There is pretty bad news for all coffee-addicts and java devotees: Coffee is going extinct.
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What You Need to Know:
The Arabica coffee plant, the source of all bushes on coffee farms, is expected to go extinct within the next century. Researchers from the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, recently found that global warming is having disastrous effects on the plant. The “bioclimatically suitable localities” (places where the plant can grow) are decreasing like crazy. Within just a few years, the places that are sufficient for wild coffee growth are expected to decrease anywhere from 65-100 percent.
Even though this total wipe-out of coffee is not drastically near, we can already see the implications reflected today. Coffee prices are currently at the highest point they have been at in 34 years, due to poor harvest conditions as a result of global warming.
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Is There Any Hope?
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The mountains of East Africa provide the best environment for the coffee plant to grow, and they are being hit pretty hard by the ramifications of global climate change.
Fortunately, researchers were able to find a few new areas that could hypothetically provide a similarly beneficial habitat. They have determined that areas such as the Yayu Forest in Ethiopia, will most likely be able to serve as “long term storehouses for coffee genetic resources.” While these new locations do serve as a hopeful solution for many worriers, there is a lot more that can be done to impede the extinction of coffee.
What You Can Do:
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The key to keeping coffee around is simple: do your part to impede the effects of global warming. Global warming is not only affecting our environment in disastrous ways but now it has really hit home with its attack on coffee. Although stopping global warming entirely is a little bit of an ambitious goal all on your own, doing your part and becoming conscious of how you treat the planet is a great way to start.
We all know some of the more basic tasks when it comes to saving the planet — reduce, reuse, recycle, try to carpool whenever you can, turn off the lights, etc. To get some extra ideas, check out this list of 35 ways that you can do your part to stop global warming.
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Even though the extinction of coffee is not set to take place until 2080, it is important that we all do out part now and #SaveThePlanet and more importantly, #SaveTheCoffee.