Coffee next on climate chopping-block

“Climate deniers,” just go and fetch yourself a coffee and ignore this story. For the rest of us, the news is dire: according to a study by the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, wild Arabica could be on the climate change hit list. OK, deep breaths: the cultivated stuff will still be out there. Maybe: according to the study, the …

[Khaptain]

Welcome to the future

As stock markets begin to lose their capacity to generate income, the investors will flock whole heartily to the last remaining garaunteed sourece of revenue, commodites.

I believe that in the very near future elements such as Sugar, Food Grains, Coffee, Rice etc will become the true gold. In order to increase their values a thousand excuses will suddenly become valid and all in order to make the resources "scarce".........

The "climate" boys will tell us about increasing droughts hence the lack of Grain.

The "climate" boys will tell us about increasing rough seas, lost cargos, hence the lack of Rice.

The "warmongers" will tell us about political problems in south Amercia and hence a lack of sugar..

ad infinitum.....

[Anonymous Coward]

@Khaptain

Your story seems plausible if only it wasn't for the huge reserves countries have which they can't seem to get rid of due to the low prices. Worse yet: food (components) like butter, sugar, grain which doesn't sold at auctions is simply destroyed "because". No matter how much quantity it concerns.

This is what is happening in a small country like the Netherlands so I'm pretty sure its happening on a larger scale or in other countries too.

As such: don't forget about the /huge/ overhead which we currently have yet don't use. Of course you won't find stories like these in common media, but if you look into these specific subjects (the trade between farmers and the state for example) I'm pretty sure you'll be shocked.

As such; I don't really think your story holds much truth. There's too much overhead which is currently simply destroyed without the common population even knowing about it.

Welcome to the modern financial world....

(yes; I agree this is disgusting)

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: @Khaptain

Why do you think they are "low priced"? Because of subsidies, natch...

> Worse yet: food (components) like butter, sugar, grain which doesn't sold at auctions is simply destroyed "because".

> Welcome to the modern financial world....

This is not new; food destruction "to keep prices high" was an important part of FDR's New Deal. Steinbeck, an economically illiterate fiction writer known for such works as "The Grapes of Wrath" was incensed at food destruction while people were starving. It was the evil capitalists of course...

[Eddy Ito]

Re: @Khaptain

How can you say anything unsupportive about FDR? He only strong armed the Supreme Court into deciding against Filburn because Filburn was growing wheat for personal own use. I mean what kind of capitalistic scum grows wheat for personal use instead of buying it on the broken open market when money is tight?

[Anonymous Coward]

@Destroy All Monsters

In Steinbeck's day they fed the plentiful grain produced in the US prairies into boilers to keep prices high and farmers in business. Now they call it biofuels. Go figure. As it happens, only a proportion of the produce farmers can produce should be eaten, either by us or by farm animals, or the obesity epidemic gets worse. Doesn't mean enough of it shouldn't go to places where poor people starve instead of the food being turned into renewable diesel fuel, but places where people are likely to starve nowadays tend to have wars and no good roads. (OK, the fact that in Coventry my Church is at the centre of a rapidly growing foodbank network represents bad news - the fact is some people here need charity to eat due to slowness of benefits bureacracy and lack of social/legal challenge to loan shark operations, but there's no real shortage of people donating.

[inverse137]

Re: Welcome to the future

Close...but it will actually be water.

[Aron]

What a running joke

According to said research coffee in any form didn't exist for thousands upon thousands of years during all past climatic changes. It must have only come into existence a few hundred years ago, a bit like creationist belief, just suddenly appearing in all it's caffeinated glory for Hipsters to consume today.

[Denarius]

Re: What a running joke

read a bit ol' chap.

try about 1000 years ago. Ethiopian monks got the habit from shepherds. Needed to stay awake during droning services. Bit like green pollies insisting higher costs and lower standards are good for you.

[Goat Jam]

Re: What a running joke

Excellent example of missing the point Denarius.

Cheers, before some idiot does a study that "proves" malt/hops/barley are susceptable to climataggeddon as well.

[Frank Haney]

Let them drink tea.

Or beer.

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite.

Ban coffee. Make tea compulsory.

