Could Your Coffee Disappear

This video story speaks for itself:
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/coffee-bean-supply-threatened-global-warming-17692193

Another "Global Warming" help Al Gore get ruch scheme

Though I'm retired from my career as a coffee buyer I still follow the trade and scientific research and unfortunately this is a serious story. The "good news" as the video points out is no one alive today will be around when wild coffee goes extinct.

Meanwhile, here's hoping we get serious about dealing with global warming (not a "scheme" but a fact). Plus, we've got a lot of great coffee available locally, so let's enjoy and support our great local roasters.

Check out how much of the world Banana market is one variety. One virus,
whatever and Bananas are gone. Can't we save the DNA and seeds for
the wild coffee??

Z

Yes, but it's a question of money and politics of course. Still given the stakes you can be sure that strains that can handle a warmer world will be bred. Here's a follow-up artcile by NY Times columnist Oliver Strand that clarifies the situation and is far more worthwhile than the original piece:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/13/coffee-not-dead-wild-ethiopia?INTCMP=SRCH

coffeeguy wrote:Yes, but it's a question of money and politics of course. Still given the stakes you can be sure that strains that can handle a warmer world will be bred. Here's a follow-up artcile by NY Times columnist Oliver Strand that clarifies the situation and is far more worthwhile than the original piece:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/13/coffee-not-dead-wild-ethiopia?INTCMP=SRCH

Any organization to help save the DNA and seeds for things like this??? I know
A seed storage facility is somewhere in Northern Europe.

Z

Yes, and in fact one of the big repositories for coffee genetic material for this purpose is in Coatepec in the coffee-growing area of Veracruz. And of course you can bet the big companies (e.g. Nestlé, Kraft, Starbucks) already have 50 and 100 year plans in place to deal with climate change.

sundown wrote:Another "Global Warming" help Al Gore get ruch scheme

When you can get waterfront property in Arizona, you may become a believer.

BTW, Al started life "ruch" already.

gringal wrote:

sundown wrote:Another "Global Warming" help Al Gore get ruch scheme

When you can get waterfront property in Arizona, you may become a believer.

I think that would be on the morning of December 22.............jaja.

[quote="coffeeguy"]Though I'm retired from my career as a coffee buyer I still follow the trade and scientific research and unfortunately this is a serious story. The "good news" as the video points out is no one alive today will be around when wild coffee goes extinct.

That´s good to know. I suggest we stop worrying about the disppearance of wild coffee since we´ll all be dead when it happens and worry about the endangered "RC Cola and a Moon Pie", a fine old southern U.S. tradition. Mass media and intrusive Yankee and Canadian immigration into the Deep South as these folks seek warmer climes and better food are trends that have not only endangered this historic regional feast but Tom´s Peanuts in Coca Cola and Nehi Big Orange with Spam Sammiches on Wonder Bread and Bama Mayonnaise as well. We southerners may have to send contingents of our folks to Quebec (in the summer only) to disdain poutine and Illinois to crowd rural bars and refuse to snack on deep fried zuchinni while swilling beer. Without poutine, half the cardiologists in Quebec will go under for lack of business and in Illinois, countless thousands of acres of farm land given over to zuchinni cultivation ever since beer was invented will lie fallow. Hick bars, which provide the basis for almost all economic activity in rural Illinois, will go out of business and unemployment will skyrocket from Matoon to Belleville.

As for coffee, we should all make like people in Southern Mexico where only urban snobs drink fancy coffee and all others drink Nescafe Freeze Dried Coffee with Cremora. There is reason to believe that a shortage of coffee or dairy products will not affect the production of Nescafe and Cremora and, after a while, you get used to them just as have the folks in rural Oaxaca and Chiapas where you couldn´t find a real cup of coffee if your life depended on it. When on the road down there, I carry my own coffee and brewer.