Bye-Bye, Beer? Brewers Say They've Got A Plan On Climate Change
A scientific paper published this week predicts climate change will send beer prices skyrocketing and drastically reduce the barley crop. It got tons of media attention. But is beer really doomed?
Research published this week predicting that beer prices could double as rising global temperatures and more volatile weather cause shortages of barley created a big splash. Twitter users and major news outlets widely circulated the dire headlines. But brewers and barley growers say you shouldn't drown your sorrows just yet: They have a plan.
The paper, published Monday in the journal Nature Plants, warns of "serious supply disruptions" of barley. Analyzing several possible climate change scenarios, the authors find that global yields could drop 17 percent during severe droughts and heat waves in the future and that beer prices could spike calamitously.
However, some in the beer industry think the findings are