[Charles 9]

Last I checked, quality camellia sinensis was pretty finicky about where it grows, too, like coffee.

[Bruce Hoult]

Thanks for the twitter link to the research: http://t.co/HhvDJuAk

The paper's three scenarios assume an old IPCC prediction of 1.8°C to 4°C temperature increase by 2100, which was based on the sudden increase from 1980-1998 continuing. No one believes that any more.

The actual temperature increase by 2100, if any, is much more likely to be similar to the last century overall, with its rises and falls (e.g. 1940-1980), and therefore considerably better than his "best" scenario.

Aron also raises an excellent point, that wild coffee has clearly survived for many thousands of years, and quite probably across several ice ages and interglacial temperatures warmer than today.

The Ethiopian "plateau" with altitudes from 1300m - 3000m (an 11 C temperature range at 6.5 C/km atmospheric lapse rate) would seem to provide an ideal environment for the wild plants to be able to naturally migrate upwards and downwards tracking temperature changes.

I quickly found one coffee producer in Ethiopia whose web site says they are selling wild coffee, not cultivated, growing at altitudes of 1750m - 1850m, which is below the middle of the plateau altitude range (i.e. in the colder half of the survivable climatic temperature range).

http://www.falconspeciality.co.uk/ethopia.html

[JimC]

> for the wild plants to be able to naturally migrate upwards and downwards

That presupposes, of course, that there is wild landscape for the plants to be able to naturally migrate up and down in. There I think lies the true threat: a lack of any kind of natural ecology. So it comes down to high h. sapiens population levels as being the real major ecological threat. Again.

[Chet Mannly]

Re: > for the wild plants to be able to naturally migrate upwards and downwards

"That presupposes, of course, that there is wild landscape for the plants to be able to naturally migrate up and down in.

high h. sapiens population levels as being the real major ecological threat. Again."

You have obviously never been to Africa.

If you had, you'd realise there is far more wilderness than developed land and plants migrating is already commonplace through movements of animals carrying seeds in their droppings. High population levels are a problem for the humans, not the ecosystem.

[FrankAlphaXII]

Re: > for the wild plants to be able to naturally migrate upwards and downwards

>>You have obviously never been to Africa.

Or the more "wild" parts of North or South America, Australia, Asia, or even a great deal of Eastern Europe. There are still alot of areas where there's noone.

[Goat Jam]

Re: > for the wild plants to be able to naturally migrate upwards and downwards

I read somewhere that you could relocate the entire population of Earth to Texas and still have lower population density than many existing cities thereby leaving the entire rest of the planet completely empty (apart from a modest amount of farm land and the rest would be wilderness I guess).

Not that I think that is a great idea, but it gives you a bit of different viewpoint to consider whilst getting all excited by the idea of world overpopulation.

[JeffyPooh]

Re: > for the wild plants to be able to naturally migrate upwards and downwards

Texas? That would be a laugh...

[JaitcH]

No 'coffee' shortage as long as we have Soy Beans

Who needs coffee beans to make coffee?

The Chinese, who clearly lead the world in alternate food products, with melamine in baby food, 'fruit freshener' for wilting fruits, etc., have the answer for 'coffee'.

Method: You take soy beans, now predominantly GM types, roast them until they are black, and then after soaking in the chemical mixture overnight, the soy beans are dried in an oven. When dried they are ground up, packaged and sold.

The soaking mixture is made from Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, used to make shampoo or dish-soap, toss in industrial colour powders along with Carboxymethyl Cellulose (CMC) and antibiotic Chloramphenicol.

So next time you are in your local 'bucks, or whatever, and think the coffee is dodgy, test it.

It is not difficult to differentiate between real and fake coffee in the market. Coffee is black; fake coffee contains chemicals which easily fade when ice is added while real coffee doesn’t.

[Eddy Ito]

Re: No 'coffee' shortage as long as we have Soy Beans

And some people wonder why I only buy whole bean green coffee and roast it myself. For anyone interested in giving roasting your own a try, I highly recommend it but don't waste your money on one of the expensive home roasters and get a stove top popper for under US$20 to see if it's your cup of, tea?

