ABOUT
State of Purpose:
French wines are an important component of the world’s cultural heritage. But today, they are in danger. French viniculture is a climatically-sensitive process and it is already feeling the impacts of global warming - summer heat waves, recent hail storms and the emergence of new diseases. These impacts will soon get even worse. The purpose of my project is to investigate how climate change is affecting our society through a case study exploring the specific impacts on the French wine industry. Moreover, I will be exploring the actions vineyards are taking to response to the rising temperature. Today’s graduates, along with their teachers were born when the earth’s atmosphere rounding to just one significant digit held about .03% or 300 parts per million of carbon dioxide. Today rounding to one digit, its 0.04%, 400 parts per million of CO2 gases. Nevertheless this tiny change in concentration, while it might seem like an insignificant fraction of our atmosphere, is actually changing our world. If we had a magic car that somehow takes us straight to the atmosphere, we could drive in regular highway speed and be in outer space in less than 2 hours. It’s not that far because our planet’s atmosphere is so extraordinarily thin. So it is this convergence of burgeoning human population with a remarkably thin layer of atmosphere that is warming our world faster than ever in measurable geologic history. If nothing is done to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, the continuation of global temperature rise will put France’s ‘wine producing pedigree’ at risk. I choose France to conduct my field study because wine is the cornerstone of the French economy and source of national pride. However, in the distant future, some of those popular French wines will no longer come from their namesake region. That's because climate change is altering growing conditions in wine-producing regions, and grape production associated with these regions is forced to shift to new areas.
