It’s going to be tougher to bring home the bacon this year, thanks to global warming.

According to the National Pig Association, a UK trade group, there will be a world shortage of pork and bacon next year as farmers stop raising pigs as the price of feed will skyrocket because of the drought in the US Midwest last year.

The association, which I’m disappointed to learn, is not a group of talking pigs but a more conventional organization of farmers, believes there could be a 10 per cent reduction in the pig supply, which means prices will double.

The bottom line: a sharp reduction in bacon and tomato sandwiches.

This is a catastrophe. Global warming is bad enough, but it will be unendurable without BLTs.

Ironically, this comes at a time when bacon is undergoing a renaissance.  It’s everywhere! You can spread bacon jam on your toast tomorrow morning or you can wait until lunch to chow down on the Baconator from Wendy’s:  six slices of bacon along with two beef patties, two slices of cheese and a heart attack (bonus!) Then at dinner, you can sit down to a filet wrapped in bacon, accompanied by a salad festooned with bacon bits, chased with a caramel bacon ice cream sundae.  Yum.

But you’d better hurry. The bacon window is closing.

Maybe this is not such a bad thing. I’ve been feeling guilty ever since Charlotte saved Wilbur in that classic of my childhood, Charlotte’s Web. Not that it kept me from my baconater ways. I’ve never met anything that doesn’t taste better than a slice of bacon. Except maybe six slices of bacon.

But let’s get real. Pigs are at least the smartest barnyard animal and are routinely ranked among the top 10 animals on or off the farm. They also get a bad rap on the hygiene front.  They are habitually clean; they have to roll in the mud to stay cool because they have no sweat glands. You wouldn’t eat any of the other braniacs of the animal kingdom: whales, dolphins, elephants or apes, so why pick on pigs?

So, struggling with a guilty conscience and a looming 100 per cent increase in the price of pork, I was already teetering on the brink when a vegan friend sent me this link to an adorable YouTube video featuring an adorable pig saving an adorable goat from drowning at a petting zoo.  Here’s the link: http://youtu.be/g7WjrvG1GMk. Warning: It’s adorable.

“Some Pig!” as Charlotte would weave on her web. Maybe this global warming thing is Mother Nature sending us a sign, too – back away from the bacon and repeat after me: Pigs are our friends.