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: No 'coffee' shortage as long as we have Soy Beans

Are there hipsters here tonight?

Pro tip: "Ersatzkaffee" has been in existence for a long time. As for the people who are unable to distinguish the Real Stuff from the rest and pull out SCARY CHINESE, well can I say?

[Eddy Ito]

Re: Are there hipsters here tonight?

No hipsters I know of but I freely admit to being a coffee snob. I also enjoy a good mugicha but it isn't coffee even if the Italians call their version caffè d'orzo.

[jake]

@Eddy Ito (was: Re: No 'coffee' shortage as long as we have Soy Beans)

At home, I use a modified[1] "air pop" popcorn popper to roast my beans each morning. It's got a timer & tipper, so I don't even have to keep an eye on it ... On the trail, I use two cast-iron skillets ... a hot one over a campfire, and a cool one to pour the hot beans into to chill out. It was good enough for my grand fathers, and it's good enough for me. When traveling by road, I roast enough to last the trip.

Friends don't let friends drink corporate coffee.

[1]I'd provide the methodology, but I'm certain you can find a HOWTO online.

[JaitcH]

Re: @Eddy Ito (No 'coffee' shortage as long as we have Soy Beans)

@Jake:

I live in VietNam - largest coffee exporter for a year or two - and your corn popper(?) is a very interesting idea, I wish this forum had PM's.

There is an Italian coffee machine emporium here in SaiGon but the prices are nuts.

P.S. The recipe above for Soy beans is genuine, only trouble is that if you drink too much your guts will rot!

[elderlybloke]

Re: @Eddy Ito (No 'coffee' shortage as long as we have Soy Beans)

JaitcH,

Strange that you don't know Saigon is and has been for decades- Ho Chi Minh City.

[albaleo]

Re: @Eddy Ito (No 'coffee' shortage as long as we have Soy Beans)

"Strange that you don't know Saigon is and has been for decades..."

But not so strange perhaps that you don't know how it is referred to by its residents.

[Eddy Ito]

@JaitcH

My wife replaced our toaster oven because one element burned out and it wouldn't cook evenly. Being my skinflint self, I rescued it from the trash and slapped on a cheap universal grill rotisserie kit and a perforated can that fit inside to make my own small roaster. Don't be afraid to experiment an air popper isn't that different from a heat gun or hair dryer after all.

[JeffyPooh]

Re: @Eddy Ito (was: No 'coffee' shortage as long as we have Soy Beans)

"...roast my beans each morning. ..."

Who the hell has THAT much time in the morning??

That you seem to... I doff my cap. Congratulations.

[jake]

@JeffyPooh (was: Re: @Eddy Ito (was: No 'coffee' shortage as long as we have Soy Beans))

Takes no time, to speak of. The timer starts the coffee roasting, when it's done it gets pitched into a room-temperature 8 inch cast-iron skillet, which is agitated by an electric motor for a couple minutes. When I wake up, the coffee is cool enough for the milling machine. Mill coffee, start coffee-pot, feed the dawgs & house-cats, and the coffee is ready.

Batches of green coffee vary, so I have to manually calibrate & re-set the timers after watching the first couple of batches of each new 25lb bag of green coffee. The entire contraption took about eight hours to build over two days from spare parts, six or so years ago, including explaining to my eldest niece & nephew exactly what the hex-pad & 555 clock chip were for, and how they worked. It was a "lets build a kludge" learning tool for the kids, but it worked so well that after tidying up the bread-board rig & putting it into a box that the cats can't hurt themselves with, I decided to continue using it after swapping out the hex-pad for a connection to my serial statmux. I'm contemplating adding an automatic milling operation to the next version :-)

[Swarthy]

Re: @Eddy Ito (was: No 'coffee' shortage as long as we have Soy Beans)

My first roaster was a side-vent (un-modded) hot-air popcorn popper.

I am looking at modding an industrial dryer for my next upgrade. :)

[Bruce Hoult]

Re: No 'coffee' shortage as long as we have Soy Beans

I roast my own in a popcorn machine too. Green beans cost about 40% of what roasted beans cost in 200g quantity (I can't buy more otherwise it's stale before I use it), but before roasting they keep no problem for many months. It takes about ten minutes to roast a batch and it's super fresh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9_3auiT63Y

[Uffish]

Re: No 'coffee' shortage as long as we have Soy Beans

The best cup of coffee I've had in a Starbucks was in Shanghai. YMMV.

