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Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Coffee drinkers face a climate catastrophe, reports The Guardian, reporting on a study published by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) under the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).
According to the Guardian, interviewing Dr Peter Läderach, a CCAFS climate change specialist and co-author of the report;
“If you look at the countries that will lose out most, they’re countries like El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras, which have steep hills and volcanoes,” he said. “As you move up, there’s less and less area. But if you look at some South American or east African countries, you have plateaus and a lot of areas at higher altitudes, so they will lose much less.”
Without new strategies, says the study, Brazil alone can expect its current arabica production to drop by 25% by 2050.
“In Brazil, they produce coffee on the plains and don’t have any mountains so they can’t move up,” said Läderach.
Digging a little deeper, it turns out that the study doesn’t actually predict a coffee “catastrophe”.
… The regions where Arabica coffee would be least affected by higher temperatures are East Africa with the exception of Uganda and Papua New Guinea in the Pacific. Mesoamerica would be the most affected region, specifically Nicaragua and El Salvador. Since Arabica coffee is an important export of Mesoamerica, we expect severe economic impacts here. As previously suggested by Zullo [32], strongly negative effects of climate change are also expected in Brazil the world’s largest Arabica producer, as well as India and Indochina. Regions predicted to suffer intermediate impacts include the Andes, parts of southern Africa and Madagascar, and Indonesia, with significant differences among islands [17]. …
And in the conclusion:
… Some countries, such as in Mesoamerica, will lose competitiveness on global markets for quality coffee. They may need to diversify into other products to prevent adverse effects on their rural economies [28]. Other regions such as the Andes, East Africa and Indonesia may take advantage of new market opportunities. But they may require specific policies and strategies to ensure that expansion of coffee farmlands takes place in climatically, pedologically and ecologically suitable areas [17]. …
So even if the predictions of the report are correct, the main outcome will be some very poor countries will gain an economic opportunity. Some richer countries might have to choose between trying to breed a variety of coffee which is better suited to their climate, or growing something else.
Frankly it seems a bit of a stretch, to describe this outcome as a “catastrophe”.
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According to LinkedIn
“Peter Läderach holds an Msc in Geography and a PhD in Tropical Agriculture”.
Not sure how that makes him a “climate change specialist”, but if you agree with the Guardian you are a great scientist. If you do not agree with them you are mad or stupid.
No wonder less and less people buy the Guardian.
Quite a few Guardian readers probably drink Decaffeinated Coffee due to it’s purity and detoxification properties. Caffeine is removed from steamed coffee beans as they fall through 100 feet holding vats of pressurised man-made CO2 @ur momisugly 150psi. Draw your own conclusions.
Or coffee is decaffeinated using methylene chloride (also used to kill termites), which “destroys the ozone layer.” In the most chemically benign methods, all of the coffee “flavor compounds” are removed from the beans into a liquid, from which the caffeine is removed and the flavors are “re-infused” back into the tasteless beans. Acetone used to be a solvent of choice, now banned by the FDA. How many FDA inspectors do you think there are in “Mesoamerica?”
Drinking decaf for its purity and detoxification properties is like eating at McDnlds for their fine free-range, high omega-3 organic beef burgers.
High mountain arabica is the most flavorful and lowest caffeine coffee. The base ingredient for most of the bunker oil served by Starbucks or canned for mass consumption, is robusta – harsh flavor, very high caffeine, grown in lowland factory farms – and mixed with a little arabica for flavor, then roasted so dark that most drinkers think the natural flavor of coffee is burned nearly to charcoal.
El Salvador and Nicaragua together produce about 2,700,000 bags of coffee per year. The surrounding countries, somehow magically spared the devastation of warming, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, produce about 13,000,000. Here in Panama we are having bumper crops, the biggest ever, thanks IMHO, to the increased CO2.
“The base ingredient for most of the bunker oil served by Starbucks or canned for mass consumption, is robusta – harsh flavor, very high caffeine, grown in lowland factory farms – and mixed with a little arabica for flavor, then roasted so dark that most drinkers think the natural flavor of coffee is burned nearly to charcoal. ”
Tsk. A nice Arabica-Robusta blend, dark roasted, milled just before use for an Espresso is exactly right for me. When buying coffee I have to look out to find something that is not 100% Arabica, I can’t stand that; all the engineers, teachers and public “servants” in my quarter drink only that so the local supermarket has nearly no Robusta containing Espresso coffee bean mixes.
