Why a Coffee Blogger Is Writing About Climate Change on Earth Day

Hanging on the wall above my son's desk is a page torn from some magazine late last year. It shows a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup with one bite out of it, and in big yellow letters it declares:

Stop Global Warming Now

Below it, in smaller letters, it adds:

or all the Reeses will melt.

I've always joked that it's The. Best. Reason. Ever. to support efforts to fight global warming - and that's like, the last time you'll see me use that phrase to describe what's happening to our environment. Because it's really not about warming - and using the phrase "global warming" makes it way too easy for dimwits to point at things like snow in Orlando as proof that climate change theories are, forgive the pun, all wet. It's really not about the whole Earth getting warmer. It's about the effect that carbon emissions and greenhouse gasses have on our Earth's climate as a whole.

And apparently, one of the first things that may be affected - actually IS already being affected - is coffee production. Now, tell me that something is going to affect my coffee, and you've got my attention. So when I read a while back that climate change appears to be affecting the coffee crop - all the way around the world - it really made me sit up and take notice.

Why Coffee is a Canary for Climate Change

Image credit: Morocco@stock.xchang (http://sxc.hu/morocco)Apparently, coffee is kinda like the canary they used to use in the coal mines to signal that the air was getting dangerous out there. Remember the canary? Miners would bring a caged canary into a new coal seam because canaries are exceptionally sensitive to methane gasses. If the canary stopped singing, it meant that the air was getting dangerous to breathe. If the canary keeled over, it was time for the miners to get the heck out of the mine.

Coffee is a lot like that. Coffee bushes require very specific growing conditions. That's why coffee really only grows in a small band that wraps right around the Earth's equator. In order to flourish and produce healthy harvests, coffee bushes need very well-defined wet and dry seasons, and temperatures that stay within a fairly narrow range. Even the smallest variations of those factors can drastically affect the coffee crop in a given year. When those changes start accumulating, the effects can be drastic. One report released in 2006 suggested that by the year 2020, for instance, coffee production will no longer be economically viable in Veracruz, Mexico, one of the larger regions for Mexican coffee production.

Meanwhile, there have been reports that the coffee crops are being affected by climate change in Brazil, Uganda and Costa Rica. Higher and/or lower temperatures, changes in rainfall and "violent weather effects" like hurricanes all take their toll on coffee crops. It also makes a difference when a change of climate makes conditions more comfortable for diseases and pests that affect coffee plants.

“Increases in the frequency of dry cycles that reduce the effect of cold on plants could favor the proliferation of fungus like the leaf rust coffee fungus,” said Patricia Ramirez, a scientist working for inter-governmental Central American Integration System. (Rising Tide North America)

The thing is - this isn't just about coffee. It's certainly not just about the fact that my favorite kinds of coffee may get rarer and more expensive - even though they probably will. It's not even about the fact that climate change could conceivably economically devastate the millions of farmers who depend on coffee production for their livelihood - even though it will. It's more about the fact that when we talk about climate change today, we're not talking about "Saving the Earth for Our Children" - not any more. We're talking about something that affects us right here, right now, today.

Coffee is the canary, people. And the air is getting a little harder to breathe in here.

Deb writes regularly about coffee and environmental issues at Coffee Break Today and about political issues affecting women at Not My Mother's Blog.