chocolateHey, how's that Valentine's chocolate treating you? Pretty tasty, right? All dark and luscious. Well guess what -- you'd better enjoy it while you have it, because thanks to climate change, we may be facing a chocolate shortage. OH MY GOD, NO, NOT THAT!!! Yes, an article in Scientific America reveals the inconvenient truth: Pests, fungus, and climate change are all threatening our precious cacao trees.

Climate change, you can take our polar bears, but you cannot take our chocolate! We will fight you, climate change! How dare you threaten our chocolate.

Another thing that's threatening our chocolate supply -- other people. Demand for chocolate is rising. Every year more and more people eat more and more chocolate. It started off just this little cult treat the Ancient Mayans enjoyed, and then those hipster European explorers found out about it. And ever since then, chocolate has been like this runaway hit sweeping the entire globe and now everyone wants some.

But you know what? No, it's all mine.

Okay, I will share my chocolate. Because actually I don't own any cacao tree plantations. But I'm actually wondering if this might be a good time to cut back on chocolate until companies figure out what to do. After all, it's bad enough that so much of it is made via slave labor. Ugh, that's a lot of bad karma for some chocolate. Or maybe I'll just start looking for eco-friendly, fair-trade chocolate. But today is Valentine's Day, and I already have a desk covered in chocolate. So I will eat that chocolate and live to fight another day.

Can you imagine a world without chocolate?

 

Image via Siona Karen/Flickr