So if Arabica becomes scarce, color me unimpressed.
That being said you won’t find me dead in a Starbucks.
To markopanna below – decaffeinated coffee WAS made using methylene chloride, but now it is done using supercritical CO2 and has no solvent residue. And, methylene chloride does not breakdown ozone.
The ozone scare was cooked up by Dupont Chemical to get their out-of-patent refrigerant banned so that they could substitute their more expensive patented refrigerant. The “science” that CFCs breakdown ozone were a set of lies by a scientist paid to do so and then campaigned, funded, and lobbied by Dupont Chemical. Now, twenty years later, that scientist admits to making it up. It is actually nitrogen gas and solar radiation that breaks down ozone..
Most coffee, in the US at least, is decaffeinated with MCl or “Swiss” water process. Finding super-critical CO2 decaffeinated coffee is very difficult. Most importers I purchase from haven’t even heard of the process
Simply increase the price of any food stock and claim it is now scarce because of ‘global warming’.
What could go wrong?
Sort of like the peanut shortage during the Carter years.
If you can’t obtain change by reason, try emotion (fear).
And when you do make your own shocking revelation paper, remember to use the Terror Trendy alliteration CC;
Climate Change
Colony Collapse – and now;
Coffee Catastrophe
… and Climate Control
… and Carbon Credits
They have trotted this one out every year for the last several years… and it always seems to be right after yet another RECORD CROP.
Yes! Another wrong story based on wrong climate models based on warming not happening based on droughts not occurring, contradicted by record crops.
Correct. Another climate catastrophe which will not happen, but we have to wait some 40 years to invalidate this. They learned now and move their doomsday prophecies to later in the future. No longer 5-10 years time frame, that is too obvious wrong and unravels too early
Sounds like I can service my addiction for another year. 🙂
So what happens when things start to cool?
This could be a good thing. Coffee is for sissies!! Anyone who needs coffee to get their day started is a panty waste sissy!
“Coffee is for sissies!!”
Yer darn tootin’, DocWat. Everybody knows yer suppose ta start yer day with a couple o’ shots of red eye.
;o) ;o) [double winky, just in case anyone thinks I’m serious]
You weren’t? Gosh golly darn.
Arabica coffee caffeine content is typically 80-130 mg
black tea is about 40-120mg
people should simply switch to tea. Even reduce tea intake to avert caffeine addiction!
So, what’s wrong with caffeine addiction, if the was such a thing. Actually, there is no addiction, other than you might get a headache the day after ceasing caffeine intake. It is non-addictive.
There is no downside to caffeine, consumed at less than 15–20 cups of coffee’s worth per day. In pregnant women, coffee drinking correlates with miscarriages, as most women instinctively avoid protein foods and coffee when they become pregnant. The fetus is most susceptible to toxins in the early embryonic stages. A woman who does not cease coffee intake is simply a sign of a bad pregnancy.
Those are percent by dry weight figures. The amount of soluble caffeine in coffee is much higher. If you plan on eating tea leaves though…
Some persons never take NO for an answer not understand that Ad hoc isn’t a valid argument but a fallacie…
I thought latitudes of most of the countries mentioned were the least impacted by the natural climate variation that happens to be in the news these days. Coffee production will be impacted by 25% due to a 0.25C temperature difference? This guy needs to get out of the office and recognize that there’s that much temperature variance from one side of a flat field to the other based on wind direction.
Perhaps these countries should opt to grow crops that the world needs for food NECESSITIES, rather than than crops that are an OPTIONAL even luxury type of drink.
no, coffee necessity now.
Thank you, Nanny. Don’t just love progressive socialist.
When you’re up against such an idiot’s idea of what constitutes effective propaganda, you know you’re on the home straight. It’s all getting to be a bit of a larf.
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/how-to-run-a-really-bad-infowar-campaign/
Pointman
Yes, Point man. In my view of it, I believe the pig squeals the loudest when it sees the knife, and I detect an uptick in volume lately.