[Chet Mannly]

"62 percent of the areas now able to support it would survive – the worst-case model suggested that 97 percent of its range would no longer support the crop."

BUT climate change would mean that wild arabica would be viable in a whole host of NEW places as their climates changed top match the places they grow now - this only looks at current areas.

Its the same for the rest of the agricultural apocalypse - on a planetary scale plant growth increases, but not necessarily where things grow well now, affecting current farmers, but not the species as a whole.

[danR2]

That's only half the matter. Breeding, bioengineering, and environment-modification will far exceed any threat to the bean. If the issue is the preservation of the original plant, well, the 'original' of corn was lost long ago, and it took careful breeding of the current species to backtrack to the 'original', which is virtually useless as a foodstuff anyway.

[Destroy All Monsters]

You forget creeping socialization. Chavez for example has basically managed to kill Venezualan coffee output all by himself. Price and export controls, and voilà. No more coffee.

[Geoffrey W]

I thought we were talking about wild coffee, which doesn't take account of price and export controls, nor does it need farmers or lack of socialisation.

[AussieCanuck46]

And of course, without coffee, we could kiss goodbye to software development as well.

I just had a horiffying thought. Please don't run any article that describes how the hops crop might be in any way endangered. Never mind the effect that would have on software development, such a disaster would make existence unbearable. I'm going to have nightmares now. Thanks El Reg.

[P. Lee]

Re: And of course, without coffee, we could kiss goodbye to software development as well.

Take panadol for 3 days and you'll be fine.

Actually, better than fine. Coffee's main beneficial effect only works on the short-term and there are plenty of long term problems which it exacerbates.

[Denarius]

Re: And of course, without coffee, we could kiss goodbye to software development as well.

such as ? Nothing ever shown, despite years of hysterical Mrs Grundy whining about it. However, it does seem to have long term benefit, like reducing chances of Alzheimers .

[Charles 9]

Re: And of course, without coffee, we could kiss goodbye to software development as well.

IIRC in the history of beer, humulus lupulus was a relatively recent innovation (a little over 1,000 years old). Before that, we used a variety of botanicals as gruit. And we still experiment with non-hops gruits even today, especially in historical beers. Don't see why we couldn't try other botanicals today.

[PyLETS]

@AussieCanuck46: Re Hops

Was that Northern Brewer, Fuggles or something more southern like Goldings or Hallertauer ? The regional variation in UK ale depends upon the suitability of these hops to the local climate. Anyway, if it gets really hot, you could always use a very close relative of the hop plant in your beer instead, the cultivation of which needs more sunshine ahem... A lot more musty, not quite as bitter, and gives a somewhat more dozy high. As it happens, you can use various bitter herbs to flavour ale and improve its keeping qualities, but few are as good for the purpose as hops.

[Anonymous Coward]

Computer modeling is not the predictive aspect of science.

The predictive (or postdictive) aspect is hypothesis testing, falsifiability, and hypothesis modification/rejection.

The more entertaining rants of climatoboffin Andrew Weaver—reportedly pondering a no-doubt welcome reception with his local Green Party—and cherry-picking every horrific projected scenario possible for an ill-instructed but easily distracted press, are much further from scientific discourse.

As for the demise of consumable vegetation generally, aerocarbophilic plants (if I may coin a term) will take over the ecosystems of carbophobic species, whether bred for the same, natural-selectively arising, or bioengineered, and availability will be far less a problem than future overpopulation of the planet exceeding current caffeine-availability.

It only remains for people to be flexible in the planting and eating, and international distribution of their preferred foodstuffs, and be willing to accept bioengineering and the xenotransfer of beneficial nutrient genes (for vitamins, phytonutrients, minerals, fats, balanced proteins) from carbophobic species to carbophilic ones, etc.

And enjoy their cuppa. Because one way or another, it's gonna be around for many centuries to come.

[danR2]

Re: Computer modeling is not the predictive aspect of science.

