7 ms·

Coffee in Crisis

49 points by thomersch_ 11y ago

a3n 11y ago
This page made my laptop scream. It never stopped trying to load something. I run ABP, perhaps that's the "fault?" I also tried to find a sensible place to point that out to the BBC, but nothing was obviously (to me) the right place.
- Retra 11y ago
  You could try using Ghostery (https://www.ghostery.com/en/. https://www.ghostery.com/en/.) For me the page loads slower than most, but not problematically so.
  - cpncrunch 11y ago
    Seems to work fine on my MBP. I'm just annoyed by the dumb parallax scrolling which covers up the title when you're trying to read it. Parallax was cool on Amigas in the 80s, but today in web pages it's just flashy and annoying.
- teh_klev 11y ago
  Forget trying to report technical faults to the BBC, every road leads to obfuscation, misdirection and frustration. They don't provide support for anything or anyone. This includes TV License payers. They even discontinued what little real time interaction they had with viewers when they abandoned the iPlayer forums a few years back. Even if you do manage to report "something", it takes them weeks to respond, if at all. I rarely consume BBC products and services these days, and after the Scottish Independence referendum I no longer trust them as a competent news source. They're a bit of a running joke to many folks in Scotland, especially news and affairs output from Pacific Quay (BBC Scotland) [0][1]. 0: http://www.bbc.scotlandshire.co.uk/ http://www.bbc.scotlandshire.co.uk/ 1: http://newsnet.scot/citizen/ http://newsnet.scot/citizen/
- recursive 11y ago
  I'm not running any ad blocking, and had a similar experience.
- ashmud 11y ago
  Without JS enabled on FF39, it looks like a nice WAP-era mobile page.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- ghostly_s 11y ago
  No issues here in Firefox. I even disabled uBlock Origin and didn't notice any issue. Not about to allow flash, though...
- serve_yay 11y ago
  I wish every HN link had a separate comments section where people bitch about the page the news was served on.
VeejayRampay 11y ago
Isn't there a way to produce synthetic caffeine? I mean, there's been a shift recently for nicotine and the market for e-cigs, I'm sure we can somehow find a way to do the same for caffeine.
- TranquilMarmot 11y ago
  Nicotine patch? I want a caffeine patch! Honestly though, I'd be less upset about coffee going away as a source of caffeine than it going away as a drink. It's so wonderfully delicious that synthetic caffeine just wouldn't really cut it for me.
  - yellowapple 11y ago
    You're actually in luck: https://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/caffederm.shtml https://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/caffederm.shtml
- Nacraile 11y ago
  You know, some people drink coffee because they like the flavour, not because they need caffeine :P (As a matter of fact, I consider caffeine to be an undesirable side-effect of delicious coffee...) Coffee isn't the only natural source of caffeine, and yes, it can also be made synthetically.
  - sritch 11y ago
    It's especially unfortunate because decaf coffee is usually gross.
    - noir_lord 11y ago
      Unsurprising when you look at the method they use for removing the caffeine.
      - Florin_Andrei 11y ago
        Supercritical CO2 extraction is gross? The solvent evaporates without a trace.
anthony_romeo 11y ago
At the same time, demand for coffee is growing rapidly, especially since more traditionally tea-drinking nations are making the switch to coffee.[1] Maybe if coffee prices increase significantly we'll see more milk-tea places opening up and Starbucks incorporating more of its Teavana products at its stores. [1] http://time.com/3711436/global-coffee-increase/ http://time.com/3711436/global-coffee-increase/
kokey 11y ago
It's strange that an article about the potential scarcity of Arabica doesn't once mention the country where most Arabica is grown: Brazil. Not only that, the expectations have been improving because of improved conditions this year: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-21/coffee-declines-to-lowest-in-15-months-on-global-supply-outlook http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-21/coffee-dec...
- DarkTree 11y ago
  It does seem like the article may have conveniently evaded that news. However, that doesn't mean there isn't a looming threat to the coffee supply. The fact that Brazil may have an exceptionally good year, only means that it is likely to have a less-exceptional year after that, due to regression to the mean. If the climate does start to negatively impact the more tertiary coffee growing regions, Brazil will not be able to bolster the entire coffee demand. Also: I can only assume that growing overall population = higher demand for coffee
  - yellowapple 11y ago
    > The fact that Brazil may have an exceptionally good year, only means that it is likely to have a less-exceptional year after that, due to regression to the mean. Isn't that a Monte Carlo fallacy? One outcome in a sequence of tests does not mean that others are more likely in the future. If you flip a coin and get 10 heads in a row, your likelihood of getting a tails on the next flip (assuming a perfectly-balanced coin) is still 50%. Brazil's good year may be another case of climate change for all we know, and could very well persist for awhile; or, you might be right and next year things will balance out again. We don't know either way yet. That isn't to say that we shouldn't be concerned regardless; you're correct in your observation that having all our figurative, coffee-flavored eggs in one basket - even if that basket is the size of Brazil - is rarely a good idea.
    - DarkTree 11y ago
      Yeah, you're right, we certainly won't know until hindsight shows up. > "One outcome in a sequence of tests does not mean that others are more likely in the future. If you flip a coin and get 10 heads in a row, your likelihood of getting a tails on the next flip (assuming a perfectly-balanced coin) is still 50%" True, but I am arguing that out of 10 flips, the average number of heads will likely be 50%. If you got 10 heads in a row, that would be 100%, an exceptional event, possibly like Brazil's good year. However, if you were to flip 10 more coins, it is much more likely that you will get less than 100% heads flips, as it will regress closer to the mean of 50%. I guess the main point I was arguing is that just because Brazil might have a good outlook in the future, does not mean the article is invalid and too presumptuous.
autotune 11y ago
Is it not possible to grow coffee plants using vertical farming? It sound ideas like this => http://cargocollective.com/dellabosca/Vertical-Coffee-Farm http://cargocollective.com/dellabosca/Vertical-Coffee-Farm are going to need to become a reality in the future if we can't stop climate change, where it can protect the plants from heavy rainfalls and allow farmers to control their growth.
- alceufc 11y ago
  A challenge would be that coffee trees have very deep roots [1]. [1] http://www.fao.org/docrep/006/ad219e/AD219E05.htm http://www.fao.org/docrep/006/ad219e/AD219E05.htm
  - yellowapple 11y ago
    So we build deeper farm levels. Even more conventional greenhouses, however, should help somewhat. I reckon the point of the parent commenter is less about the vertical nature of such farms and more about the climate controllability of such farms.
- primroot 11y ago
  Coffee has been traditionally grown within a forest containing both native flora as well as other productive species (cacao, banana, vanilla, etc.) that grow well under taller trees. So in a sense coffee _requires_ vertical farming, except that the vertical space is only occupied by coffee plants at one place. John Vandermeer of U. of Michigan has been studying coffee cultivation as a primary example of food forest, and has been pointing out the negative effects of full sun (and yes, full rain) intensive coffee cultivation on the resilience of the production system. I am surprised that the article does not mention these aspects of coffee.
L8D 11y ago
In accordance with Betteridge's Law of Headlines[1] the answer is no. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline... I don't know how people do links and stuff on hacker news
- knn 11y ago
  Thanks for the link, haha. Sensationalist title.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
TheCoelacanth 11y ago
> For one thing, we can expect coffee to become more of a luxury, with prices shooting up by around 25% by 2050 according to Bunn’s calculations A 25% rise in price over 35 years qualifies as a crisis now?

