Food and Farming
The Frog will explore The Climate Action Handbook: A Visual Guide to 100 Climate Solutions by Heidi Roop in the first 100 days of 2024
In the first `100 days of 2024 we will explore 100 climate solutions that may “empower you to evaluate, engage, and act” to address on-going climate change as an individual on your terms.
Climate change. Habitat change. Growing seasons and agricultural practices change. We are seeing a shift in growing regions already as pests, disease, extreme heat, sea level rise, wildfires and other stresses change the way we grow everything.
Imagine owning and operating one of the oldest wineries in the world. Or imagine you are just starting in the business and the financial health of your family depends on the steady growth of your product sales and brand. You have a hot dry season that stresses your vines and reduces your yields. An atmospheric river inundates your land and causes landslides. Your entire vineyard is destroyed in a wildfire.
Extreme heat is likely to reduce the area that premium grapes can be grown by half. The worst case scenarios for climate change may result in more than 70% of suitable areas for wine production. At a bare minimum, the taste and variety of these wine, distilled spirits, and brewed beverages are likely to profoundly change.
Heidi lists some of the inevitable challenges that we are likely to face in the production of these products as the climate changes:
- Grown at higher elevation
- Grown increasingly farther from the equator
- Wildfires
- Declining yields and quality
- Shifting growing regions
- Ealier harvests
- Groundwater salinization
- Smoke
- Quicker ripening
- Fungi and mildew
- 50% reduction in premium grape-growing areas
- Negative impacts on outdoor workforce
- Soil erosion
- Extreme heat
- Pests
- Rising sea levels and flooding
- Soil desertification
- Early buds succumbing to frost
- Excessive rain
Better World Shopper is a public resource that makes social and environmental data available to consumers to “ranks every product on the shelf from A to F so you can quickly tell the ‘good guys’ from the ‘bad guys’ — turning your grocery list into a powerful tool to change the world”. Organizations like this are dedicated to helping you choose those companies that understand and are doing what they can do address the impending calamity.
They highlight companies like New Belgium Brewing, which claims to be a “human-powered brewery” with four guiding principles: “do right by people”, “make world-class beer for everyone”, “inspire social and environmental change”, and have a hell of a lot of fun”. New Belgium is a B Corp Certification given to companies that “meet high standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency”.
Choose Fat Tire Beer as it is the first certified carbon neutral beer and the company encourages you to drink sustainably. You can also find over two hundred brewers that have signed the Brewers Climate Declaration and you can find associations of wine producers like the International Wineries for Climate Action that are “taking a science-based approach to reducing carbon emissions across the wine industry”.
As always, be thoughtful, research your choices and choose according to your values. And cheers!
Next Up: Climate Action in 2024 – Day 38: Get to Know Your Favorite Coffee
Howard Creel
#rescuethatfrog
Email: rescuethatfrog@gmail.com