Oops: Claim That Climate Change Caused Coffee Killing Fungus Was Wrong

Another Cult of Climastrology talking point found to be wrong? The hell you say!

(UK Telegraph) Fears that climate change is triggering a coffee killing fungus which could wipe out plantations are unfounded, a new study suggests.

Last month a report by The Climate Institute warned that an increase in wet and warm conditions was driving the spread of coffee leaf rust which attacks crops, causing plants to wither and stop producing beans.

The experts warned that by 2080, coffee could become extinct if temperatures continue to rise.

Then that pesky thing known as “Science” got involved, along with Reality

But a new study by the University of Exeter suggests that plantations are suffering due to a much more prosaic reason. Lack of funds.

They studied coffee plantations in Columbia where production fell by about 40 per cent between 2008 and 2011 because of severe outbreak of coffee rust

However Dr Dan Bebber, lead author, said that the crisis had been driven by the ‘perfect storm’ of weather coupled with a decrease in fertiliser use due to price rises during the 2008 financial crisis.

“Farmers weren’t treating coffee bushes as they normally would, and this was probably one of the factors that led to the rise in coffee leaf rust,” said Dr Bebber.

They found that during a time with similar weather conditions, there were no problems, because the plants were treated like normal.

The team found there was ‘no evidence’ to link the outbreak of coffee leaf rust with climate change.

The paper, published in the Royal Society Journal Philosophical Transactions B, concluded: “We find no evidence for an overall trend in disease risk in coffee-growing regions of Colombia from 1990 to 2015, therefore, while weather conditions were more conducive to disease outbreaks from 2008 to 2011, we reject the climate change hypothesis.”

I hope the people involved in the study are ready to be insulted, demeaned, and even threatened by members of the Cult of Climastrology.