Ethiopia's Coffee Is the Latest Victim of Climate Change (theverge.com)

According to a study published today in Nature Plants, by the end of this century, increasing temperatures could make it impossible to grow coffee in about half of Ethiopia's coffee-growing regions. "That's because Arabica coffee trees (which are grown in Ethiopia) require pretty mild temperatures to survive, ideally between 59 to 75 degree Fahrenheit," reports The Verge. "Climate projections show that Ethiopia will generally become warmer and drier, and that means that 40 to 60 percent of areas where coffee is currently grown won't be suitable to grow the beans, the study says." From the report: In fact, climate change is already hurting Ethiopia's coffee growers: days and nights are already warmer, and the weather is more unpredictable and extreme. Hot days are hotter and rainy days are rainier. That leads to more unpredictable harvests and it hurts the local economy. Ethiopia is Africa's biggest coffee producer and the world's fifth largest coffee exporter, with 15 million Ethiopians living off coffee farming. Climate change risks disrupting the country's future. But there is a way Ethiopia can brace for its brewing troubles. The study found that rising temperatures will turn swaths of land at higher elevation into just the right places to grow coffee in the future. In fact, coffee farming could increase four fold if plantations are moved uphill, the study says. But to do that, the country needs to prepare: millions of farmers can't just take their crops and move to land they don't own. You need careful planning.

Comments

Re:Denier trolls will spam this article

[chipschap]

Denier trolls will spam this article with fallacious arguments against climate change.

And supporter trolls with spam this article with fallacious arguments for climate change.

Sorry, but both sides are guilty here.

The problem, in fact, is that there are "sides" in the first place. We need to let honest, non-politicized, non-agenda-driven science speak for itself.

Re:Predictable results

[hey!]

You do realize that photos like this prove nothing. You just have to choose your moment when to snap your pic. What you need to do is look at field measurements and sequences of satellite images taken regularly, all year round.

When people did that they came up with this: between 1984 and 2011, persistent snow cover extent on Kilimanjaro went down by 73%, which corresponds to a rise in the snow line of 290m.

Nobody can predict precisely when the first picture of a completely snow-free Kilimanjaro will be taken, but it will be soon. But even after that you'll be able to get pictures of a snow-covered mountain. If you google it you can find pictures of snow in Tampa Florida in 1977. It's not proof that Tampa has glaciers.