Guest Post by Bob Tisdale
A GlobalPost article by Sara Yasin includes the latest climate change and global warming scare. The headline: Our love for things that cause climate change could mean the end of life with chocolate. After a typical climate-change lead-in, the article reads:
But now, it looks like our inability to address climate change adequately might cost us one of the world’s most pure, innocent, and wonderful pleasures: chocolate.
According to Barry Callebaut Group, the world’s largest chocolate manufacturing company, our growing love for chocolate might mean “a potential cocoa shortage by 2020.”
After a discussion of how demand has increased, the article continues:
But the shortage isn’t just about the world going crazy for chocolate — it also has a lot to do with climate change. A decrease in cocoa supplies can be pinned on West Africa’s dry weather, which is only getting worse. In Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire — responsible for more than 70 percent of global cocoa supply — a study released by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture predicts a 2 degree Celsius (3.6 F) increase in temperatures by 2050. Higher temperatures mean that more water evaporates into the air from leaves and earth, leaving less behind for cocoa trees — a process called “evapotranspiration.”
Read the rest here.
Chocolate at risk. This is sure to impact how some people think of global warming and climate change.
[UPDATE FROM WILLIS] I trust Bob Tisdale won’t mind if I add a bit here. Since 1997 we have pretty accurate measurements of rainfall by satellite, from a project called the “Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission” (TRMM). Here’s the TRMM data for the cocoa producing areas of Ghana/Sierra Leone for that period, from that marvelous resource, KNMI:
As you can see, the claim of decreasing rainfall in the chocolate regions is already out of date. I heard this story from a less alarmist source than the Unscientific American. They said we’re running out of cocoa because consumer preferences are shifting to darker chocolate, which uses more cocoa in its preparation.
My thanks to Bob for a good article,
w.
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So much for my popular scheme for keeping rising sea levels in check!
First of all, if chocolate becomes too expensive, I am so going to not send Christmas gifts to my kids and grandkids so I can have my chocolate. And they all understand that. Second, while I WAS planning to grow a veggie garden and have chickens next year, a greenhouse of cocoa plants will now be on the drawing board.
Put the .357 away before chewing on the cocoa leaves, Pamela, will ya’ please? ;o)
It will be like the cuban missle crisis, or middle east oil, a standoff between super powers as they try to gain control of the dwindling cocoa plant. Well if you are going to make stuff might as well keep going. The headline should read “Cocoa and climate change lead to nucleur holocaust.”
…a few weeks ago it was Ebola
Now it’s really serious. If it’s going to affect scotch production too then it really will be the end of civilisation.
The only good thing about this is that it will force the nations of the Earth to stop squabbling and unite into one powerful entity, as chocolade shortage is global and will unite the peoples of the Earth. /sarc
(Warmists usually bring this argument with regards to sea level rise, at the end of the climate pr0n mockumentaries)
Attention! All in the Feht household! This is the Federal,State and Local Climate Change Chocolate Authority.We know what you are up to in your basement so come out now and show us all the chocky bars and biscuits!!! Just like the overpriced chocolate box treats you get at “happy holiday” season this could end up Soft and Sweet or do you prefer the Hard Centred Stuff. Which way do ya wanna play it chocolate hoarder Koch loving Arctic Raindeer melting polar bear disappearing denier Punk!!! And don’t think we have forgotten you Pamela “Annie Oakley” Gray. We think the .357 Magnum is made of chocolate and you better have your license to carry updated.
We at the Climate Change Chocolate Authority (CCCA) really love keeping the World safe from Master Chokky Klimate Krims (MCKK) like you two.
Ah Ha!!!!! Someone from my past! You give me too much credit. I was only able to do that trick once at 300 yards. I am no more than a one hit wonder. But I did notice that all the guys started equipping their .22’s with uber expensive scopes.
Re: the License thing. Now that I have just moved closer to the guys I need to see for training, I will be doing exactly that.
With so many dying from hurricanes, droughts, floods, famine, swarms of locusts, rivers of blood, hungrier sharks and weirder weather in this hottest year on record, there will be more cocoa beans for me…. Ain’t none of this happening in Texas. (sarc)
RECORD CACOA CROP 2013/14 http://af.reuters.com/article/ghanaNews/idAFL6N0RW2SX20141001
Thanks, Bob.
