Cookies and candy are latest victims of climate crisis as sugar prices surge
The climate crisis has been previously identified as a threat to coffee and beer, and its impact could now be stretching to another of life’s joys: dessert.
The global cost of sugar has surged to its highest level since 2011 following concerns of underproduction rates from India, which has experienced an extreme dry spell that has threatened crops, and Thailand, which is facing a severe drought. The two countries are the largest exporters of sugar, after Brazil.
Rising global temperatures – 2023 is expected to be widely confirmed as the hottest year ever recorded – are fueling droughts and other extreme weather that affect food yields, including that of sugar. The price hike has already started to filter down to chocolate, sweets and other desserts.
And all the other foods are going to follow.
Ah, well. Humans had a good run. Looks like we found our great filter.
Plenty of crops will grow just fine well through the future history of climate change. They may not be the ones people want to eat, but they will if they have to. This isn't going to cause humans to go extinct, but it will not be a pleasant life for our descendants who will be forced to only eat very hardy crops which probably don't taste very good.
We've been needing to switch to vertical agriculture to save on land usage anyways. This will only acceleration certain industries to do so.
Humans had a run.