Guacapocalypse (gulp)

Homeless polar bears and penguins with hypothermia have nothing on avocados.

Included in Chipotle's 2013 Annual Report is a statement outlining how the risks associated with "increasing weather volatility or other long-term changes in global weather patterns, including any changes associated with global climate change, could have a significant impact on the price or availability of some of our ingredients."

A comment that may have gone completely unnoticed save for the fact that the report goes on to say that if avocado supplies dwindle, and prices rise, it may be necessary to pull guacamole from the restaurant menu.

Queue the outrage: Guacapocalypse. (For the record, I stopped looking after four pages of Google results but the list continues).

Absurdity aside, why did this report become front page news? For at least two reasons:

1. The risk is real. ThinkProgress outlines the situation, explaining that the recent drought in California has strained agriculture in the state and "with water scarce, farmers are unable to plant as many seeds, so prices of produce are projected to rise."
2. Avocados. 

Kids care about polar bears when they are at the zoo. Students worry about melting ice caps in science class. Perhaps we'll even spare a moment's concern while selecting a favorite flavor of Endangered Species chocolate bar, but when it comes to polar bears and penguins, our society's attention span has its limits. Tugging on heart strings has nothing on tugging on taste buds and hunger pangs.

Even hinting at taking away our guacamole (gasp!) appears to be a game changer. It turns out that Americans eat a lot of avocados (it was estimated that we would eat 158 million avocados on Super Bowl Sunday alone) and we don't want them taken away. So, as the news stories roll out assuring as that there is no impending avocado doom, let's realize that if we don't act, the impacts of climate change (both trivial and dire) will reach us.

Let's #savetheguac. For starters, take this simple action.

Valessa Souter-Kline is western Pennsylvania outreach coordinator for PennFuture, based in Pittsburgh.