Posted BY: Teresa | NwoReport
For the second time in the space of two months CBC, Canada’s public broadcaster, ran a story claiming climate change is harming wine production, particularly in Canada. As Climate Realism showed in March, when CBC first aired similar claims, this is false. Because of its northerly location, Canada is not well suited to growing certain types of grapes or to producing certain popular wine varietals common in warmer regions, but data shows that the grapes and wines the country is well suited to producing have increased dramatically during the recent period of modest warming.
Padraig Moran of CBC radio introduces his story, “Vintners warn a wine shortage could be coming, as they try to adapt to climate change,” saying, “[s] sweltering summers and bitterly cold winters have been hindering wine production in B.C., with one winemaker warning that climate change might be cultivating a crisis in the industry.”
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I’m unaware that the winemaker interviewed is a climate science expert, and nowhere does he, or the CBC itself, show that long-term trends in weather, which would be evidence of climate change, have hampered grape growth or wine production in Canada. That’s because no such evidence exists.
Indeed, incidents like the late-season freeze that harmed British Columbian vintners this year are expected to become less frequent as the climate warms. Also, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports no evidence that lengthy heat waves are becoming more common. Unusual but not uncommon extreme weather events may have stunted grape growth and thus wine production during one or two seasons, but the overall long-term trend for grape and wine production amid ongoing climate change has been positive in Canada.