49 points by thomersch_ 11y ago

a3n 11y ago

This page made my laptop scream. It never stopped trying to load something. I run ABP, perhaps that's the "fault?" I also tried to find a sensible place to point that out to the BBC, but nothing was obviously (to me) the right place.

Retra 11y ago
You could try using Ghostery (https://www.ghostery.com/en/. https://www.ghostery.com/en/.) For me the page loads slower than most, but not problematically so.
- cpncrunch 11y ago
  Seems to work fine on my MBP. I'm just annoyed by the dumb parallax scrolling which covers up the title when you're trying to read it. Parallax was cool on Amigas in the 80s, but today in web pages it's just flashy and annoying.
teh_klev 11y ago
Forget trying to report technical faults to the BBC, every road leads to obfuscation, misdirection and frustration. They don't provide support for anything or anyone. This includes TV License payers. They even discontinued what little real time interaction they had with viewers when they abandoned the iPlayer forums a few years back. Even if you do manage to report "something", it takes them weeks to respond, if at all. I rarely consume BBC products and services these days, and after the Scottish Independence referendum I no longer trust them as a competent news source. They're a bit of a running joke to many folks in Scotland, especially news and affairs output from Pacific Quay (BBC Scotland) [0][1]. 0: http://www.bbc.scotlandshire.co.uk/ http://www.bbc.scotlandshire.co.uk/ 1: http://newsnet.scot/citizen/ http://newsnet.scot/citizen/
recursive 11y ago
I'm not running any ad blocking, and had a similar experience.
ashmud 11y ago
Without JS enabled on FF39, it looks like a nice WAP-era mobile page.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
ghostly_s 11y ago
No issues here in Firefox. I even disabled uBlock Origin and didn't notice any issue. Not about to allow flash, though...
serve_yay 11y ago
I wish every HN link had a separate comments section where people bitch about the page the news was served on.

VeejayRampay 11y ago

Isn't there a way to produce synthetic caffeine? I mean, there's been a shift recently for nicotine and the market for e-cigs, I'm sure we can somehow find a way to do the same for caffeine.

