Is It Too Late?

A segment on 60 Minutes last night got my attention. I watched as it was confirmed that one of my fears had already come to be.

France is suffering from global warming. Its Grape harvest is way down. Dramatically so: for 600 years the day for harvesting grapes was in late October. After that, it was the end of September. Now it’s mid-August.

The yield is scary. Grapes are dying from a fungus that’s adapted itself to warmer conditions. And rainfall is different. Soil once rich is turning hostile.

When I first predicted this back in the double aughts, I didn’t know I’d live to see it. Well, I have. They’re planting vines at higher altitudes, just as I said they would.

Meanwhile the UK is growing lots of grapes because it, too, has been affected. This is happening much faster than I expected it to.

It is a terrifying fact. In France, the grapes that do survive are making better quality wine. It’s good, very good. It may not even need as much aging.

But it will grow much more expensive to buy. Soon, the average person won’t be able to get a glass of it. Dinner at a five star restaurant will be washed down with beer or Coke.

My guess for this nightmare was for 2030 at first. But obviously I was wrong.

Climates once prime for farming beans, coffee and a variety of vegetables are no longer. As global warming accelerates, farms are failing, workers let go, and things are looking grim.

Don’t take my word for. Do the research, see it for yourself. As cars, trucks, boats and factories continue to burn coal and petroleum, we have been handed a death sentence.

I looked, and behold, a black horse; and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; but do not damage the oil and the wine.” –Revelation to St. John of Patmos