I hope you’re not reading this over your first cuppa of the day. But if you are, maybe you should put it down. Now.
Yup, please put it down before your hands begin to shake. In fear. In anticipation. In desperation.
Because I just learned that coffee is an endangered species. It’s true! Really! Have I ever steered you wrong? I mean, lately?
I guess I need to back up here and explain to you just how the world has failed you, and how life may just not be the same because of it.
When we were just pumping crap into the atmosphere, it didn’t matter. It didn’t affect us directly. I mean it shortened our lives, but that’s acceptable, right? An even trade.
Deep breath now.
When it just affected the polar bears, well, it still didn’t matter. They’re not very cute once they grow up.
HOLY S*H*I*T
Or icebergs. Who needs ‘em?
But now global warming is getting serious. Seriously serious! And you’ll feel it at your house and I’ll feel it at mine.
You see, I just read that Jim Hanna, Starbuck’s Director of Sustainability, reported to the Guardian Newspaper that extreme weather fluctuations caused by global warming are projected to f*@k up our supply of coffee beans. That’s because most crops, including coffee, only grow within a narrow range of temperature. All these high highs and low lows from climate change make crappy cappuccinos.
“What we are really seeing as a company as we look 10, 20, 30 years down the road – if conditions continue as they are – is a potentially significant risk to our supply chain, which is the Arabica coffee bean,” Hanna said.
But it gets worse.
Because it’s not just coffee.
Gulp.
Chocolate is threatened, too.
Clearly, it’s time to get serious about global warming.
Sweetie, it’s 9pm here in the Eastern Time zone. If I’m having my FIRST cup of the day, I need something WAY stronger than coffee – or way weaker, one of the two!
And now you know why I drink tea! :p
But you proved one thing I had suspected about you – you are one VERY class act. ANYBODY who loves Transfer is cool by me!
Oh, I was trying to schedule it and got distracted. It was supposed to come out in a few hours. Oh well.
Tea is wonderful, too. But it’s probably threatened too, John, so don’t get complacent!
And yeah, Manhattan Transfer — great stuff!
Chocolate is threatened????? OK – I’ll get a Prius!!
Seriously, I wonder what it takes for people t get it.
Terrifying, I know. And here I promised to do funny stuff. Without chocolate or coffee, I’m not sure I want to stick around!
I can take or leave the coffee, but the chocolate, non-negotiable.
:O KMN! Thank God for alcohol! LOL
True, you can ferment just about anything! Who needs coffee. Except maybe the next day …
Just supplement caffeine with alcohol. Problem solved! ;P
I don’t know about that. I need the coffee after I have the alcohol. It’s not an either/or!
Nooooooooooooooooooo…………….!
That’s exactly what I thought! I mean, what is the world coming to?
First polar bears and now coffee and chocolate??? I don’t like this. Not one bit.
The absence of polar bears is horrible, but I don’t need to see them on a daily or several-times-daily basis. Chocolate and coffee? Life without them? God forbid!
Manhattan Transfer, coffee and chocolates
White bears and ice bergs and all things rain droplets…
These are just a few of my favourite things…
You may be singing a different tune before too long, Jots. We need to fix this!
Since I only drink 1 cup of coffee a day I could ration coffee for a very long time, but chocolate, I’d rather not live to see the day. Maybe it’s a good think I’m middle aged so the stuff might still be around for a few more years. And I’m saving greenhouse gases by not driving to work right now because I’m unemployed, so I’m actually saving the planet!
What an amazing conservationist you are! To give up your job to save the planet! Obviously, dedicated folks like you are not calculated into the unemployment figures.
But maybe by not driving you are saving the chocolate for a while longer. Well done!
(I live for snark!)
Love snark! And anything I can do to conserve, I’m a conservation girl!
Perhaps we could bargain with the Climate Gods: Either/Or Coffee OR Chocolate. I think we’ll have to have a vote on which it would be. It’s a toughie. Is there another solution?
I’m personally willing to give up rutabagas. I haven’t heard too many people protesting the absence of them.
I think I have a solution here.
OH NO! Those are two of my four food groups! Damn republicans!
It’s all Senator Inhofe’s fault. Or the Weather Channel.
We’re doomed. And we’re cranky. : (
Very very cranky. Me, I’m going to drink coffee till I puke to save up for a time when I won’t have it. I’m on my 5th cup.
Hey, save some for the rest of us!
I have just enough to share with you. Come on over
On my way :- )
And today I read that the US is about to surpass all other countries in our production of fossil fuel energy. Woohoo! Time to develop a taste for Mountain Dew.
If only we could fuel the world on Mountain Dew — of course, there wouldn’t be a tooth left on the planet.
No worries for me. I’m not a coffee drinker and will then grow chocolate in my yard.
OK, Frank. Just show us all up. We’ll be desperate and you will be dancing on our frustrations. I thought better of you
.
But I will be able to give chocolates to friends.
I’ll be nice. I’ll be your BEST friend. Better plant it now, though. I hear it takes a while to cultivate.
Yes, perhaps more people will stop being deniers. The rest? You’d have to take oxygen away from them. As far as the coffee thing: Well, I quit once, I suppose I could quit again. But then again, there’s gotta be something I could grow in my garden that would have the same effect.
Perhaps taking oxygen away from the deniers would be effective — reverse waterboarding to get them to agree that there is, in fact, a problem.
I had to give up coffee for three days a while back, so I am pretty sure that the world is a better place when I am appropriately caffeinated.
