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

[plopez]

They're not fallacious. It has been evidence based since at least the 1970's. I remember discussing greenhouse gases in my HS Chemistry class.

Warmer climate means less extreme weather, not mor

[SuperKendall]

A warmer climate means LESS extremes in weather, because as the temperature grows more water vapor enters the system and it acts on a damper (ha!) for really extreme weather.

So far we have witnessed that first hand, being in an epic lull in terms of major hurricanes hitting the U.S..

It is so sad to see so many be taken in by such obvious fear-mongering, devoid even of what little real science we do know describes how the Earth works in reality... dry portions of the earth are not caused by heat, they care caused by local weather patterns that scrub moisture from the air before it reaches an area. The Antarctic even has a desert after all...

And as mentioned - why even fear anything when it means Ethiopia could simply shift where it grows the crops?? This is what I really don't get about fear mongering, the inability to realize just how good humans are at dealing with change, never mind change that takes place slowly over decades or centuries... why are you so scared of warming? The only thing there ever was to fear was runaway warming and we can see plainly that's not happening (requiring 10 times more CO2 than is currently in the atmosphere, even as countries are gradually ramping down emissions as the increase use of solar power...).