No country for old wine: Vineyards suffer from climate impacts
Alcohol is not the best way to cope with impending doom, but it has historically gotten us through difficult times.
In a year that changed almost everything, one part of American culture remains remarkably consistent: People are drinking a lot of booze.
Between mid-March and mid-May, alcohol sales in the United States grew 26.5% from the same period a year before. Experts weren’t surprised.
“We know historically when times are tough financially, people drink more,” Lauren Johnson, CEO and president of Rudy’s Markets in Oregon, recently told Winsight Grocery Business. “This is no different, sprinkled with a whole lot of unknowns in addition to just financially.”
Climate change is one of those unknowns. And with it comes the demise of some of our favorite drinks — no matter how much we need them in the future.
For example, The Local reported rising temperatures have forced harvests of wine grapes in France 18 days earlier than 40 years ago — with the earliest date in six centuries coming in 2020. These early harvests change how grapes interact with soils, making specific flavors harder to attain (and Merlot will likely be climate change’s first victim).
Heat isn’t inherently a bad thing, though. Warmer temperatures generally yield larger harvests and expedite ripening, producing grapes with more sugar and bold flavors and wine with higher alcohol content.
But if global temperatures soar past 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100 (which seems very likely), the land suitable for growing wine grapes could shrink by more than half. And it’s not only your cabernet sauvignon that’s at risk.
In a worst-case climate scenario, global beer consumption is expected to drop by 16% due to barley shortages, while prices could double. This barley shortage could also hurt whiskey production, a drink that will already be suffering in quality from heat waves, intense storms, and droughts that affect aging processes.
And think of all the other disasters, illnesses, and death we’ll be worrying about. Climate change is already fueling health and humanitarian crises, and if we continue doubling-down on fossil fuels, it’ll only get worse.
“The effect on beer is going to be the least of our worries,” David Reay, a climate scientist at the University of Edinburgh, told Nature. “I think in that kind of future, I probably will need a beer because it will be pretty bad.”
The best way to save the Planet and our cocktails is multi-faceted. First, the beverage industry, which scored a disappointing 4.8 out of 10 in terms of sustainability earlier this year, must reduce its environmental impact.
Some companies are already working toward ambitious goals. Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, for example, diverts 99.8% of its waste by removing almost all their organic waste from wastewater and using a number of clean energy sources.
Second, farmers must adapt to the climate change already here. For one, if wine growers diversified their crops and included grapes suited to the changing climate, only 24% of suitable land would be lost, rather than 56% in a business-as-usual trajectory.
And it’s not all in the hands of the producers. Governments must invest in both mitigation and adaptation measures to limit the greenhouse gasses entering the atmosphere, while helping all farmers adjust.
Additionally, we can all use our wallets to hold our favorite brands accountable for climate action. Money talks, and companies, even huge ones, listen to shifts in consumer behavior.
Alcohol is not the best way to cope with impending doom, but it has historically gotten us through difficult times. And with the impacts of climate change, we have a lot more of those difficult times ahead of us.