Cocoa is a renewable resource affected by local climate but primarily by local landscape changes like deforestation. Cocoa plants only grow well in the shade of trees. It needs a humid forest.
Forests need CO2 and H2O.
All built on the assumptions from a theory based on global climate models having skill in predicting global and regional climate/weather. Also does not take into account the known law of photosynthesis and effects from increasing CO2.
I don’t care about the chocolate….. but if anyone mucks around with coffee then that will be the end of the discussion….
But I thought that it was a fungus causing the real problem:
http://www.icco.org/about-cocoa/pest-a-diseases.html
Another example of substitution to mislead.
Bottom line.
The world hasn’t warmed in 18 years, therefore global warming CANNOT be causing any localised weather patterns.
The warmer it gets the more evaporation and the more precipitation. Also the more CO2 the more crops.
Localised weather patterns are circulatory and cyclic and NOT governed by global temperatures.
If chocolate prices go up it’s because the globalists intentionally do it to squeeze the population even more toward their agenda of world government problem-reaction-solution.
I have just one word here, Ghirardelli. Right up there with god and country
Agreed. Especially the nearly pure nothing added cocoa stuff. The bitter, meaty, almost venison flavor of pure unsweetened chocolate. It’s even good melted into chili or a dark savory wild game stew. Unsweetened cocoa added to dark gravy is divine.
We have a Ghiradelli outlet store just across the border in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, where you can purchase dark chocolates by the case for a little more than $2.50 per bag. Mmmm. I maintain a small supply at the office. Right now I have bags of 60%, 72%, 86%, Cabernet Matinee, Dark Cherry Tango, and my favorite, Dark Peppermint Bark. Definitely worth the gas money. Check out their other locations at … http://www.ghirardelli.com/locations-events/ghirardelli-locations
I’ve updated the head post with the actual rainfall data for the area, which shows very little change.
w.
No kidding about the darker chocolate. Milk chocolate may as well be that white stuff (sorry I cannot say “white” and “chocolate” in the same phrase). But, regardless of the update (no criticism intended Willis), I would rather talk about the chocolate. This is one, and I do mean ONE time, when the data fades into the background for me. Chocolate. CHOCOLATE! Nothing else gets through my brain.
Then you should read Pratchett’s “Thief of Time” where chocolate is used as a lethal weapon against creatures (the “Auditors”) who are not used to inhabiting a body with taste buds…the shock is too much for them.
“Higher temperatures mean that more water evaporates into the air from leaves and earth, leaving less behind for cocoa trees — a process called “evapotranspiration.””
Fortunately, the raised atmospheric CO2 will more than counteract this. The leaves will not need to keep there stomata open for anywhere near as long to feed,
….. so “evapotranspiration” will actually decrease.
That plant cope much better in a higher CO2 atmosphere, because they are able to use water more efficiently, is a PROVEN FACT, as opposed to the baseless suppositions in the report.
Dingbats. Higher CO2 means lowered stomata numbers, less evapotranspiration, and also more efficient use of nutrients. Duh!
And, as we are cooling, their fears are misplaced big time.
CC: Climate Craziness, our very own version of Moonstruck. Here’s a fresh top-notch climate craziness story from Norway:
A group of municipalities are protesting against the government’s plans to reduce subsidies for the regional airport. They get quite a few airborne tourists from England and Germany in the winter season. And what is their argument?
Well, you see (they say), by the end of this century the world has warmed by +4C, therefore Norway will be one of the very few places in Europe with snow, and that’s why we must keep on getting airborne tourists here. And for this (85 years from now) we need subsidies from the state for our airport (today).
The logic is actually quite flawless; we want air traffic that increases the co2-emissions so that global warming can make our region more competitive in the winter tourist market in the future.
As we say; the potato can be used for anything. Global Warming is a potato.
You are right about the potato. Potato candy dipped in chocolate is very good!
Now what were we talking about?
When i was in Africa, possibly we made a mistake. Cocoa trees have big pods – as big as pears about. Inside the pods were the seeds, Surounded by a sour/sweet flesh. We used them like bonbon/candy and spit the beans out afterwards. I learnd this fron the African – they called it “pipi”.