Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to NASA scientist Joshua Fisher, climate change in regions which produce hops for breweries in the Pacific North West may have reached a tipping point, impacting the future availability of craft beer.
Climate change is hurting craft breweries
IRINA IVANOVA MONEYWATCH November 1, 2017, 5:00 AM
First it came for the wine. Now, climate change is set to put a damper on the world’s supply of beer.
Small breweries in the Pacific Northwest are struggling with a shortage of hops, a key ingredient in beer. Washington, Oregon and Idaho grow almost all the hops in the country, according to the US Department of Agriculture, and those states have seen increasingly harsher droughts over the past few years.
Two years ago, an unusually warm winter led to widespread drought in Washington’s Yakima Valley, a situation that could repeat itself this year. Scientists say these warm winters will likely become standard in another 50 years.
“We are reaching this kind of tipping point,” said NASA climate scientist Joshua Fisher. “What we’ve been used to in terms of how much rain we’re going to get and how plants grow is no longer the norm.”
…
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-is-hurting-craft-breweries/
In parched Australia we’re used to climate doomsday prophets proclaiming the end of rain after every dry spell, only to see their silly predictions washed away by the next deluge.
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Jeeze!
NASA can’t go to the Moon in the next 50 years! Let alone will never get to Mars even in 400 years!
Ice Bridge Boondoggle to be scuttled!
ICESat2 … Scrapped!
OCO3 … Dead.
GRACE already dead … GRACE Follow-On … Dead.
EOS Mission To Planet Earth … Well the old Cold War is over and the New Cold War deserves more attention! EOS Mission To Planet Earth … Scuttled!
I like Harrison Schmidt’s ideas about scrapping NASA and starting over! Although I for one would in addition scrape the NSF – NSTC – NSB (National Science Foundation – National Science Technology Council – National Science Board) altogether. Any vestiges could be moved to the Department of Education … a small room … no window … no telephone … no desk but a chair in the middle of the room.
NASA on the door but they couldn’t even see the sky?
A friend of mines father was a wheat farmer in NSW Australia. Old Norm sold the farm decades ago without telling my friend who was ticked off as he saw it as his future.
He said “son I have had 15 good years out of the last 20 and I know that is my good fortune. We are overdue for a prolonged drought and I don’t want you or myself to go through what I have seen others go through”.
That was about 1973 – never a mention of Climate Change but he knew a drought was coming.
Pretty simple really – just re occurring patterns over time.
In another fifty years? At least they have learned to stop making predictions which occur in their own lifetimes…!
Joshua Fisher, respectfully and stated in the kindest terms, you are an idiot.
A shortage of hops? Well, just substitute another Cannabaceae plant like cannibas. Plenty being grown in Oregon and Calif.
Shortage of hops ! There will be riots in oz .
Don’t worry, There are PLENTY of regions where hops can grow in Australia. 🙂
Even WA is getting into the act… although, Swan Lager… they have a way to go !!!
A nice little microcosm of Climate Science innit?
Enquiring minds may like to know why a NASA scientist is worried about beer, esp Craft Beer
Craft Beer being the height of pretension, snobbery and mines-bigger-than-yours-ism surpassed only by wine drinking folks.
Next to Climate Science is THE biggest piece of sheer mendaciousness within Western society, Nobody drinks alcohol for the taste of it, they drink alcohol so they can get drunk and stupid. Period
Aha, now we a glimpse of Peta’s theory of Climate Science lunacy and other recent madnesses – initiated and perpetuated by the use of mind-numbing foods – alcohol being only the tip of a humongous ice-berg called Sugar.
And will these muppet brewers ever admit that the shortage of hops may be due to:
a) Hops are very hungry plants, they need rich fertile soil
b) Most of North America and all of Australia are effectively deserts
c) Unit for unit, Craft Beers require & use 3, 4 or even 5 times more hops than more ordinary beers.
No.
They are passing the buck – imagine a drug-dealer on a street-corner complaining about a Climate Change induced shortage of dope when, in fact, the dealer himself was handing out quadruple measures for ‘only’ twice the price of a standard fix.
You know what, I Would Not Be Surprised…
Peta,
Pretty true. It’s ultimately about getting drunk. I posted some stats just how (quietly) devastating alcohol is. Weed has destroyed my state (Colorado). Opioids, though not the level of late 19th century, is coming back.
The only point of recreational drugs is literally just the high, anything else is justifying habits. Been there, done that with nearly all forms.
Social shaming, not government mandates, will stop this tide.
LSD came to market via CIA’s MK Ultra, ushering in the “Counter-cultural Revolution”. That final snap between post-war ’50s Marxist infiltration into our intelligence community and the anti-American media propaganda of the ’70s, the latter which went unquestioned.
