Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach [See update at the end]
There’s a new entry in the competition for the top spot in the “Climate Change Ruins Everything” competition. This is the claim that “Severe climate events could cause shortages in the global beer supply”, as discussed here on WUWT.
YIKES! If true, that is more serious than sea level rise … they explain the danger as follows:
The study warns that increasingly widespread and severe drought and heat may cause substantial decreases in barley yields worldwide, affecting the supply used to make beer, and ultimately resulting in “dramatic” falls in beer consumption and rises in beer prices.
So I figured that I should take a look at “barley yields worldwide”. I mean, if increasing heat causes “substantial decreases” in barley yields, we should see it in the record.
I went to one of my favorite datasets, the FAOSTAT database maintained by the Food and Agricultural Organization. It has production, yield, and area harvested for most crops since 1961. Here is their record of the barley yield over that period.
Since the global average temperature has increased over the period, I gotta say that it hasn’t had any visible effect on the global barley yield.
Is there a correlation between global barley yield and global temperature? To check that, I detrended both datasets to remove the long-term trend. This revealed that there is no statistically significant relationship between global temperature and global barley yield (p-value = 0.16).
However, I figured that this lack of correlation might be a result of the fact that I’m looking at the whole globe. So I repeated the analysis using the temperature and yield data for just the United States. In this case, it turns out that in the US there is indeed a negative correlation between temperature and barley yield. For every degree of US warming, the US barley yield drops by 266 kg per hectare (p-value = 0.01).
So it seems that they are right—barley yield does in fact go down with increasing temperature.
But how much difference does this make in practice?
To see that, I calculated just how much difference the change in US temperature made in the US barley yield. It turns out that the temperature rise in the US since 1961 decreased the US barley yield in 2012 (last year of the Berkeley Earth temperature data) by about 470 kg per hectare … and since the 2012 US barley yield was 6,251 kg/hectare, the warming in the US reduced the barley yield by about six percent.
Here’s the actual change in US barley yield (yellow/black), and what it would have been if there had been no temperature rise (red/black).
My term for that kind of result is that it is a “difference that makes no difference”. Six percent is far less than the annual variation in US barley yields from year to year.
In other words … the great beer panic of 2018 is just another in the long line of the alarmist “sky is falling” scare stories about the eeevil effects of “climate change”. So if you are of a mind, you are welcome to drink some beer to celebrate the good news … we’re not gonna run out of barley.
[UPDATE] Tom McClellan has graciously pointed me to the following interesting analysis:
Consider also that barley is only one input into beer making. Here are some fast facts:
A barrel of beer is 31 gallons. It takes about 75 to 120 pounds of barley to make that much beer, depending on the type of beer that is being made. A bushel of barley right now costs around $5, and it contains about 48 pounds of barley.
So let’s say that the barrel of beer takes 2 bushels, or about $10 worth of barley for that 31 gallon barrel. With 128 ounces per gallon, there are 331 12-ounce beers per barrel. So the wholesale cost of the barley in your bottle of beer amounts to about 3 cents.
The current federal excise tax on a barrel of beer is $18. Add to that your state and local sin taxes, plus sales tax at the register, and the amount of taxes dwarfs the cost of the barley. So the price of barley could triple, and it still would not exceed just the taxes on the beer.
But where global warming could become a factor in the cost of beer is if some genius politician suddenly realizes that drinking beer makes people burp, thus causing us to become enhanced point-source emitters of CO2, and then slaps an additional carbon tax on beer. That is a more reasonable risk factor for beer pricing than barley costs.
My very best to you all,
w.
PS—When you comment, please quote the exact words that you are referring to so that we can all understand just what you are discussing.
Phew I was just about to shave my legs , eat Tofu , put on some tie dyed clothes and protest about Adani !
tofu?
have you ever tried it?
its maybe THE most foul substance i ever tried..it even beats the fake meat kibbles for gross value to ruin a meal;-)
the chooks ate it…eventually= with not much happy clucking either.
My wife gave our Minature Schnauzers some and it is the only thing we have seen them spit out. LMAO.😂
Must make sure that every demographic feels the fear. Next week global climate change will make Instagram and Twitter evaporate.
oh, if only it would manage that!
The Europeans make beer out of wheat. The Belgians and Germans in particular do some very good wheat beers, and there are wheat hybrids for all sorts of climates. Sub-saharan Africans make beer out of maize. Thanks to human ingenuity, the world is very unlikely to run out of beer.
