Climate, Habitat Threaten Wild Coffee Species

An anonymous reader writes "BBC reports that Dr. Aaron Davis of the Royal Botanical Gardens claims 'almost three-quarters of the world's wild coffee species are threatened, as a result of habitat loss and climate change. "Conserving the genetic diversity within this genus has implications for the sustainability of our daily cup, particularly as coffee plantations are highly susceptible to climate change.'"

Comments

So let me get this straight

[dkleinsc]

A risk of Pacific island nations ending up underwater? Not a serious problem. But threaten my coffee supply and I'll take to the streets!

Something might be a bit off on the priorities there.

Re:So let me get this straight

[timeOday]

"Risk" is only intolerable when it comes to terrorism. When it comes to climate change, we require certainty. (Why, I don't know).

Re:So let me get this straight

[mhelander]

So you start by stating how rational you think the view on terrorism has been, and go on to lament that we don't (enough) apply the same hysteria to climate change?

With the current level of polemic, those who point out holes in your arguments are painted as akin to holocaust deniers, flat-earthers and creationists and now as apparently so cynical that they care more for a cup of coffee than for people who see their land go underwater.

It seems so hysterical at times that if someone tries to object to this coffee claim by pointing out that it seems likely that the coffee plant would be able to *adapt* to climate change, the way it and everyone else on this planet has been doing for quite a while, it would almost not surprise me to see him labeled a "creationist"...

Re:So let me get this straight

[homer_s]

Maybe you don't, but I certainly do.

It is the same setup as the Iraq war:
- all the experts agree
- if you don't support it, you're a terrorist
- sudden alarmism because of unrelated events (9/11 for iraq, the al gore movie for this)
- exaggerated claims (mushroom clouds vs new york under water)
- scaremongering
- ignore evidence that shows that the conclusions were assumed


I don't know much about climate or the statistics behind it. And I didn't know anything about WMDs or the intelligence business. But I know something about human motivations and in both cases, I could smell the BS a mile away.

Re:So let me get this straight

[phantomfive]

But feel free to interpret the CRU "Scandal" as you like to reinforce your own opinions.. just remember it doesn't really prove anything.

It proves there is a significant agenda on the part of some of the scientists. Maybe this wasn't a surprise to you (it shouldn't have been if you've paid attention) but it does mean they will have to demonstrate their points with evidence, they can't just say they know because they are experts. Appeal to authority is a logical fallacy when the authority has been shown to be biased.

Specifically for global warming, this is the evidence I want to see:

1) I want to see that CO2 causes the greenhouse effect (this is actually fairly well established by evidence).
2) I want to see that atmospheric CO2 is also increasing (also fairly well established)
3) I want to see that the global temperature is rising (some folks dispute this, but in fact the temperature record for the last few decades seems not unreasonable to me)
4) I want to see demonstrated that the rise in CO2 is having a significant effect on the global climate. This has NOT been demonstrated with any degree of certainty.

I've looked all over to find evidence of number 4, and I haven't seen a conclusive link anywhere. There is, on the other hand, evidence that other unknown processes in the environment are having a bigger effect on global temperature than CO2.

When people are saying we should divert massive percentages of the global economy without demonstrated exactly what the effect of reducing CO2 would be (this is another unknown; it might actually make very little difference), yeah, that counts as BS.

Re:So let me get this straight

[vadim_t]

With the current level of polemic, those who point out holes in your arguments are painted as akin to holocaust deniers, flat-earthers and creationists and now as apparently so cynical that they care more for a cup of coffee than for people who see their land go underwater.

Any holes are holes in the small details. The big picture is that retaining more heat will make things get hotter. That's about as clear as that the earth is round.

The arguments about the specifics of what exactly is going to happen, but just because somebody got some of that wrong doesn't invalidate the big picture. The weather report may be wrong about that it's going to rain tomorrow, but that doesn't disprove that it rains a lot in London.

It seems so hysterical at times that if someone tries to object to this coffee claim by pointing out that it seems likely that the coffee plant would be able to *adapt* to climate change, the way it and everyone else on this planet has been doing for quite a while, it would almost not surprise me to see him labeled a "creationist"...

Do you realize that "adaption" is a potentially very nasty process?

People talk of "adaption" as if in the case of coastal cities getting flooded people would just grow gills all of a sudden and happily live underwater.

Adaption for humans will also be a messy thing. Suppose coastal cities get flooded. Well, we'll adapt, sure, through massive migrations, massive rebuilds of architecture destroyed by floods, and massive creation of new engineering projects like levees to prevent it. We'll definitely manage. However that won't happen for free, and you're going to end up paying for it, with your taxes, for instance. Some people will pay for it with their life for not getting out of the way soon enough, or will have their enconomic situation majorly screwed up.

