Rising temperatures and disrupted rainfall are putting our arabica plant in danger.
Photo by Flickr user Jen.
We did it, humans. We screwed it up big time. “Climate change is real!” they said. And you ignored the warnings. “We need to reduce carbon emissions!” they implored. And you kept on driving that monstrous, gas-guzzling pick-up truck. I hope you’re happy, because your extreme negligence of the earth may have cost us the only legal drug capable of getting us to wake up in the morning: coffee.
In a study published by International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), researchers say that increasing temperatures and disrupted rainfall patterns are putting the arabica plant, which accounts for 70 percent of the global coffee market, at extreme risk. If the trajectory of climate change persists, coffee-producing countries like Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Colombia will experience a massive reduction in coffee crops in the coming years.
“For me, it all says brace yourselves for higher prices,” said one analyst to the Guardian. “The only glimmer on the horizon is the ability to change the coffee plant so that it produces decent coffee and yields under a climate-constrained environment.”
In other words, the coffee apocalypse cometh. Hold on tight to your mug of $5 third-wave drip coffee.
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