Say it ain’t so, Joe
Steven L. Taylor
·
Thursday, November 15, 2012
·
9 comments
Via the CBC: Coffee beans in danger of extinction
That’s the warning behind a new study by U.K. and Ethiopian researchers who say the beans that go into 70 per cent of the world’s coffee could be wiped out by 2080.
The only saving grace: the odds that I will live to 112 are rather slim.
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
Follow Steven on
Twitter
I doubt. I have a coffee tree in the garden, and since I don´t collect the beans there are little coffee trees growing in the ground, like weed. It´s a pretty resistant and easy plant.
@Andre Kenji: Yeah, but this report is probably based on global warming research, which trumps anything that anybody knows about coffee–including the possibility that it will migrate to places better suited for it’s propagation.
If you look into the details, the original report was discussing the distinction of wild coffee plants, and the media is sensationalizing the story by acting as though they were discussing domesticated coffee plants. It’s like worrying about how the beef industry will be impacted by the loss of the aurochs.
Lol, looking at the title I thought this post was gonna be about another Biden gaffe.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”
“[T]he odds that I will live to 112 are rather slim.” Depends how much coffee you drink…
@ptfe: Good point!
Will the bananas we are used to die off first? Per Wikipedia, “While in no danger of outright extinction, the most common edible banana cultivar Cavendish (extremely popular in Europe and the Americas) could become unviable for large-scale cultivation in the next 10–20 years. Its predecessor ‘Gros Michel’, discovered in the 1820s, suffered this fate. Like almost all bananas, Cavendish lacks genetic diversity, which makes it vulnerable to diseases, threatening both commercial cultivation and small-scale subsistence farming. Some commentators remarked that those variants which could replace what much of the world considers a “typical banana” are so different that most people would not consider them the same fruit, and blame the decline of the banana on monogenetic cultivation driven by short-term commercial motives.”
Mr. Coffee Nerves can never die. Joemen.