Climate Change Could Drive Coffee To Extinction By 2080

Hugh Pickens writes "Coffee is the world's favorite beverage and the second-most traded commodity after oil. Now Nick Collins reports that rising global temperatures and subtle changes in seasonal conditions could make 99.7 per cent of Arabica-growing areas unsuitable for the plant before the end of the century and in some areas as soon as 2020. Even if the beans do not disappear completely from the wild, climate change is highly likely to impact yields. The taste of coffee, a beverage of choice among Slashdot readers, will change in future decades. 'The worst case scenario, as drawn from our analyses, is that wild Arabica could be extinct by 2080,' says Justin Moat. 'This should alert decision makers to the fragility of the species.'" Read more, below. Hugh Pickens continues: "Arabica is one of only two species of bean used to make coffee and is by far the most popular, accounting for 70 per cent of the global market, including almost all fresh coffee sold in high street chains and supermarkets in the US and most of Europe. A different bean known as Robusta is used in freeze-dried coffee and is commonly drunk in Greece and Turkey, but Robusta's high caffeine content makes it much less pleasant to most palates. In some areas, such as the Boma Plateau in South Sudan, the demise could come as early as 2020, based on the low flowering rate and poor health of current crops. The researchers used field study and 'museum' data (including herbarium specimens) to run bioclimatic models for wild Arabica coffee, in order to deduce the actual (recorded) and predicted geographical distribution for the species. 'Arabica can only exist in a very specific pace with a very specific number of other variables,' says Aaron Davis, head of coffee research at the Royal Botanic Gardens. 'It is mainly temperature but also the relationship between temperature and seasonality – the average temperature during the wet season for example.'"

Comments

Re:Why coffee? Why not beer?

[SirJorgelOfBorgel]

If you don't drink coffee, you feel the same in the morning as somebody who does drink coffee - after they've had their morning cup.

Finally plausible

[Darri]

At last there's a plausible cause for a zombie apocalypse.

Unlikely

[rossdee]

Even when the climate changes, there will still be some areas suited to the growing of coffee, and since it is popular, people will try to grow it in those locations.
Also there will be incentive to genetically modify it so it can grow in more places.

Of course there may not be enough to go around, but it won't be gone altogether.

OTOH species that live in really cold climates (like polar bears) will go extinct because there won't be any really cold places left.
(And polar bears are not as useful to man as coffee)

Re:Unlikely

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

(And polar bears are not as useful to man as coffee)

Actually they have a very important use. They eat the people who count polar bears and tell us their population is declining.

Re:Unlikely

[hey!]

The problem is *terroir*. Consider a wine grape from Burgundy. Grow it in Sonoma County and it will produce a different wine, albeit with some similarities. Modern oenology allows mass produced wines to achieve consistency even in "bad" years, so climate change is not going to have much effect on a cheap mass produced table wine, short of total collapse in production. Far before your $20 bottle of chardonnay becomes hard to find, many small craft wineries producing maybe 5000 bottles of high end wine will go out of business. The expertise needed to run them won't necessarily migrate to the new ideal areas for cultivation, if they exist, and even if the expertise does move it won't be producing the same wines.

Similarly you aren't going to see any climate driven change in the taste of a cup of Maxwell House, although prices may rise or fall depending on how climate change affects supply. For example if climate change makes growing arabica beans unprofitable in some regions, those regions might start to plant the hardier and cheaper C. robusta. The result may be cheaper supermarket coffee. Or not.

What you are more likely to lose are certain high end varietal coffees like Ethiopian Harrar (my personal favorite) that are grown in areas which are vulnerable to changes in climate. It is possible (although not certain) that ideal conditions for coffee may appear in other places to compensate for the loss of current varietal coffee plantations, but it will take years, possibly decades to find these places and develop an international market and reputation for their product.

More over-the-top scare mongering

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus H. Fucking Christ, and we wonder why way too many people pooh-pooh climate change claims.

"Global" temperature has not changed in 15 years.

[Anonymous Coward]

NOAA and other reports have already stated that global temperature has no changed in 15+ years of monitoring. There are some warming trends in the northern hemisphere, but there are cooling trends in the southern hemisphere. Ice levels at the north pole are shrinking, but Antarctic ice levels are setting new records highs. There has been zero net change globally.

Call me when Diet Coke is endangered

[Andy Prough]

then I'll start bicycling to work.

One of the sillier FUD articles

[argStyopa]

Look at a map of the world.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that as agricultural regions shift poleward even slightly, the amount of arable land favorable to crop-growing will greatly increase.

Moreover, I recall from the 1970s concerns that the breadbasket areas of the US were going to be 'exhausted' by the intensive farming (which hasn't happened, but let's go with it)...warming of the climate, shifting optimal growing regions northward in the US will essentially 'open' virgin lands barely farmed for more intensive processes like multiple crops per year. One would suspect that as some particular, marginal soil fades from viability to grow a specific species of coffee, others will be discovered.

To suggest it's going to be "extinct" is just FUD like claiming redheads will be extinct....something so obviously tragic that everyone will be "inspired to action" without really thinking about it.

Solution: technological progress

[nomad-9]

About disappearing stuff, like oil, coffee, etc. Necessity is the mother of invention, and the necessity to have something in place of what is poised to disappear, will drive new technological breakthroughs to meet market need.