I agree, Pointman. There is something to be had from telling the truth (with data).
Never cared for coffee.
Mountain Dew® works for me. The tanker truck should stop by tomorrow.
Guess where the caffeine in soda comes from? You got it, coffee!
Err, isn’t there an awful lot of coffee in Brazil?
I think this is appropriate here.
That false prophet skit is a perfect illustration of what’s going on here.
I see a large price increase in the near future.
And I thought the main threat to coffee was the occasional frost.
In the UK in about 1975 the price of coffee increased massively due to a frost in Brazil. The price never went down again.
A shortage of coffee should increase prices. A winning situation for growers. Well perhaps the middlemen.
Enough is enough! I put up with a lot from the warmulists and alarmists, but I will not tolerate them threatening my coffee. Now they have a fight on their hands.
If it is war they want, then it is war they shall have. Minister, assemble the fleet!
Aye, aye, Sir!
“Coffee prices fall on bumper crop prospects in Brazil
http://www.pressreader.com/india/business-standard/20150317/…/TextView
17 Mar 2015 – Indian coffee growers are worried with bean prices dropping in the past few … that Brazil would harvest a betterthan-expected crop in 2015-16″
I fancy a cup of tea
exactly, who needs coffee when we have tea? 🙂
coffee for me in the morning, iced tea in the afternoon to beat the heat
Tea is a crutch for people who can’t handle coffee 😉
I sit here sipping my 1 1/2 pint mug of hot TEA enjoying the flavour and feeling of peace that it brings as I start a new day wondering what God will give from his bounty. And we get more and more the worlds going to end and mankind is the cause and its eradication is the only cure and I am cheered that there are so many who are here to brighten my day.
James Bull
The wamistas must be the most negative group of people I have had the misfortune to encounter. Is there no good things that may happen as a result of AGW? Oh sorry I forgot, AGW isn’t happening anyway.
The 1°C of warming from 1910 to 1998 that they blame 100% on man-made increased atmospheric CO2 has been good, not just benign.
The CO2 itself, has fed green plants:
http://www.oarval.org/CSIRO-Foliage1982-2010.jpg
http://models.weatherbell.com/tropical.php
Hurricanes are less frequent and less powerful:
http://www.oarval.org/global_running_ace31March2015OptAV.gif
http://www.csiro.au/en/Portals/Media/Deserts-greening-from-rising-CO2.aspx
“But if you look at … east African countries, you have plateaus and a lot of areas at higher altitudes, so they will lose much less.”
Oh, for some reason I think coffee production is dropping a lot more in Yemen right now than he thinks. Everything, everything, everything is not about climate change.
Add it to “The List.”
Number watch already did. Three articles dating back to 2008/9.
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
Wow! Déjà vu, all over again!
Danger, danger, Will Robinson! Can it be that all of these threats about what will occur because of CAGW are just to convince otherwise sane people to join the crusade? I mean coffee – I couldn’t live without coffee – therefore, I must support the CO2 Alarmists. Luckily, I live here in Colombia, and am enjoying a fresh cup of coffee (tinto, aqui) right now. I won’t panic right now, maybe later.
The same has been tried with chocolate too.
One sure way to scare the living daylights out the green-left-hipster-alarmist true believers – invoke a threat to the coffee supply.
So we won’t have “Arabica”. Big deal.
Two of the solutions can be:
1.To have an artificial flavor for Arabica developed before hand. After all we have artificial flavors for almost every kind of food available in our stores.(Although this wont please the connoisseurs)
2. Where are the scientists? Can’t they produce a climate resistant strain of this coffee? They should have a field day with this. Next headline “Scientists avert coffee catastrophe”.
Though I’m still not sure if it’s a coffee ‘catastrophe’. We could do a Marie Antoinette and tell them to have tea.
http://www.ayeshajamal.com
As it happens the world’s second largest coffee producer is rapidly expanding its production of Arabica in its northern highlands region, That country is Vietnam.
Sadly arabica coffee is a tetraploid. this makes selective breeding basically impossible, nevermind the fact that these are not plants being grown by American or European agribusinesses. They did sequence the robusta genome though…