Asians make beer out of rice, as do Americans (Bud). But usually only in a mixed mash with barley, same as with wheat in Europe (and in Oregon).
The first people to make beer out of maize of course were Amerindians. Chicha in Peru gets started with people chewing, so that the amylase in their saliva gets the fermentation process rolling, followed by spitting into a log vat.
Mmm. too bad I do not drink alcoholic beverages anymore, cause that spit beer sounds mighty temptin’!
Sorry to say, but there isn’t, that I know of, a near beer version of chicha.
When you join in the spitathon, it really doesn’t help all that much.
Mr. Willis, I was thinking that the trend in CO2 in the air has been increasing pretty steadily for all the years of that graph, so…might it be fair to deduce that any rise in temp is more than offset by increases in yield due to greater CO2 availability?
And considering that this sort of crop is not one that is typically irrigated, or if it is only in certain places and only when absolutely necessary…maybe we can look at how rainfall has affected the yield?
We know that for trees, rainfall gives good correlation to the width of the tree rings and hence growth in a given year, and that temps do not give good correlation to tree rings, if any at all.
Unless perhaps it is very hot and unusually dry both at the same time.
I wonder if we might find a way to analyze crop yield as a function of soil moisture?
Taking into account as well perhaps, that plants need less water as the CO2 in the air becomes more abundant.
Please see:
sjreddy [1983], A simple method of estimating the soil water balance, Agricultural Meteorology, 28:1-17
sjreddy [1984], Agroclimatic Classification of the semi-arid tropics III: Characteristics of variables relevant to crop production potentisl, Agricultural Meteorology, 30:269-292
sjreddy [1995], Discussion: Over-emphasis on energy terms in crop yield models, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 77: 113-120
sjreddy, rkmaiti, n.seetharama [1984], An iterative regression approach for prediction of sorghum (sorghum bicolor) phenology in the semi-arid tropics, Agriculture and Forest Meteorology, 32:323-338
Crop -weather monitoring and crop forecasing scheme was implemented in Mozambique and Ethiopia and all these are presented in my book:
sjreddy, [1993], Agroclimatic/Agrometeorological Techniques: As applicable to dry-land agriculture in developing countries, 205 [book review appeared in Agriculture and Forest Meteorology, 67:325-327 — revised version is under printing. This book is identified by universities as reference book at post-graduate level in Agricultural Meteorology.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
If memory serves me, there was a shortage of beer in Europe earlier this year due to a shortage of…..wait for it…..CO2!
They may need to implement a burp recycling plan if this gets any worse.
https://youtu.be/jiFtHsLMVpQ
Probably been said before, but champagne growers were going to have to move north. Ooooh errr ….
https://www.wineindustryadvisor.com/2018/09/07/champagne-exceptional-2018-harvest
They have bought vinyards in southern England (same chalk soil) are are making some award winning wines.
Holy tree rings! It’s quite clear to the morally enlightened from that graph that growing barley for beer is what’s causing the global warmening and this must cease. The only righteous thing to do would be to introduce strict planning controls to shift all the pubs to the seafront and let Gaia wreak her revenge on the sinful-
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/research-maps-real-risk-of-major-tsunami-in-sydney/ar-BBOpMPI
Those of us who understand and follow Gaia intimately must be seen to have clean hands in expunging this original sin and saving the innocent.
Thanks to all who have commented. I’ve added an update to the head post, q.v.
Regards,
w.
Similar to the cost of wheat in a loaf of bread. Without event the added burden of sin taxes on beer.
Good article, Willi. As I sit here dirnking the Saison that I brewed, I would point out that only some of the barley crop is malted for beer production. Grains are by weight the second largest ingredients in beer after water. Malted barley is a major part of most grain bills.
Being a home brewer does not make me a beer expert. However if there were a pending barley shortage, I would expect that there would be a buzz through the 20,000+ breweries about it. There isn’t.
But just in case they are right, we should be proactive in banning the use of fossil fuels to prevent warming and forestall a beer shortage. Right? Wrong! Banning fossil fuels would result in severe shortages of barley and every other food product. The authors of the study know this, but they don’t really care. All they want to do is to publicize a dire effect of climate change that the average Joe cares about so he will stop being indifferent and demand that something be done to save his favorite beer. The authors expect that few will think ahead far enough to realize that the cure would be worse than the disease. It would create a beer shortage worse than anything the world has seen before. And without refrigeration, all those “Ice Cold Beer” signs along the highway would become nothing more than antiques for collectors.
Sobering Willis, but it left me feeling a bit flat.