Elyse, I did not put my coffee cup down. Now it is gone and I want more.
I do know we have environmental issues but when I hear a report like this from Starbucks all that says to me is, “Great, instead of 7bucks a shot I’ll be paying 10 for a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Just like you hear of some oil crisis on the news and the next morning the gas goes up a dollar.
On another note, I played the “Java Jive” and He-Who started singing and before we knew it we just spent an hour listening to the Manhattan Transfer. Not a bad way to start the day … coffee or not.
Hmmm, you know, Michelle, I think I want another cup!
You have a point about a shortage being in the best interest of Starbucks. Me, I rarely go there. Their plain coffee tastes burned and their lattes are way too expensive!
What a nice way to spend a morning — with the Manhattan Transfer! I had kind of forgotten about them until this song popped into my head when I read about the demise of coffee. And I’ve been playing them ever since, too!
I knew about the chocolate. That in its self put me in a panic. Coffee shame I guess the energy drinks will be on the rise.
Ooh, I hope not. There is WAY too much caffeine in those things — and they should never be mixed with alcohol.
I never tried one myself. Coffee has too much caffeine for me.
The energy drinks have WAY more than that. They can’t be good for you.
I heard a few weeks ago a child died from a can. It was one of those coming up at 11commercials but I was sleep by the time the news aired.
While I don’t like these drinks at all, I always take reports like that with a grain of sand — or a handful. You never know the full story; it may be related or unrelated or partly related.
But any parent that would allow their kid to drink one of these things is nuts, in my opinion. I wouldn’t let mine drink coffee or strong tea until he was well into his teens. Caffeine and children isn’t a good mix!
No it is not a good mix. Then you add sugar. They will be bouncing off the wall. That mother that raises the kid Honey BooBoo, she lets this rude child drink that stuff.
Ick to all of it!
Time to start hoarding. Coffee beans and chocolate keep for 30 years in the freezer, right?
Or until the next storm knocks out the power …
If there is a big storm, I’m sure there will be emergency airlifts for chocolate and coffee caches.
The International Red Cross HQ is in Switzerland so they have particularly good chocolate stocks.
Neither I like coffee nor chocolate. So I am on safer side. I hope Global warming will never affect what I like to have.
Arindam! Neither chocolate nor coffee? Are you human? I don’t think so. We will have to figure out something else to take away from you — we’ll all be so grumpy we won’t want anybody around to not suffer!
While I can’t taste the taste of coffee, to live without chocolate would be awful.
On the thread of amazing things we may have to do without, turns out bacon supplies are running low as well.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57519703/global-bacon-shortage-unavoidable-group-says/
I have to say that I think the bacon craze is horrible. I like bacon but in it’s place — a BLT, with eggs, on a cheeseburger. But the things that folks are putting bacon on make me need a sick bag — I saw a bacon apple pie in a catalog just tonight when I went through the mail. And bacon sundays. vile. So no wonder we’re running out!
But living without chocolate? Impossible. Without coffee? Spare me!
What??
(slurp)
Say WHAT??!!!!
Wait a sec–I read it wouldn’t happen until 60 or so years from now. Long after I’m dead. So I’m good, right? Right, Elyse??!!! RIGHT??!!!!
Wouldn’t it be horrible? But Michelle above may be right — perhaps there is no such thing as climate change — it’s all a Starbucks plot to raise prices!
yeah…that’s gotta be it! I’ll go with that. (whew!)
But stock up!
I will give up sex but do not threaten coffee and chocolate. I mean really what the …. well I can’t say that any more if I am willing to give that up, right? Well hell if they threaten coffee and chocolate away from me I will be giving that up anyway.
It is indeed time to get serious and I mean toot sweet.
Love the music selection!
As I take my first sip of coffee of the day, I can’t agree more. I’m walking to work — I’ll get there about noon! But it is truly time to get serious about climate change (I want to strangle the guy who came up with “global warming” which has screwed up all discussions of the issue)
Glad you like the tune — me too. You know, my stats page claims no videos have ever been played in the year since I put the first one on. I think that might be incorrect.
coffee?? don’t drink it so no biggie there – although I may start hoarding coffee ice cream. Chocolate? I need to stop eating that anyway….
But Cooper you will be surrounded by cranky people. And the election is over. Think about how that would impact your life and save energy!.
It’s a conspiracy.
the truth is, the honey bees took the coffee with them when they returned to their homeworld.
Damn those bees!
The good news is that we will live without either; the bad news is that we live without either. (Probably not me though. I plan to be moldering in the grave by then.)
I hope I’m dead by then too. Better decomposing than decaffeinated.
Or unchocolated!
Exactly!
Why am I envisioning rooms full of hoarded chocolate and coffee? Imagine what the murder rates will be in a world without coffee or chocolate.
Well then, I hope I am among the first to go. No coffee or chocolate? Lord save me!
I’m getting a cup now and going out tomorrow, buying up all the coffee I can afford (3 bags) and freezing it.
Isn’t that a terrifying thought? No coffee. No chocolate. Is life really worth it without those things???
No. A hard no on that one.
!
I’ve given up smoking, junk food, meat and dairy. Coffee and (dark) chocolate are all I have left! It’s time to get serious and spread the word.
I agree!!! These two are as vital as oxygen!
Time to wake and smell the coffee about global warming then.
Sudder the thought – no coffee.
You said it. No coffee is no way to live!