Hippies have been fighting for awareness and action on global warming for a long time, but now yuppies and hipsters will have to join in. In the last week we've gotten news that bacon prices will soar and California wines will suffer due to inhospitable crop-growing conditions. It's one thing to live in a slowly crumbling world, but to live in it without bacon or wine? Now it's SERIOUS.
Bacon: CNBC reports that bacon prices are set to soar this summer, prompting suggestions of a Strategic Bacon Reserve. It's a cascade of problems — warming conditions (among other factors) mean shabby corn crops, which mean there's less to feed the pigs, which means the bacon supply suffers. You'll still be able to get felt plushies of bacon wearing mustaches on Etsy; we're not going to turn into savages. But it might be time to buy some Bacon Salt so you can keep making cute tweets about your bacon chocolate cookies while the real stuff shoots to $6 a pound.
Wine: Temperatures are rising in California, which means prime grape-growing territory is shrinking. A new Stanford study says that Cali vineyards could shrink by 50 percent in the next 30 years, dealing a heavy blow to Cali's $16.5-billion wine industry and leaving Whole Foods' target audience with a much smaller selection to serve with their lab-grown pseudobacon-wrapped dates. (As for stuffed grape leaves, forget it.) Cooler Oregon and Washington will be able to take advantage of warming conditions, though, so at least we won't be left entirely at the mercy of Italian and French wines. Quel horreur!
