Coffee & Beer May Not Survive Climate Change But Weed & Heroin Would

Looks like there would be no beer or wine left to witness the end of the world — whenever that happens.

The change in climate is going to change a lot of drugs. And grocery store stimulants such as beer, wine, and coffee could take a major hit. However, hardcore illicit narcotics like heroin, cocaine, and meth would be able to survive climate change.

Some more-powerful, more-addictive, mind-altering substances are apparently better prepared to survive the oncoming climate crisis. Traditionally legal recreational highs are, however, more vulnerable to climate change.

Heroin, for example, is getting a boost from climate change. A recent study estimates that rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide have doubled the potency of poppies, the plant used to make the drug.

However, wine enthusiasts must start preparing themselves for a wine-less future as changing weather patterns and raging wildfires put celebrated vineyards in jeopardy.

“All plant-based drugs, whether they’re narcotics or used for medicine, are going to change,” Lewis Ziska, lead author of the poppy study and now an associate professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, told VICE News.

No beer cheers?

The world’s favorite fermented beverage could take a hit, as erratic weather and droughts are driven by climate change impact crops and freshwater.

The majority of the water used in beer production goes toward farming. Barley, which gives beer its flavor and color, requires 15 to 17 inches of water to complete its growth cycle, while some hops varieties require four times that. Scientists predict that droughts and higher temperatures could affect barley crops enough to cause beer shortages by the end of the century.

The average beer is 90 to 95 per cent water.

To show how climate change is coming for your beer, Torched Earth Ale — a gimmicky brew meant to warn beer drinkers about climate change — made its debut last year.

From New Belgium Brewing in Fort Collins, Colorado, the ale was deliberately made from smoky water and other inferior, though drought-resistant ingredients.

And it tasted apparently awful.

A report in the journal Nature in 2018 got lots of attention when it warned that rising temperatures and more frequent droughts could drive up the cost of ingredients such as barley.

Dabo Guan, then a climate-change economist at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom and now at Tsinghua University in Beijing, and his colleagues looked at the chance of droughts and heat waves from 2010 until 2099 in regions where barley is grown and under different levels of greenhouse-gas emissions, according to Nature. They found that barley yield would fall by between 3 per cent and 17 per cent, though it may increase in some temperate areas. On average, prices would double.

Cocaine will survive climate change

It’s not the end of the road for many though.

The drug and coca farmers — known in Spanish as cocaleros – who cultivate the drug’s source face the same threats as any other crop or product in our warming climate.

But cocaine is ready to brace climate change.

The coca bush is the raw material for a lucrative and often-violent drug trade and the target of decades of international eradication efforts.

But while scientists have raised alarms about the potential threats climate change may pose to other tropical commodities like chocolate and coffee, little effort has been spent exploring what an era of rising temperatures could mean for coca.

Most research in the past few decades has been aimed at finding new ways to kill it.

In general, the coca belt is expected to be hotter and drier in the coming century. Average temperatures could rise by as much as 4 degrees Celsius (7.2º Fahrenheit) by 2100, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported in late March. Areas closer to the equator are expected to get more rainfall, while those to the north and south are expected to get less. The glaciers of the tropical Andes are receding, and the ranges of many plants are shifting upward toward cooler, higher elevations, the IPCC noted.

But the coca bush is a tough plant and is likely to adapt to the expected changes, say several scientists who’ve studied cocaine.

Dark times ahead for coffee

Your morning stimulant is in danger.

About half of all land now used to grow the two main species of coffee, arabica, and robusta may no longer be usable by 2050, according to one estimate.

Arabica and robusta make up 99 percent of the commercial supply globally and have a limited ability to relocate to different climates.

Another study found that six in ten of the known species of coffee are now under threat of extinction.

Studies indicate the growth of a pesky fungus encouraged by higher temperatures. Along with that, changes in rainfall patterns are stressing the plants.

As a result, good coffee will become harder to grow.

Weed, too, looks like, has a bright future. The plant is likely well-suited to survive a moderately hotter and drier climate, according to Olufemi Ajayi, the author of a recent study on the relative dangers posed by insect pests to cannabis in the context of climate change.

However, soon it will be time to bid goodbye to chocolate as we know it as cacao plantations, scientists believe, may perish due to climate change.

Best that the world gets prepared for lab-grown chocolates that mimic the taste of the real deal.