Coffee lovers everywhere, get ready to brace yourselves as we have some pretty awful news for you.
We are in the midst of a coffee shortage which is so severe that there’s a strong chance that our beloved beverage, that makes it easier to face a stressful workday, could become extinct in our lifetimes if global warming continues to worsen.
Yeah, you heard us right. A stroll down to Starbucks could soon be a thing of the past as a new report by the Climate Institute of Australia claims that by 2080 wild coffee could go extinct.
By 2050 it’s predicted that half of the world’s area deemed suitable for growing coffee will be lost.
Apparently this is happening because the quickly warming world is causing extreme weather, such as heavy rain and intense drought, and therefore making it much harder to grow coffee in coffee-growing hubs such as Central America and South America.
They also have to contend with the aftermath of such disasters, with plants becoming infected with fungi, and contending with coffee berry borer and coffee leaf rust.
So it’s safe to say that global coffee chains are freaking the fuck out.
Speaking to Business Insider, Green Coffee and Corporate Relations Partner at Lavazza, Mario Cerutti, said:
We have a cloud hovering over our head. It’s dramatically serious. Climate change can have a significant adverse effect in the short term. It’s no longer about the future; it’s the present.
It’s believed that unless the world can limit warming to the 1.5-2 degree Celsius rise, which was set as a goal at the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement, this terrifying prediction could become a reality.
Ultimately, this is a serious situation and one worth paying attention to now, before problems get much worse over the coming years.