TranquilMarmot 11y ago
Nicotine patch? I want a caffeine patch! Honestly though, I'd be less upset about coffee going away as a source of caffeine than it going away as a drink. It's so wonderfully delicious that synthetic caffeine just wouldn't really cut it for me.
- yellowapple 11y ago
  You're actually in luck: https://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/caffederm.shtml https://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/caffederm.shtml
Nacraile 11y ago
You know, some people drink coffee because they like the flavour, not because they need caffeine :P (As a matter of fact, I consider caffeine to be an undesirable side-effect of delicious coffee...) Coffee isn't the only natural source of caffeine, and yes, it can also be made synthetically.
- sritch 11y ago
  It's especially unfortunate because decaf coffee is usually gross.
  - noir_lord 11y ago
    Unsurprising when you look at the method they use for removing the caffeine.
    - Florin_Andrei 11y ago
      Supercritical CO2 extraction is gross? The solvent evaporates without a trace.

anthony_romeo 11y ago

At the same time, demand for coffee is growing rapidly, especially since more traditionally tea-drinking nations are making the switch to coffee.[1] Maybe if coffee prices increase significantly we'll see more milk-tea places opening up and Starbucks incorporating more of its Teavana products at its stores. [1] http://time.com/3711436/global-coffee-increase/ http://time.com/3711436/global-coffee-increase/

kokey 11y ago

It's strange that an article about the potential scarcity of Arabica doesn't once mention the country where most Arabica is grown: Brazil. Not only that, the expectations have been improving because of improved conditions this year: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-21/coffee-declines-to-lowest-in-15-months-on-global-supply-outlook http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-21/coffee-dec...

DarkTree 11y ago
It does seem like the article may have conveniently evaded that news. However, that doesn't mean there isn't a looming threat to the coffee supply. The fact that Brazil may have an exceptionally good year, only means that it is likely to have a less-exceptional year after that, due to regression to the mean. If the climate does start to negatively impact the more tertiary coffee growing regions, Brazil will not be able to bolster the entire coffee demand. Also: I can only assume that growing overall population = higher demand for coffee
- yellowapple 11y ago
  > The fact that Brazil may have an exceptionally good year, only means that it is likely to have a less-exceptional year after that, due to regression to the mean. Isn't that a Monte Carlo fallacy? One outcome in a sequence of tests does not mean that others are more likely in the future. If you flip a coin and get 10 heads in a row, your likelihood of getting a tails on the next flip (assuming a perfectly-balanced coin) is still 50%. Brazil's good year may be another case of climate change for all we know, and could very well persist for awhile; or, you might be right and next year things will balance out again. We don't know either way yet. That isn't to say that we shouldn't be concerned regardless; you're correct in your observation that having all our figurative, coffee-flavored eggs in one basket - even if that basket is the size of Brazil - is rarely a good idea.
  - DarkTree 11y ago
    Yeah, you're right, we certainly won't know until hindsight shows up. > "One outcome in a sequence of tests does not mean that others are more likely in the future. If you flip a coin and get 10 heads in a row, your likelihood of getting a tails on the next flip (assuming a perfectly-balanced coin) is still 50%" True, but I am arguing that out of 10 flips, the average number of heads will likely be 50%. If you got 10 heads in a row, that would be 100%, an exceptional event, possibly like Brazil's good year. However, if you were to flip 10 more coins, it is much more likely that you will get less than 100% heads flips, as it will regress closer to the mean of 50%. I guess the main point I was arguing is that just because Brazil might have a good outlook in the future, does not mean the article is invalid and too presumptuous.

autotune 11y ago

Is it not possible to grow coffee plants using vertical farming? It sound ideas like this => http://cargocollective.com/dellabosca/Vertical-Coffee-Farm http://cargocollective.com/dellabosca/Vertical-Coffee-Farm are going to need to become a reality in the future if we can't stop climate change, where it can protect the plants from heavy rainfalls and allow farmers to control their growth.

alceufc 11y ago
A challenge would be that coffee trees have very deep roots [1]. [1] http://www.fao.org/docrep/006/ad219e/AD219E05.htm http://www.fao.org/docrep/006/ad219e/AD219E05.htm
- yellowapple 11y ago
  So we build deeper farm levels. Even more conventional greenhouses, however, should help somewhat. I reckon the point of the parent commenter is less about the vertical nature of such farms and more about the climate controllability of such farms.
primroot 11y ago
Coffee has been traditionally grown within a forest containing both native flora as well as other productive species (cacao, banana, vanilla, etc.) that grow well under taller trees. So in a sense coffee _requires_ vertical farming, except that the vertical space is only occupied by coffee plants at one place. John Vandermeer of U. of Michigan has been studying coffee cultivation as a primary example of food forest, and has been pointing out the negative effects of full sun (and yes, full rain) intensive coffee cultivation on the resilience of the production system. I am surprised that the article does not mention these aspects of coffee.

L8D 11y ago

In accordance with Betteridge's Law of Headlines[1] the answer is no. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline... I don't know how people do links and stuff on hacker news

knn 11y ago
Thanks for the link, haha. Sensationalist title.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

TheCoelacanth 11y ago

> For one thing, we can expect coffee to become more of a luxury, with prices shooting up by around 25% by 2050 according to Bunn’s calculations A 25% rise in price over 35 years qualifies as a crisis now?