That post was mine. Somehow the generic anonymous handle has displayed, though I was posting as danR2.

[Truthslapper]

Keep sharpening your pencils

Oh God who listens to this total bollocks?

Get ready for genetically engineered climate saving coffee

The clue is in the use of the word "hybridization"

I thought coffee was supposed to keep you awake

Guess you've got to be awake in the first place for that to work

[P. Lee]

Re: Keep sharpening your pencils

Coffee over-stimulates the nervous system, it doesn't reduce the need for sleep.

[Cartman]

Now we don't just have questionable climate models, some ecologist combines them with junk extinction models. Do you realize these idiots claim 1000s of species go extinct every year, but cannot name even ten of them? Build a big asylum in Greenland and confine the lot so they can do no more damage.

[Bob. Hitchen]

Better still Antartica. It should be ice free by their accounts. They shouldn't be given anything except the odd wind turbine and a bit of solar.

[Denarius]

Why do eco-catatrophists always assume the planet is so fragile ?

so ice and hot ages come and go and environmental equilibrium settles down. Humans harvest something, or worse, breed it and the whole of the environment collapses ? Greenies, the new jesuits , purveyors of the finest guilt imputation and management while you wait. Fun is bad, pleasure is worse etc. No doubt when the pendulum of panic merchant opinion goes back to "the ice age is coming, the ice age is coming" that somehow, coffee/rice/wheat/maize/food of choice is doomed still ? And it's all _our_ fault.

[Ron 6]

Re: Why do eco-catatrophists always assume the planet is so fragile ?

You ask "Why do eco-catatrophists always assume the planet is so fragile ? "

The simple answer is "Because that is were the money is." You have to have a urgent cause to draw in money to groups like Greenpeace, Sierra Club, or IPCC. Otherwise they go away and all those 'activists' have to work for a living.

[P. Lee]

Re: Why do eco-catatrophists always assume the planet is so fragile ?

The ecological problem is financial, not really ecological. If sea levels rise and flood London, New York and LA there will be catastrophic financial implications - all that very expensive real-estate will be lost and their owners impoverished. If the current corn fields turn to dust and the tundra to wheat, the current economic status quo will be wrecked.

That is why the sky is falling - moving property isn't possible.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Why do eco-catatrophists always assume the planet is so fragile ?

> moving property isn't possible.

Don't need to move it, just form a company based on it and sell the shares to suckers. Then buy other property somewhere else. Think of it as a form of teleportation...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Why do eco-catatrophists always assume the planet is so fragile ?

You assume that we all just sit here and let the sea levels flood the most expensive real estate in the world.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Why do eco-catatrophists always assume the planet is so fragile ?

Did you mention a downside, hang on, I'll read it again....

[Dodgy Geezer]

Re: Why do eco-catatrophists always assume the planet is so fragile ?

...because their income depends on persuading people that this is the case.

In the early 1970s their income depended on persuading people that the population was growing out of control. By the late 70s/early 80s their income came from pretending that chemicals were going to wipe out all birds and insects. During the 1990s there was a short 'nuclear winter' scare, and then they latched onto the 'Global Warming' scam, which has been hugely successful - paying the green industry billions of our money, and bringing several nations' energy industries to the brink of collapse.

I can't see why these parasites are not crushed once and for all. As the science around modeled global warming catastrophe collapses, they are already looking for new fields to infect...

[JeffyPooh]

Re: Why do eco-catatrophists always assume the planet is so fragile ?

Ah - excuse me. NYC was just flooded. One can imagine it happening again, except three feet (1m) deeper. Bad for the locals, and certainly a waste of money. But we shall survive.

What's really daft is that a reported 250,000 cars were flooded. Strange...

[entitled tb untitled]

Re: Why do eco-catatrophists always assume the planet is so fragile ?

I think you'll find it's denialists who assume that. Is it not they who assume the medieval warm period was so much hotter than today? Well they can't have it both ways, if it was that hot the climate sensitivity must be much higher than current estimates. LOL

[Goat Jam]

Re: Why do eco-catatrophists always assume the planet is so fragile ?

That has to be one of the most retarded comments I've ever seen.

