I debated whether this post would go on the "Views" or the "Brews" side of the site. 

Only once before have I put a post that dealt with politics under "Brews". That was when the government shutdown was impacting reviews of applications for new beer offerings, which of course hit the small, craft brewers harder. I didn't go into deep political analysis or try to assign blame, rant about any one side in particular. Just laid out the issue and asked people who cared about beer and the microbrews to contact their Congress people to please get this resolved. People's dreams and livelihoods were being impacted after all.

This time though I will err on the side of caution and put this post on the "Views" side of the site, the overtly political side. Even though it shouldn't be. This deals with climate and science so it shouldn't be the subject of political tugs-of-war but we know how that's been going.

So anyway it seems that the drought in California may impact the beer industry sooner rather than later. Many breweries, such as Lagunitas, rely on water from rivers such as the Russian River. The rivers and the reservoirs, lakes, etc that feed them are running dry after years of severe drought. Breweries may need to look for alternative sites to switch production, or even switch to using groundwater which would greatly influence the taste of the products. Lagunitas is large enough to be able to pursue some alternatives. Other smaller producers will not be so lucky.

Of course the article I was reading, "California's Water Crisis Is Becoming A Beer Crisis" by Jeff Spross at thinkprogress.org, doesn't stop with just California. The article points out how what is happening to California is very much in line with predictions made by climate scientists concerning climate change. It also points to other changes impacting breweries due to climate change. It notes that barley and hops production have been impacted, and will likely decrease due to shifting climate patterns. Experts consider the quality of European hops in general to have been declining since the 1990's as temperatures in general rise. A study in the Czech Republic determined that the quality of the highly prized Saaz hops, the hops that give the famed Pilsener beers their distinctive quality, has deteriorated steadily since 1954 due to rising temperatures.

By all means if you want to believe global warming is a hoax, that is your right. You want to believe we can take tons of carbon deposited over millenia and locked away beneath the earth, and burn through them in about a 200 year period with little or no consequences, you can believe that too. You are even free to vote for people who believe the same thing, even if most of their money is coming from the fossil fuel industry. 

But now it's personal. Sure your ignorance may help doom many species on this planet, including our own, put half of Florida under water in 50 or so years, cause huge dislocations and unrest among populations (which the reality-based Pentagon and CIA are already planning on happening), lead to increasingly extreme weather conditions, but negatively impact the quantity and quality of beer available? Now you've gone too far.  

Ok, I could have gone with "Inherit the Wind Take2" as a title, but went with a different twist instead.
You may have heard or read that Bill Nye, "The Science Guy" of TV fame, is going to Kentucky to debate the founder/director of a Creationist museum, Ken Ham. You know that "museum", the one that shows dioramas of people and dinosaurs living at the same time.
They will debate whether or not Creationism is a viable explanation for life and its diversity.
Been thinking about this throughout the day and reading other people debate about it as well.
And I'm torn.
On the one hand I believe it's a mistake and a waste of time. Creationists believe something to be true based on belief and in spite of contradictory evidence. So no amount of evidence or logic will sway them. They will fall back on the "because God did it" defense. Which is why Creationism or Intelligent Design do not belong in a science classroom. 
Because at its heart a scientific theory must have the innate ability to be disproved. You can ask questions of a scientific theory and predict the answers. Then you design and perform repeatable experiments, or make observations in nature. If the results are as predicted, the theory is "proved". But if the results do not match then the theory is "disproved". A scientific theory itself can evolve over time based on experimental results or new discoveries. In extreme cases a theory is thrown completely overboard and replaced with a better explanation for the observable phenomena.
You cannot do that with Creationism or Intelligent Design. Any "theory" that relies on a supernatural entity cannot be disproved and therefore is automatically disqualified from the scientific realm of human endeavors. It may indeed qualify as an alternative point of view for how life began, or how it came to be as it is today, but it is not a scientific point of view. 
And that is the problem with this "debate". It is not a debate at all. Creationism and Evolution are two completely different ways of viewing the world. One relies on "faith" and the other on evidence and logic. How do you debate that? You might as well try to shoot a moving breeze.
So I figure Mr. Nye has lost as soon as he steps out on the stage.
But maybe, just maybe, there is a silver lining here. Perhaps Bill Nye can at least illuminate the positives of viewing the world based on evidence, facts and critical, logical thinking. And perhaps he can demonstrate how much better that is, for individuals and a country, then to base everything on wishful thinking and a blind faith in something unseen and "unreasonable". 
At least I'm keeping my fingers crossed that is the case.