, but the conclusion is flawed. If the research also looks at new areas that can start to grown barley, then it wou
Where did you get the research was specific (Score:2)
I have no reason to doubt the author's research on the specific regions that produce barley.
They aren't using research on specific regions, the paper says they are using CMIP5 [llnl.gov] for future predictions, which is very non-specific (by the way that link is the closest I could find for what they were trying to link to, since the link in the paper itself is actually broken).
They may know a lot about the regions producing barley but as far as I could tell didn't have a very strong explanation for predictions they
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2 years later, you're still posting the same wrong things.
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quote>You can easily see this is true with a quick trip to any jungle, which is both hotter and wetter than most other place on Earth, yet also has the greatest abundance of vegetation...
If we go back before the current Ice Age, when CO2 was much higher and the dinosaurs weren't just raised on farms for sandwiches, we can see what a sustained Warm Earth is like for flora: there were 40-ton herbivores. An abundance of vegetation unlike anything we see today.
It's a fair call to point out that the farmable
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You can easily see this is true with a quick trip to any jungle, which is both hotter and wetter than most other place on Earth, yet also has the greatest abundance of vegetation...
It's almost like temperature and humidity are different variables. And someday, you might actually understand that. And thus understand why climate change is going to lead to expanding deserts. Hint: It's not all about the temperature.
Changing definition incorrect (Score:5, Informative)
I guess you mean "rainforest".
Incorrect. A rainforest is a SPECIFIC TYPE OF JUNGLE.
Definiton, Jungle:
"an area of land overgrown with dense forest and tangled vegetation, typically in the tropics."
Definition, Rainforest:
"a tropical forest, usually of tall, densely growing, broad-leaved evergreen trees in an area of high annual rainfall"
I love how you claimed I really meant a totally different word than the one I used, then proceeded to base a whole argument around the word you changed to...
You see, unlike you I have actually travelled to a lot of places around the Earth, so I have actually been in many different kinds of biomes [wikipedia.org] (I included the link since you seem to have a problem, understanding the meanings of words)
There are many jungles that exist on the edge of the ocean, that do not exist because it is "evaporating water out of its own area (unless you consider the ocean to be it's area??? Urgh.)". I am really, really curious in fact where you got the idea that even rainforests were some kind of totally self-contained ecosystem since that is not the case either (do you really think all of the water comes from the area the rainforest is in? Oh honey).
Deserts work the exact same way. They are dry because they evapour the non existing water
No. Mr "evapour" . You may want to study what makes a region desert [usgs.gov] (and I'll just assume you are thanking me now for learning there are different kinds of desert). Also wondering what makes you think even what you said in any way disputes my point that deserts are mostly geologically created features.
Yeah ... Europe had 2 million inhabitants at that time ... perhaps less.
That completely orthogonal point doesn't change the fact that regions of agricultural use expanded. Why would it? You seem to be utterly confused here to where what you are saying is complete nonsense.
I'll let you have the last response, it was great to be able to use your very limited understanding of the world as an educational platform but you obviously have nothing intelligent to add to the conversation - I think we've extracted all of the learning points possible from you at this point so I don't see any point in reading what you have to say further.
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That completely orthogonal point doesn't change the fact that regions of agricultural use expanded. Why would it?
Expanding population and advances in agriculture technology.
It's not like overall yield was limited by temperature before.
Also, your terrible analysis forgets one teensy-tiny little detail: The medieval warming period ended in 1250. Yet Europe kept continuing to expand agriculture. Kinda hard to do if the warming period was required to expand agriculture.
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Re:love your Mother! (Score:4, Informative)
In fact, There are Giant Clouds of Alcohol Floating in Space [mentalfloss.com].
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In fact, There are Giant Clouds of Alcohol Floating in Space [mentalfloss.com].
I hear that stuff in space is more like Vodka than beer.. Vodka pored over ice cubes made of mud.
Re:love your Mother! (Score:4, Funny)
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Climate change actually means more rain. Warmer seas means more evaporation, and if that water goes into the air it has to come down again too, which means more precipitation. Of more concern that the amount of rain is where it goes - shifting patterns mean certain regions could still get dryer even as global rainfall grows, and if those regions happen to be major agricultural areas, famine is certainly a possibility.
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Man, these people really are nuts!
You will NOT take our beer away!
Don't worry.. We obviously have a pro-beer Justice on the Supreme court now. We can get a "right to beer" case up there in a few years...
Re:As if prior alarmism didn't backfire... (Score:5, Insightful)
The sad thing is, those of us that really would like to take issues like this seriously wind up getting lumped in with the hysterical Chicken Littles.
Indeed. TFA is Chicken Littleism at its worst. It is based on ridiculous assumptions. It assumes that barley will still be grown in the same fields. Obviously, as the climate changes the "barley belt" will shift northwards. It assumes that using barley as livestock feed will take priority over brewing, which is unlikely. Lastly, it assumes that the cost of barley is a significant factor in the price of beer. The barley in a pint of beer costs less than a cent.
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the soil up there may not be nearly as fertile
Or it may be more fertile. I can't find anything about barley specifically, but wheat has higher yields per acre in the northern part of its range (average of 46 bushels/acre in the USA, but 49 in Canada).
the temperature swings will be wild
Barley is frost tolerant.
with short turbulent growing seasons...
The whole point of shifting north is that the growing seasons are getting longer. Also the hours of summer daylight needed for photosynthesis increases as you go north.
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I like beer :-)
Really? Do you know Brett?
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Sure, but that's growing on the soil where it is now - soil that's built up over hundreds if not thousands of years. You can't extrapolate that and say that it would produce 60 bushels per acre if you moved even further north.
I haven't personally been and dug it up, but I've heard from several sources that the soil up there is thin and poor quality. Also, the Earth gets smaller as y
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Obviously, as the climate changes the "barley belt" will shift northwards.
Except you realize that the land that is now in the "barley belt" is already owned by people who may not have the desire or ability to grow barley (or do so effectively if the land is held by many people-modern commercial farms are really big). So now what do you do? This is the danger of climate change-as temperate zones move, people will inevitably move with them, often to the determent of the people who were already there.
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Except you realize that the land that is now in the "barley belt" is already owned by people
It is at least conceivable that some of these people are motivated by money.
So now what do you do?
Allow the free market to function.
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If it has corn in it, it's not beer by definition.
You are thinking of Buttwieser.