{"id":378927,"date":"2025-05-20T08:34:16","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T06:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=378927"},"modified":"2025-05-20T08:34:17","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T06:34:17","slug":"wrong-the-guardian-there-is-no-evidence-climate-change-is-harming-bananas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=378927","title":{"rendered":"Wrong, The Guardian, There Is No Evidence Climate Change Is Harming Bananas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From ClimateRealism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By H. Sterling Burnett<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Guardian<\/em> was among a number of mainstream media outlets to carry a story claiming climate change is threatening wipe out banana production. No data supports this claim, rather it is based on speculation about future climate conditions 55 years in the future. Production and yield trends show that bananas are doing fine, and no reason other than a single study\u2019s speculation to assume they will do otherwise in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Guardian<\/em>\u2019s story, \u201cClimate crisis threatens the banana, the world\u2019s most popular fruit, research shows<\/a>,\u201d paints a picture of current decline and looming disaster for banana production and the people that rely on the fruit as a staple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe climate crisis is threatening the future of the world\u2019s most popular fruit, as almost two-thirds of banana-growing areas in Latin America and the Caribbean may no longer be suitable for growing the fruit by 2080, new research has found,\u201d writes The Guardian<\/em>. \u201cRising temperatures, extreme weather and climate-related pests are pummeling banana-growing countries such as Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Colombia, reducing yields and devastating rural communities across the region, according to Christian Aid\u2019s<\/a> new report, Going Bananas: How Climate Change Threatens the World\u2019s Favourite Fruit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report the banana scare story is based upon was not peer reviewed research but rather the output of an activist organization pushing \u201cclimate justice.\u201d Despite its questionable pedigree, numerous mainstream media outlets carried stories covering the report, for instance, The Independent<\/a>, The Telegraph<\/a>, Euronews<\/a>, and MSN<\/a>. The headlines of most of these stories were even more hyperbolic than The Guardian<\/em>\u2019s, alternatively purporting to report that climate change is \u201ckilling,\u201d (Euronews) bananas or that they are on the verge of being \u201cwiped out\u201d (The Independent<\/em>), or that they may \u201cvanish from export shelves\u201d (The Express Tribune<\/em>). The reporters writing the stories showed no evidence of exercising any intellectual curiosity questioning the study\u2019s claims or undertaking any independent journalistic investigation to fact check the Christian Aid\u2019s report, rather the stories were written more like press releases promoting the findings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This lack of a fact check function is especially unfortunate because data show banana production and yields have increased during the recent period of climate change, as have most crops around the world, having benefitted from modest warming and higher carbon dioxide concentrations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization<\/a> (FAO) show that between 1993 and 2023 (the last year for which data is available):<\/p>\n\n\n\n