To wit Megadeth:
The quiet war has begun with silent weapons
And the new slavery
Is to keep the people poor, and stupid;
“Novus Ordo Seclorum”
How can there be any logic in biological war?
We all know this is wrong, but the New World Order’s
Beating down the door
Oh, something needs to be done
https://modernfarmer.com/2015/07/farming-hops-during-the-ultra-hoppy-beer-craze/
I was just reading about how Martin Luther (it’s his anniversary somehow) promoted the use of hops because they were considered a weed, grew well in Germany, and weren’t taxed by the church. How can a weed go extinct due to shifting anything? Won’t these things grow anywhere from the tundra to the jungle to the desert, so long as they get enough water? Is there any way to get the homebrewers to call BS on this? Lots of people grow their own hops and don’t really seem to be deterred by what climatic region they’re doing it in.
“Climatic religion”. There you go!
This study is not beer reviewed
You are too good for this blog.
WKD!
Maybe NASA should’ve consulted with USDA before babbling nonsense…
Hey NASA…
https://youtu.be/QG1ObrqpPao
It’s refreshing to note that also climate alarmists are worrying about the availability of the amber nectar.
We need a list of things not threatened by “climate change”.
I’ll start it:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
etc.
[CAGW budgets are threatened by the lack of climate change. .mod]
Bitcoin?
Unicorns?
1) climate change studies grants
2) doomsday predictions
3) socialism
My 98 year old uncle (he’s already seen it).
Bias confirmation, anyone?
NASA? HOPS? There is a house that needs cleaning. Hope Jim Bridenstine can do it with the help of Congress redirecting the funding. Wonder what Gavin and crew are thinking right now?
Looks like we have over done it with the Carbon Dioxide!
Accurate prediction of shortage (or boon) of [anything] means big bucks, the way Thales of Miletus did long ago.
If Joshua Fisher were right and smart, we would keep quiet, speculate according to the information he has nobody else has, make a fortune as Thales did, and then use it as he see fit (like, fighting climate change), instead of giving the information away as a dirty sock for no one use.
which leaves 3 possibilities:
Joshua Fisher is not right
Joshua Fisher is not smart
Joshua Fisher just wants you to believe this, for whatever purpose (for instance: he really think the opposite and plans on making even bigger buck
Your choice?
This guy Fisher should have been drained from the swamp. He must be a good swimmer.
He should know that his “settled science” vlifies breweries,
What with all that CO2.
Just a good floater.
I get it. This is a dare to revamp NASA priorities, budgets, and leadership.
They badly need to revisit the Muslim outreach program as it really didn’t work last time around. Those guys still want to kill everyone not on a prayer mat. Mind you they ought to be pretty pleased with the hops result and won’t welcome NASA sticking their noses into improved beer yields there.
I have a very wealthy friend who says that if you show him a shortage of something, he’ll show you an artificial price that is contrived in many parts by speculation…
Just sayin’.
Here in Toronto, we had local flooding due to a (very average) snowcap melting at the same time greater than average rains hit in the spring. Result: the Great Lakes rose.
“This is the new normal”, the Usual Suspects warned. “The models say the region will get MORE rain”.
Unfortunately for the scaremongering warmists, some of us have a good memory. And by “good”, I mean from a few years ago…when we had a below average snowcap, and very little rain. Result: the Great Lakes fell. There was talk of having to dredge channels between the lakes, and recreational boaters were worried because their docks were actually far from the water.
“This is the new normal”, the Usual Suspects warned. “The models say the region will get LESS rain”.
Repeat as needed…
The drought had nothing to do with the recent El Nino, it had to be CO2 whut done it.
MaekW,
Lol it’s that damn gaseous HoP2 molecule causing mayhem again!
(Please, chemists, be kind to my formula for jokes sake)
2016 USA HOP HARVEST AT FIVE YEAR HIGH WITH 87.1 MILLION POUNDS OF HOPS (https://www.usahops.org/news/2016-usa-hop-harvest-at-five-year-high)
It’s great when the Cult of Climastrology’s scaremongering is contradicted by Facts.
Most craft beer is too hoppy anyway. Maybe it will do some good.
Not over here, it isn’t. (UK)
Isn’t Yakima Valley a desert? What is the talk about drought all about?
Correct, average annual rainfall, 8 inches (200mm)! Fair chance that droughts will occur regularly!
Last winter, most of the West experienced near record snow fall and precipitation. The Yakima Valley is small, semi-arid (as one would expect being on the lee-side of a mountain range). How one can extrapolate their drought to Climate Change is beyond me.
Maybe this is more an issue of water-management and conservation