LOL
Don’t worry, the lefties are just trying to get people hopping mad about climate change so that people will vote for their candidates. They’re hoping to get drunk on power once elected.
If it gets warmer, won’t Barley production move north like wine making did in Roman times?
And even if it didn’t what are we supposed to do about it? I’m still waiting for someone to show me that any temperature rise has anything to do with mankind
last few summers in nth america/canada theyve battled to get harvest in due to?
snow
this yrs pretty grim from recent readings
but it sure isnt warming what dunnit!
Okay, I am drawing from the following :
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226861704_Barley_Production_and_Consumption
as this was the first resource I could find on limited notice, so forgive me for the very general nature of the data.
So, first point I have found is the claim that, “About 16 percent of barley is used for malting,
seed or other industries”.
So not all of this 16% is used for malt and not all malt is used for beer. Hold that thought.
Second point I have found is, “The amount of barley for food, seed and industrial uses (FSI) is relatively consistent in the last thirty years compared to that for feed uses which is largely depend on the total production.”
To me this implies that barley is feed because it is there, not because it is preferred.
So, adding in, if the less than 16% of market used for beer is effectively fixed in total demand, then any reduction in global production would be at the expense of animal feed.
Bad luck if you are an animal, but beer must come first and the reduction in global barley production would probably need to be something like 50% plus before beer is remotely affected.
Any flaws in my logic?
barleys better than wheat for fattening chooks and nutritionwise for sheep n goats n pigs, prices around 20$au for a 20kg bag locally
Willis: You crack me up sometimes.
Now you had better check another statistic. How much beer production has risen, or fallen, as temperatures have risen, or fallen.
Surely an increase in global beer consumption would be a far far better proxy for global temperature rise in the inhabited regions than one tree in Siberia , or wherever it was…
(Apart from haggis, and porage/porridge oats, I am struggling to think to what other uses barley is actually put…ah. Animal feed. So a reduction in output of barley is almost certainly – since vegans don’t eat barley much, – a result of Vegans becoming more numerous. And a drop in beef consumption.)
Have a nice day, and thanks for the article.
I don’t think you’ll find much barley in porridge oats…
The barley goes into the cattle, who get diced and put in soup cans with more barley to make that yummy and stout Beef & Barley soup that used to be a staple of college students (cooked over illegal heat coils in dorm rooms).
The Army had a C-ration equivalent, too. But those were heated over little cans of Sterno.
Why drink anything made from barley?
Climate Beer Goggles
Willis Eschenbach
_________________________________________
Willis, “Goggles” is YOUR beer.
What about every grey day’s “Google”.
It’s really depressing that junk science like this is accepted in a Nature journal. AFAIK (I don’t have access to the full article myself, but people who have, have told me so) they don’t take into account at all that IF current barley producing regions would give lower yield under global warming, the same warming would open up enormous NEW areas (e.g. in Siberia and Canada) that are currently too cold for growing barley for profit.
But where global warming could become a factor in the cost of beer is if some genius politician suddenly realizes –>
But where there is demand for a consumer good
then this politician will put a VAT on it
you’ll BET!
One thing to remember is that barley is the cereal crop that is most tolerant of salty soils, and therefore less sensitive to salinization, always a problem in hot and dry environment, so if there is really a change to hotter and drier climates a shift from wheat to barley growing seems likely.
None of these doom-sayers ever qualifies their predictions with is “if nothing else changes”. The entire history of the human race shows that people have survived immense setbacks by adapting. Lifestyles, environments, sources of food and heating, clothing, health and so much more have been developed to make life generally more pleasant and more secure.
So whatever the problems, I have absolute confidence that the human race will adapt and survive and even thrive.
w. ==> Might have looked at Barley Yield — hg/ha (hectograms per hectare) for North America:
LOL
Best example of beer goggle EVAR!
w.
All I see is a blank screen!!!!
I want to “LOL” too!
Youtube took a world wide dump at 920 pm EST. Google apparently wants to censor everything on it, including beer goggles. LOL
https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/16/17987280/youtube-down-outage
Breaking! Live images from YouTube HQ courtesy of Larry L.
I withdraw my last comment.
Guess it didn’t load correctly last time.
PS “LOL”
Shouldn’t alarmists want us not to drink beer since it produces CO2? I find the argument that we must reduce temperatures to preserve a CO2 producing beverage….odd.
Ah, they’re trying to influence Justice Kavanaugh should any climate change cases come to the court. Kavanaugh likes beer, or so I hear.