Beer and peace

It stretches thin the definition of peace, but the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to former Vice President Al Gore may help to bring more immediate attention to climate change.

The City of Atlanta is predicting that under current prediction models, it will have no water next year. That's correct. The water reservoirs of a major American city stand a strong possibility of being completely drained late next year.

In the Washington, D.C. area, the much smaller town of Purcellville, Virginia (home to the beer-friendly restaurant Magnolias at the Mill) is within 60 days of running dry.

Before I get harangued by the 'global warming is all a left-wing, one world government, hate America conspiracy' crowd, I will stipulate that my two examples are indeed only two localized examples, and taken by themselves woefully insufficient evidence from which to extrapolate a global tendency.

But the evidence of change on a worldwide scale does exist and is being reported, on an accelerating pace, daily.

Let's put aside debates about its causes, and begin now to work - with serious intent - on climate change's consequences.

Beer is 95% water; water is its principal raw ingredient. At what point does beer's production become proscribed as a non-essential activity?