Climate Change Is Here For Your Chocolate

Short Wave

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4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 1 August 2025

⏱️ 15 minutes

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Summary

Last year, we reported how extreme weather events may be dwindling the future of chocolate. Just last week, we saw an inkling of that: The Hershey Company announced it would significantly raise the cost of its candy in the face of historically high cocoa prices. So, we're revisiting host Emily Kwong's conversation with Yasmin Tayag, a food, health and science writer at The Atlantic. They get into the cocoa shortage: What's causing it, how it's linked to weather and poor farming conditions and what potential solutions exist. Plus, they enjoy a chocolate alternative taste test.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	There's a lot of news happening. You want to understand it better, but let's be honest, you don't want it to be your entire life either. Well, that's sort of like our show, here and now anytime. Every weekday on our podcast, we talk to people all over the country about everything from political analysis to climate resilience, video games. We even talk about dumpster diving on this show. Check out here and now anytime, a daily
0:21.6	podcast from NPR and WBUR. Hey, short waivers, Regina Barbara here. Last week, the Hershey
0:27.0	company announced that it was raising its candy prices because of rising cocoa costs. So we thought
0:32.0	it'd be a good time to revisit a 2024 episode where my co-host, Emily Kwong, talks about the shrinking future of
0:38.3	chocolate and what climate change has to do with all of it. Here's the show.
0:43.2	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:49.1	Chocolate is not a topic of deep scientific inquiry, or is it?
0:55.4	Hmm. Okay. Or is it? Hmm.
0:56.3	Okay.
0:57.5	This is melting in a completely different way.
0:59.5	I have a confession to make.
1:01.1	I keep an emergency chocolate stash in my pantry at all times.
1:05.1	I eat it like it's my job.
1:07.0	But I met someone recently for whom chocolate is her job.
1:10.4	Yasmin Tayag is a food, health, and science writer for The Atlantic.
1:14.0	And last week, she led me in a chocolate taste test.
1:17.2	It tastes like a chocolate pastry.
1:20.1	I wonder if that's the oats.
1:21.6	Because Yasmin recently wrote about how the chocolate industry is changing.
1:26.8	Before her reporting, she called herself a fan of cheap chocolate.
1:31.4	One of my guiltiest pleasures is the Cadbury cream egg, and it's just pure sweetness.
1:37.6	It makes me feel like a five-year-old kid hyped up on sugar at Easter time.
	...

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