Ecological Cartography of the Anthropocene
August 3, 2017 11:34 AM   Subscribe

The Atlas for the End of the World is a collection of maps visualizing various global dangers and changes, such as rising sea levels, human displacement from conflict, and deforestation, and related issues such as land use for raising meat, ecotourism, and access to water, also other more abstract matters like biological diversity and the human effect on it. You might want to start by reading the introduction and FAQ before checking out the photos of creatures that have tried to adapt to the changing world and the opening essay, Atlas for the End?, and the concluding one, Atlas for the Beginning.
posted by Kattullus (4 comments total) 49 users marked this as a favorite
 
Hrrrngh this is great. I lust for a Many Norths-style printed volume of this.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 11:43 AM on August 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


Coffee growers are already under increasing pressure from anthropogenic climate change. They can't just move higher, since there's less land at higher altitudes; they can't necessarily change latitude because the favorable climate is pretty specific to equatorial regions. So I guess I'm asking: do they show where we can still grow coffee in this future? I don't see a search feature.
posted by fedward at 12:46 PM on August 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


I guess I'm asking: do they show where we can still grow coffee in this future?

This is a moving target, because of some heartier varieties coming out. But everything from every report I've seen coming out of the industry has said overall stocks will be down, because there will just be less places suitable for growing coffee. It's not like the range will expand. Coffee is an incredibly fragile, picky plant.

I've fantasized often about someone getting a CRISPR at home kit to trying to GM some coffea mutant that'll survive a frost, or be more heat tolerant. That would drastically change the growing range of coffee. Coffee is the perfect plant genetically modify. The actual genetic range in most commodity level coffee is really narrow.

The outlook for commodity level coffee is not great. Specialty coffee, however is slated to increase in production during that time. We should have less, but better coffee of what exists.
posted by furnace.heart at 2:15 PM on August 3, 2017 [3 favorites]


Here's a Fair Trade document about coffee production and climate change that references some of the original studies (PDF).

This is the most recent study that most articles are drawing on that reference the ethiopian stocks declining (PDF) Kew is running one of the larger studies on how to combat this.

It looks pretty bleak for coffee, honestly.
posted by furnace.heart at 2:19 PM on August 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


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