Dana Mathewson

GREAT MOMENTS IN NUTRITION – FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER:

Chocolate may go extinct as soon as the year 2050, according to scientists from the University of California, Berkeley. The reason for this catastrophe? Climate change is affecting the natural source of chocolate, apparently. Not to worry, however. UC Berkeley scientists are collaborating with candy manufacturer Mars, Inc. in order to combat this dilemma before chocolate becomes completely eradicated from the Earth. According to their research, cacao plants are dissipating due to higher temperatures around the world, supplemented with drier conditions in weather. Unfortunately, these conditions aren’t suitable for cocoa farming and might even put the processing of chocolate to a halt. "We're trying to go all in here," Barry Parkin, the chief sustainability officer of Mars, expressed to Business Insider. "There are obviously commitments the world is leaning into but, frankly, we don't think we're getting there fast enough collectively." If chocolate is not saved, nothing else is worth it. This is about civilization itself. Imagine stopping at a service station food mart and not finding a Milky Way. I can't face the thought.


I don't believe it. I think it's a ploy to scare feminists and get them under control again!

A WORD FROM BOB REDMOND:

Well since cocoa production went from roughly 1.6 million tons in 1980, to just under 4 million tons in 2017 I'm not real worried about Hershey Bar production.

AND FROM TIM:

This is stupid beyond words. Chocolate p-roduction can simply be moved to a higher latitude if in fact there was global warming and it got too hot in the current cocoa growing regions. It's true of all plant and animal life; they move when conditios change, and it's particularly true of agriculture, where human beings can read the signs and act rationally. Do the authors of this piece and the "experts" they quote realize that, say, coffee is not indigeonous to the Western Himisphere, or that the cup of Columbian Supreme they enjoyed while writing this bit of fiction was transplanted from Asia?

How about that Chardonnay they were swiling after the workday? If it was from California it was not a native plant.

That's assuming global warming is real, something not borne out by the data. There hasn't been any warming of the Earth since 1998.

I suppose they base their reasoning on the fact that the plant is pollinated by Forcipomyia midges, a tiny bug, and not by bees or butterflies and that it won't be transplantable. But it can indeed be artificially pollinated.

And Cocoa survived the last ice age and subsequent warming periods. In fact, it thrived under warmer climatic conditions, so the argument is bogus.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:20 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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