Climate Change Will Make Chocolate Unaffordable Or Something

15 Nov, 2010 by William Teach

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Time to break out the crystal balls again: Global Warming Could Lead to Vast Chocolate Shortage (via Steven Goddard)

In a world that takes for granted the availability of delicious and affordable chocolate, it’s easy to forget that the popular product actually comes from trees — not magical elves or free-flowing cocoa rivers, sadly. But, some experts are predicting that in a matter of decades a drop in production due to changing weather and agriculture incentives may make chocolate ‘as expensive as gold’. “In 20 years chocolate will be like caviar. It will become so rare and so expensive that the average Joe just won’t be able to afford it,” says one researcher. And if I know Joe as well as I think I do, this won’t go over well.

Well, that would suck, eh? And, yes, there are many many breathless stories along these lines, concerned with chocolate production. More on that later

According to a report from The Independent, much of the world’s cocoa is grown by farmers in West Africa — and the world’s collective sweet tooth may not be enough to make producing the crop worthwhile for them. One of the reasons has to do with just how labor-intensive cocoa production actually is. Cultivation of cocoa takes several years, as trees are slow to mature, not to mention they deplete the soil of nutrients in the process. Meanwhile, there’s better money to be made elsewhere.

Damn that global warming….wait, what? Labor intensive? Trees slow to mature. Soil depletion? Hmm

Cocoa production also faces competition from other crops which farmers may find more financially appealing, like for palm-oil, driven by an increasing demand for biofuels, and rubber. Changes in weather patterns, too, have crippled production in places like Indonesia that might normally be there to pick up the slack.

OK, there it is. Obviously, any minor changes in the weather patterns on a planet that has never seen any changes in its 4 billion year plus history should be concerning, and means that when you drive your SUV – and, yes, I mean you, the reader. It’s all your fault. Bad Boy/Girl! No chocolate biscuit for you! – to work, you’re killing off chocolate production, and forcing your kids to work for decades to afford a Hershey Bar. Oh, wait a second

Savor that leftover Halloween candy, because in the future, you won’t be able to afford it. Chocolate consumption is increasing faster than cocoa production, according to the Cocoa Research Association, and that means prohibitively expensive chocolate is in our future.

That’s what Popular Science got out of the Independent article cited above. Cultists immediately thought “man caused global warming”. Even NPR didn’t go the climate alarmist route

The report explains that African farmers are abandoning their cocoa farms for other products that are easier to grow and easier to monetize. Palm oil, for example, is in greater demand because it’s being used as biofuel. So, as the cocoa trees die out, farmers are planting something else.

They did, inadvertently, notice that an AGW favorite is killing chocolate production (not too mention killing off the orangutans).

Obviously, it must be due to man’s release of greenhouse gases….huh? CO2 is good for plants? Crap.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach. sit back and Relax. we’ll dRive!