By 2080, we'll probably have the technology to mass-produce artificial coffee, as no serious entrepreneur will ignore the potential for profit with the millions of caffeine-starved coffee drinkers looking for a substitute beverage.

Of course, before that, the increasing rarity of coffee will drive prices high, natural coffee will become a luxury, and some will make big bucks.

As for other things still found in the wild right now, natural coffee will be a thing of the past. The following generations will have no notion of it. Eating & drinking entirely artificially-produced products will be the definition of normality, Sad but true. As for coffee lovers like myself, there's a bright side: most of us will be dead by 2080.

Wild arabica was always rare

[G3ckoG33k]

"Wild arabica is already quite rare."

Wild arabica was always rare. :)

This is why it took until the last centuries until we had a global production of coffee even if it has been known for millennia.

Will the climate change make it dissappear? Probably not, but at least make it rare enough to preclude further harvesting.

Here's a link to the paper

[pnot]

Here's the paper. What's the fucking point in open access if nobody bothers linking or reading the research?

Five links in the summary, NOT ONE OF THEM TO THE FUCKING PAPER THAT REPORTED THE RESEARCH. Naturally the Telegraph article doesn't link to it either. Apologies for shouting, but this really fucks me off. Yeah, I know, if I hit the fourth link in the summary, there's another link three screens down that page which would take me to the article. Whoopee.

Would it have killed The Telegraph, Hugh Pickens, or Timothy to do us this small courtesy? As it is, the Telegraph sensationalizes the abstract, Slashdot sensationalizes the inaccurate Telegraph article, and 1000 idiots then argue about completely irrelevant points suggested by free-association from the title, because they couldn't be arsed to read the summary.

Henceforth I shall be tagging these stories "wheresthefuckingpaper".

Sorry I'm so grumpy folks, haven't had my coffee yet :-). I'm off to read the paper now -- why not join me?

Re:Here's a link to the paper

[Frosty Piss]

Would it have killed The Telegraph, Hugh Pickens, or Timothy to do us this small courtesy?

Hugh Pickens is the reincarnated Roland Piquepaille , and as "old-timers" know, Roland was primarily interested in pimping his blog, as is Hugh. A linky to the actual paper would drop that click-through, and thus blog popularity and profit.

We could use tea as a replacement

[prefec2]

The IT industry, teachers, researchers and may more depend on their morning dose of coffee. When that is gone, this will be the end of the Western civilization. However, we could adapt to tea. Tea has a wider range of flavors than coffee so it is not necessary to invent all these untasteful coffee mixtures, which only exist to give people who have not to make many decisions every day, a chance to do so, by answering 5 questions to get a coffee. However, we still have subway and can make seven decisions until we get to the food.

However, we most likely do not need any coffee by 2080, because our industry will be crashed for good, as they do not want to adapt to the necessities of reality. Then we will all sit at home without jobs. I do not need coffee to cry in my pillow. It is contra-productive to drink coffee and stay in bed. So, no big deal when there is no coffee anymore.

Re:Why coffee? Why not beer?

[budgenator]

Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy, Coffee is proof he wants us to be productive and have enough money to buy more beer.

Not Really: New Areas?

[Roger W Moore]

One of the things that the article does not seem to mention is any study of areas which will become suitable for growing Arabica beans. All they seem to study are the existing locations. As the climate shifts new areas will open up. For example vineyards are becoming more feasible in the south of England due to climate change. So before I'll believe that coffee is endangered I'd want to see a study confirming that there will be no new areas that are becoming more suitable for coffee growing.

Re:Not Really: New Areas?

[phantomfive]

What are you, Canadian?

The most fun people to talk to about global warming are Russians. It's hilarious. First they (in general) impassionately deny that it's happening, that it's a conspiracy, etc. As you rationally show the scientific evidence, they get more and more animated and excited about the topic, to the point where they say, "I don't care if global warming is happening, I want a warmer Russia!!"

Living in the frigid north does things to you.

Re:We'll run out of oil by the year 2000.

[theshowmecanuck]

Didn't read the other articles I guess. They meant metres. As in altitude. You can only go up so far before you run out of mountain. Plus there is this funny physical trait of them being kind of conical... surface area seems to get less as you go up. Might not be able to just move to another mountain because it may not have suitable daylight or rain (probably more study needed).

Evolution is a bitch, and these plants evolved to grow with certain environmental conditions including seasonal changes and moisture. That also leaves out things like symbiotic relationships with other animals like insects, bacteria, mammals, etc. While I am no evolutionary biologist, I would hazard a guess that 50 years is a bit short to for it to adapt too much. But who knows, maybe they can be treated like grapes and moved somewhere else. As long as it doesn't cause some sort of invasive species issue or something equally negative with bringing in non-native plants to another country.

I know of a possible parallel in vanilla, but it was back in the day when the idea of 'invasive plant species' was not known or understood. Vanilla originated in Mexico. It is actually from the orchid family and took a few centuries for someone to finally figured out sometime in the 19th century how to grow it successfully (i.e. on a commercial scale) outside of Mexico. Granted it wouldn't have taken so long to figure out today, but I think the analogy still holds up if not in an accelerated form. IIRC Madagascar is where most comes from today though some people say that the best still comes from Mexico. Maybe it's a good thing they broke Mexico's lock on vanilla so long ago. Otherwise we would have had even more deadly vanilla gangs and vanilla massacres. We dodged a bullet on that one.