I mean really, I know you climate catastrophists are not playing with a full deck and all but you really need to go bone up on the concept of cause and effect.

Just for the record, the fact that climate is proven to be naturally variable (the MWP) is not evidence that the climate is fragile, in fact it proves exactly the opposite,

[jake]

It's funny, isn't it?

Humanity is, more and more, ignoring religion. But it seems that we, as a species, need to irrationally have something to be very, very afraid of, and are thus inventing things to take religion's place. I wonder why that is? Must be a "survival of the species" thingie ...

OMFG, I DON'T UNDERSTAND IT, THEREFORE MY SHAMANS MUST BE RIGHT AND I MUST FEAR IT!!!!!!1one!!!111one!!!!

The mind absolutely boggles.

[Beau]

Re: It's funny, isn't it?

Maybe we have been fed so much nonsense about gods, and told so many fairy tails, for so long, that we are all now somehow dependent upon a degree of superstition in our lives?

[JonoClouds]

Re: It's funny, isn't it?

Fairy tales, surely.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It's funny, isn't it?

Actually, its probably the opposite.

Of course shamanism brings fear - as far as I can tell, the "pagan" religions are all about trying to manipulate, bribe or appease the gods or spirits, one of the main appeals of Christianity in Africa is the freedom from fear of evil spirits.

Christianity takes a long view and says death isn't the end. Not only that, its says no-one is good enough to please the deity, but that's ok, because the deity is willing to take the punishment instead for being evil in our place, if you want him to. Its the whole, "for god so loved the world," thing and "let not your hearts be troubled..."

Atheists on the other hand, have no hope of a better life after death, so they are justifiably averse to having anything impact their lives here and now. If this is all they've got before they sink once again into nothingness, it isn't surprising they get agitated about possible bad environment effects. They have no god who has declared that he's going to fix the mess we've made of this world and bring it back to the perfection he originally built for us.

Who has the most cause to be afraid?

[lglethal]

Re: It's funny, isn't it?

Your kidding right? You equate the folk behind climate scaremongering with Atheists?

You do realise that most Atheists are people with a scientific mind and who because of this like to look at the evidence on both sides. As such ALL of the Atheists that I know fall into the Climate Skeptic or Undecided camps. They are not the ones scaremongering.

Next you will be telling us that all bankers must be atheists because religious folk would never act immorally...

[Graham Dawson]

Re: It's funny, isn't it?

Speaking with my Christian hat on for a moment, it annoys me the number of times people invoke God as a justification for whatever bit of pseudo-scientific nonsense they're foisting on the general population (in turn to justify raising taxes and throwing more money at international NGOs who exist only to, er, justify their existence apparently).

But then I always believed God was a libertarian so I'm probably somewhat atypical. :D

Stupidity isn't limited to any particular social group - nor is wisdom and intelligence, before anyone decides to claim that group X is dumb because they do or do not believe in hypothetical concept Y.

I'm going to have some coffee.

[Steve Davies 3]

Will this see the end of 'Java'?

Ok, Coat, gone with the dregs of some nice Columbian in the pocket (Coffee you numbskulls)

{but it had to be said...}

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: Will this see the end of 'Java'?

So the next programming fad will be Chai?

[Robert E A Harvey]

Sod the coffee

what about Camellia sinensis?

[Thought About IT]

Shoot the messenger

Well, if Orlowski and his pals at the GWPF succeed in shutting down the BBC for daring to report the facts about climate change, the risk to coffee will disappear!

[Denarius]

Re: Shoot the messenger

BBC reported facts ? I thought that was one of its problems. Lost a manager recently over a failure to report facts, didn't it? And BBC managment won't say who their climate experts are. Makes one a bit suspicious, unless one is a True Believer.

[Thought About IT]

Re: Shoot the messenger

The GWPF argue that they cannot reveal their donors because it would put them at risk, but if the BBC revealed these names, the GWPF would be all over them like a rash, with FOI demands. Hypocritical, or what!

[JimC]

Re: Shoot the messenger

At a risk of going horrendously off topic I note that two weeks ago the BBC was (IMHO wrongly) castigated *for not* broadcasting a programme because they didn't have robust evidence that all the allegations in it were true. This week they're being (IMHO rightly) castigated *for* broadcasting a programme in which they didn't have robust evidence that the allegations in it were true.

