Climate change is coming to a breakfast table near you: global warming is hitting the US maple syrup industry. Tapping trees for sap is already starting earlier, and within years or decades, sap will be less sugary, each tap will yield less and some parts of the US will stop producing the iconic pancake topping altogether, maple experts say.
Maple syrup season — which traditionally begins on the cusp of the northern hemisphere spring — can be a teachable moment, says Toni Lyn Morelli, climate change ecologist at the US Geological Survey, and one of the authors of a recent study on global warming and maple syrup. Focusing on this household item “lets people see the impact of climate change right in their own backyard . . . and in a way that might otherwise not be so obvious,” she told me.