Save the planet? Save the pub!

Now this is how you package an issue to get the public's attention: An Australian scientist is warning that a changing climate is bad for beer-drinkers.

Jim Salinger of New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research said climate change was likely to cause a decline in the production of malting barley in parts of New Zealand and Australia, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

"It will mean either there will be pubs without beer or the cost of beer will go up," Dr Salinger told an Institute of Brewing and Distilling convention in Auckland, the Herald reported.

This is not mere speculation, by the way. "Liz Read, the corporate affairs director of the New Zealand and Australian brewer Lion Nathan, said climate change was already forcing up the price of malted barley, sugar, aluminium and sugar," the Herald reported.

The story's headline: "Global warming bad news for a cold one." To read it, click here.

--Craig Pittman