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Purple_Passion000 t1_jbp2c99 wrote

The cheaper, more bitter robusto bean (really a fruit pit) is more tolerant of varied growing conditions than the mellower, more expensive Arabica. From what I understand there is significant research going on to develop a variety that marries the flavor profile of Arabica with the hardiness of robusto. I hope it works.

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Am__I__Sam t1_jbqn1zl wrote

> I hope it works.

Same. I don't even want to think about the effect coffee going extinct would have on society.

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Wizardof_oz t1_jbpxgso wrote

There are also other wild species of coffee that grow in warmer conditions and are close in flavor to arabica. Don’t know why they haven’t been domesticated yet

It’s called C. Stenophylla

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wolfkeeper t1_jbrqm7q wrote

It is domesticated, and has excellent flavor, but it's less productive, the beans tend to be smaller. For a long while it was thought to be extinct, but somebody found some samples that were growing wild and are now growing it. On the upside, it grows at much lower altitudes and is heat tolerant.

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Purple_Passion000 t1_jbtn56i wrote

Sounds like it might be promising with a little genetic tweaking to increase yield.

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wolfkeeper t1_jbtp6gz wrote

Maybe, but coffee genetics is complex. There's lots and lots of varieties, but most of them make pretty awful coffee. Maybe if they can work out which genes make it heat tolerant they could transfer them to arabica.

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Discount_gentleman t1_jbpghjx wrote

Finally, people will start to care

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Ineedtwocats t1_jbpi4v1 wrote

nah, coffee is a trillion dollar business.

if anything, the corporations will just start growing in massive greenhouses

profit above all else

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Spocks-Nephew t1_jbpr0af wrote

Agreed. If my shares don’t pay decent dividends, I will move my money elsewhere.

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ILikeNeurons t1_jbo78v3 wrote

This might be a good time to mention that I used MIT's climate policy simulator to order its climate policies from least impactful to most impactful. You can see the results here.

Climate change is not going to solve itself without action from the masses, things will continue to get worse.

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smaller_god t1_jbp8jdv wrote

I don't like putting it all at the feet of the masses.

I've talked with people across the political spectrum. Most people have a sense that this is serious, not just climate change denialism, but we're not the ones with the power to change things.

Shifting to sustainability does not have to entail massive quality of life sacrifice for everyone. In fact as we increase our green spaces, build smarter-greener cities and towns (looking at you, US suburbia) , collective quality of life can go up.

But shifting to sustainability does require changes to power structures and the divisions of wealth. It requires some industries to give up some of their massive profits, or even go out of existence. Most people are pretty OK with this of course but the few with the extreme power and wealth majorities are obviously not.

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Test19s t1_jbppowr wrote

My grim intrusive thoughts are that we’re heading into an era of complex problems (the climate, regulating and taming capitalism, public health, public infrastructure) that require collective action and likely require more cohesive nation-states than most of the world has available to them, a huge shift from the prior 75 years and one that could prove devastating to regions like the Americas with low-cohesion, high-diversity histories. I don’t want to die and be buried in Planet Nazbol.

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27-82-41-124 t1_jboly15 wrote

I’m sure this is probably obvious to most, but why couldn’t coffee be grown in a greenhouse that simulates the necessary conditions? I know coffee plants must mature for several years but still.

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lyam23 t1_jbomslh wrote

No doubt it could, but the scale of coffee production world wide could likely not be sustained through such measures. At least in the near term.

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Shyriath t1_jbone6z wrote

I don't imagine that there's any technical reason why you couldn't do that, but I'd imagine that building and maintaining enough greenhouses for one of the world's major commodity crops would not be cheap.

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CCPMustGo t1_jbozd9s wrote

A prediction has been made. Any wagers?

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StraightsJacket t1_jbrinr7 wrote

If temperatures keep rising. My area will become perfect climate for coffee plants

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beltalowda_oye t1_jbr6wkv wrote

If climate change itself won't finish us off, the scarcity of coffee most assuredly will.

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trickster199 t1_jbs6naw wrote

NO! We have to stop letting these company pretend like there are shortages while making record profits.

We have to squash this "eggflation" like tactic.

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tehfly t1_jbsd6ib wrote

I'm not saying this is a false narrative, absolutely not.

I am saying this is starting to feel like old news and that this type of a headline has been used for a longer time to stir up fear-based sales.

Climate change is about to mess everything up - including coffee production. But considering how often we've heard about this already - and done nothing - I don't really have high hopes that this is going to change much.

Here's just a sample of what I've seen over the years:

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noCure4Suicide t1_jbsiwdu wrote

“Fear based sales” What does this mean and what does it look like? Are you expecting people to go out and buy lifetimes of coffee due to this research? As more research is done and the argument is made stronger, shouldn’t we have a source to read this data and information? Not everything is sensationalism - especially when it’s primary research paper as this is.

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cumballs09 t1_jc3gctz wrote

meteor hurtling towards earth

"this will surely affect global coffee production"

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