On Friday night the Sign On campaign hit Auckland Town. Armed with funny ‘what if the hippies are right?’ beer coasters, Sign On forms and a little Dutch courage we visited bars across Auckland talking to people about why we need John Key to do the right thing on climate change.
We started the night off at the Bond St Bar, who gave us some great kai, followed by the Kingslander (who has a weird live Crayfish grabbing game machine), a blitz down Queen St, then the Imperial, with a night cap at The Occidental.
Travelling in true eco fashion, Saints Bus Company drove us around in comfort, and a big thanks to them for their support.
We had a few beers, but it wasn’t a boozy night. It was all about meeting people and talking climate change and the reception was very positive. We got hundreds of Sign Ons and handed out (often to a little laugh) heaps of beer coasters. Of course, there were a few people, fired-up on their own Dutch courage who started in-depth debates which was fantastic.
Look out for more Sign On Pub Crawls across New Zealand.
Interestingly, before the Pub Crawl we discussed some research by Sign On Ambassador Jim Salinger on climate change and beer. Did you know even beer will be impacted by climate change?
We all know already that climate change will affect everything from food prices to cute baby polar bears but also report from a research from NIWA suggests that rising temperatures may threaten beer. An Associated Press report details the findings from climate scientist Jim Salinger, who presented his research at the Institute of Brewing and Distilling’s annual convention in Wellington, New Zealand. The grim results? Climate change may affect the production of malting barley, an ingredient crucial to the tasty beers we all know and love. "It will mean either there will be pubs without beer or the cost of beer will go up," the Associated Press article quoted Salinger as saying.
One word: Noooooooooooo!