People need to accept that criminal investigation is not and cannot be an exact science. If you never want an innocent person to be damaged then a hell of a lot of guilty people are going to get away with it, or alternatively if you never want a guilty person to get away you are going to convict a hell of a load of innocents.

[Marco van de Voort]

Robusta, Chicory anyone?

The prospect of drinking Robusta your whole life isn't terribly attractive ;-)

Or worse, chicory.

[Anonymous Coward]

the globalists plan to cut off coffee supplies

and starve the libertarians out under pretenses of going to environmental re-education camps.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not in my lifetime

True or false, I won't be around long enough to see this scenario play out. If it is true, I hope it also happens to coca and opium.

[Dropper]

Vending machines

Coffee will never run out.. vending machines and Starbucks have been artificially creating the stuff for decades. At the back of every store and machine I fully expect to find Eddy the shipboard computer creating a substance almost, but not quite, entirely unlike coffee.

[koolholio]

Nooooo

*Clings onto his Costa branded coffee tin*

*holds onto his beloved starbucks and Arabica java's*

Criminal!!!

[jake]

Re: Nooooo

Tinned coffee?

Starbucks???

Heathen!!!

[bag o' spanners]

chickory dickery

Once upon a time, it was quite legal to blend low grade coffee with chickory. It not only tasted disgusting (a bit like freeze dried granule zombie coffee), but turned out to be quite hazardous to health. If you're going to drink coffee for the hit, giving it fancy names and throwing milk at it will only hasten the demise of the Arabica bean. Robusta is the low altitude variety that just gives you a sticky taste in the throat instead of the gorgeous crystal meth Arabica tilt, and a desire to pop open the Gold Blend and stirr in some sodium aluminosilicate and hot water and have another cup and another until you take on the appearance of a lizard creature. (it sez here)

[Anonymous Coward]

Common coffee commoners

Coffee? Blurg!

[JimFromCdn]

PANIC???

For all the people who are worried about all the "maybe's" in your article, have no fear! We in Canada will plant all the coffee, palm, coconut, banana's in our vast arctic. While many out there are running around pointing fingers and playing "Chicken Little" about the issue and who is to blame; the intelligent people out there have been preparing for the new world we (well our grandchildren) will be living in! Why are so many people surprised about this fact? When I was a child, I was taught that the dinosaurs roamed a hot, moist paradise here in Canada, as well as around the world! Then a comet/asteroid crashed into this tropical rain forest and started an ice-age. So much for the dinosaurs! But luckily, the earth has been warming up ever since! So what's the fuss about? Let's get at it; start figuring out what the issues are (the real issues, not who's to blame) and what do we need to do as a species to survive! The great thing about humans is that we are the best species at adapting to change! We are one of the few that can modify (to some extent, we're not Gods!) our enviroment. So, no more fear-mongering, blaming, panicing; let's get to work! We shall survive!!!

[Agincourt]

Personally I find the weather to be getting slightly colder, NOT slightly warmer - consequently needing to wear warm clothes longer than I used to 15 - 20 years ago!

As for coffee, if you've ever been in coffee plantations you'd know that global warming (if it ever actually happens) would help the coffee beans grow faster & perhaps in greater numbers, & - most important of all - would ripen faster. So the global warming scammers are spreading a double falsehood here - firstly that there is & will be global warming, when the opposite is happening, & secondly that if it really does occur it will be detrimental to coffee when in fact would be likely to be helpful. God - these global warming scammers are dishonest!

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone actually take the time to read the 'research' from the link here? (Author of the article is excluded of course, journos don't read or fact check.)

The title of the 'research' : The Impact of Climate Change on Indigenous Arabica Coffee (Coffea arabica): Predicting Future Trends and Identifying Priorities. One word that shouldn't be there, 'predicting'.

First sentence of the Abstract: 'Precise modelling of the influence of climate change on Arabica coffee is limited; there are no data available for indigenous populations of this species.' Predicting from no data. I guffaw loudly at this 'science'.