Just two days after Climate Realism debunked recently published false claims in the Minneapolis Star Tribune that climate change is “devastating” Central American coffee production, scientific evidence debunks another coffee crisis prediction the Star Tribune published in 2012.
In a 2012 article titled, “The last drop? Climate change threatens Arabica coffee crop,” the Star Tribune asserts, “Climate change could severely reduce the areas suitable for wild Arabica coffee before the end of the century.”
The article claims that Arabica is an especially important coffee bean because of its genetic diversity. According to the Star Tribune, Arabica beans also “lack the flexibility to cope with climate change.”
Eight years later, we can look at how these doomy claims are holding up. The answer is, Arabica beans are holding up just fine, while claims of doom and gloom are not holding up well at all.
The data website Statista reports that in every year since the Star Tribune’s 2012 prediction of declining Arabica production, production has instead exceeded the 2012 crop. This is quite amazing, considering that the 2012 crop was the third largest crop on record up to that time.
Arabica production is continuing a longstanding and rapidly upward trend. The 2020-2021 crop is forecast to be 20 percent higher than the 2012 crop. That is remarkable growth for less than a decade in time.
The Star Tribune made a second noteworthy prediction in the 2012 article that we can also review. The Star Tribune claimed climate change threatens all coffee varieties, in addition to Arabica. The Star Tribune asserted, “a changing climate could damage global production of coffee – the world’s second most traded commodity after oil.”
Statista documents even more impressive increases in total coffee bean production than has been the case regarding Arabica. The crop data show that total coffee production is setting new records virtually every year, with the 2020-2021 crop forecast to set yet another new record.
The reason the Minneapolis Star Tribune and other sock puppets of the climate industrial complex rarely publish actual data and instead couch their asserted crisis in subjective predictions rather than measurable real-world facts is that real-world facts and data consistently undermine the notion of an existing or imminent climate crisis. Coffee bean production, just like nearly every other measurable climate factor or impact, is enjoying beneficial improvement for the better as the Earth modestly warms.