Other life no doubt will adapt, but that doesn't mean everything will just get used to the new conditions and otherwise stay the same. It could well mean a species we like dying off and getting replaced with some weed that doesn't mind the new conditions. Over enough time things will rebalance themselves, but not necessarily in a way we will find convenient.

Re:So let me get this straight

[jo_ham]

Well, 1 and 2 have been clearly proved - it's clear that CO2 is a very effective greenhouse gas, and that ice cores show that over the past 600,000 years or so the global CO2 concentration has varied, but remained relatively low. It's only since the industrial revolution that CO2 concentration has shot up so sharply, far, far higher than it has ever been over a timescale that makes human existence look tiny.

Knowing that high CO2 concentrations do affect temperatures, even at lab scale and we're changing the concentration in the atmosphere so drastically, do you not think it might be prudent to prevent it if we can, regardless of whether we know *for certain* that it is raising the temperature of the earth?

We have the ability to cut the levels of CO2 we emit, so it seems sensible to do so. Maybe it will all be for nothing and we later find that the earth was naturally warming anyway, but we might just find that it was the right thing to do. If we do nothing, it could be far too late.

I liken this to the widespread use of the "miracle" DDT; sure, it's a great pesticide... until we learned about accumulation in higher predators and the extreme persistence of organochlorines in the environment.

Or the use of CFCs - a fabulous set of molecules, but with a rather unpleasant effect on atmospheric ozone that wasn't discovered until later.

Decent scientists on the whole don't have agendas in the same way that oil companies, coal-burning energy companies and governments do (unless they're paid specifically to have an agenda) - it's pretty easy to spot a scientist with an agenda: just look at the research. There's a reason that peer-reviewed research carries weight - reproducible results, by different people, and even dissenting opinions.

Real scientists don;t mind you checking their data, and there is a lot of it about.

There's also a very large propaganda machine that is left over from the "more doctors smoke camels" days that is very well funded, whose sole job it is to make people with no scientific qualifications question the science - often with outright lies, or by using the terminology of science as a tool. Just look at the way the term "theory" is viewed by the general public in regard to evolution; not really understanding how science defines the term.

On the evidence I have seen, I am in the belief that human industrial processes are warming the earth and that we need to do something about it quickly before the damage is very severe. We're not going to die out, and the world isn't going to kill us all like some $100 million Micheal Bay film, but there will be some significant changes that are going to affect a large proportion of the human population if we don't work on the problem. It will likely be the poorest portion of the population in the least developed nations first of course, which is another reason why I think people just want to distance themselves from it: they just don;t think it will affect their daily life, or think it is too big to fix and thus don;t want to think about it.

Finally...

[glgraca]

man will have a true incentive que stop polluting.

There's a joke in Brazil about a lion that fled the zoo and ended up in a government building. Each day he would eat a civil servant. He was doing very well, until one day he ate the lady in charge of making coffee. Then people finally noticed something bad had happened.

Adaption

[QuoteMstr]

As Coffea arabica has shown us, in the age of man, being delicious is a very powerful adaption.

Re:Adaption

[Abcd1234]

Absolutely. It's not unlike the modern banana monoculture. As a species, the modern banana has been *very* successful, thanks to it being desirable to humans.

But monocultures are also very dangerous. By minimizing genetic variation in a population, the species becomes extremely susceptible to new types of disease, fungus, and so forth. And again, bananas teach us much, here, as there's great fear that the modern banana could end up being wiped out by disease.

Thus, protecting these heirloom species is extremely important, as it provides a pool of genetic diversity is present in the wild, providing some protection against the dangers of monoculture.

Re:Not a new warning

[ArsonSmith]

The decided that "Global Warming" changed to "Global Climate Change" you know in case it started cooling. They should just change it to "Global scary thing that affects everything you do and you need to give us money to protect you from it."

Re:Not a new warning

[Abcd1234]

Humans have adapted to be able to live everywhere.

Yeah, no kidding. But if the climate *changes*, then we have to actively adapt, and that means some people will die. Heat waves will kill some, cold snaps will kill others. Flooded coastal areas will displace some, while droughts and torrential rains will displace others. Meanwhile, crop and grazing land will be destroyed so that those who do adapt to the changes run the risk of starvation.

Will humans adapt? Sure! The sufficiently rich will move to more hospitable areas. Sufficient rich farmers will move to new cropland. But the subsistence farmers and the poor who lack the means to move will die.

But, eh, fuck them, right?