{"id":396932,"date":"2025-08-22T08:08:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T07:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=396932"},"modified":"2026-01-02T23:03:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T22:03:18","slug":"wrong-again-grist-climate-change-is-not-causing-higher-coffee-prices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=396932","title":{"rendered":"Wrong Again, Grist, Climate Change Is Not Causing Higher Coffee Prices"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Harvesters<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From ClimateRealism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By H. Sterling Burnett<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Grist posted a story blaming climate change for a recent rise in coffee prices. This is false, coffee production and yields have improved amid modest warming. As a result, Grist must seek another cause for higher prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the story, \u201cClimate change has sent coffee prices soaring. Trump\u2019s tariffs will send them higher<\/a>,\u201d Grist staff writer, Frida Garza, spends 85 percent of her story describing how the tariffs President Donald Trump is imposing on Vietnam will likely affect a recently developed artisanal coffee company, using organically grown Vietnamese Robusta blends, and then generalizing the claims to the impacts on coffee from other growing regions like Brazil. Note, despite climate change leading in the title, so far, the story only discusses the potential impacts of tariffs on future coffee prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only the last section of the story deals with climate change, and then only to imply that climate change has caused recent droughts that have affected some coffee growers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHartley added that one of the impacts of droughts on coffee growers is that younger farmers worried about the future are considering leaving the business,\u201d writes Garza. \u201cRegardless of whether the U.S. imposes prohibitive tariffs on individual coffee-growing countries, climate change is already taking a toll on this workforce.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Except in the misleading title of the story, nowhere does Garza specifically argue that climate change has caused droughts, with attendant coffee shortages, resulting in higher prices. Which is good, as far as it goes, since there is no evidence climate change is causing worsening droughts or causing a decline in coffee production or harvests. As such, one can only surmise Garza used \u201cclimate change\u201d as a hook to snag readers attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concerning drought, Climate Realism<\/em> has posted more than 100 stories rebutting<\/a> false media claims that climate change has made the occurrences of drought more frequent or severe, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and for Brazil, here<\/a>, for instance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garza can\u2019t draw support for her suggestion that climate change is causing worsening drought conditions from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,<\/a> either. In its most recent report, the 2021 Sixth Assessment report, the IPCC distinguishes four categories of drought: hydrological, meteorological, ecological, and agricultural. The IPCC finds no evidence climate change has increased the number, duration, or intensity of hydrological or meteorological droughts, and it has only medium confidence it has \u201ccontributed to changes in agricultural and ecological droughts and has led to an increase in the overall affected land area.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even for ecological and agricultural droughts the data is a mixed bag. The IPCC divides the world into 47 separate regions of study when analyzing drought trends, and its data suggest ecological and agricultural drought may have increased during the period of modest warming in 12 of those 47 regions. However, in only two of those regions does the IPCC have even \u201cmedium confidence\u201d for any human role in the observed increase. For the remaining regions experiencing a possible increase in droughts, the IPCC has low confidence human activities have had any discernible impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Climate change can\u2019t be blamed for causing a phenomenon, increasing drought frequency and severity, that is not happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor is there evidence in either coffee production data or price data that climate change is causing a crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response to the Grist article and one from earlier in the year published by the\u00a0New York Times<\/a>, climate researcher Bjorn Lomborg posted a short but thorough refutation on X, showing that prices in recent years and decades are neither records, nor even higher than average when compared to the past. (see below)<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"A<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Lomborg then provided this helpful chart:<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Chart<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Dozens of articles posted at\u00a0Climate Realism<\/a><\/em>\u00a0examine and debunk previous false claims made in myriad mainstream media stories that climate change has caused a decline in coffee yields and production, resulting in rising prices. Data from the\u00a0U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization<\/a>\u00a0show relatively steady gains in coffee yields and production in\u00a0Vietnam<\/a>,\u00a0Brazil<\/a>, and for the world as a whole between 1994 and 2023, with new records for both being set with some regularity. (see the graph below).<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"A<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Since coffee production and yields have increased dramatically overtime, it is simply false to link higher coffee prices to climate change induced impacts on production. During the recent period of slight global warming, coffee, like almost every other crop, has seen gains due to the fertilization effect of higher CO2 and improved growing conditions. Since climate change isn\u2019t disrupting coffee production, it can\u2019t be blamed for any rise in prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, despite the title, Garza\u2019s article is mostly speculation about potential future impacts of the Trump administration\u2019s tariffs on future coffee prices, with a little climate alarm unjustifiably thrown in for no identifiable reason. The story as a whole is pure carnival sideshow prognostication. Will tariffs cause higher coffee prices? Maybe, maybe not. But whatever has contributed to recent increases in coffee prices, prices that are still below historic averages and highs, and there is no evidence whatsoever that climate change has anything to do with it. That is the truth. Based on the evidence of this story, Grist is evidently not in the business of telling the truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Grist posted a story blaming climate change for a recent rise in coffee prices. This is false, coffee production and yields have improved amid modest warming. As a result, Grist must seek another cause for higher prices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":396945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"Why Higher Coffee Prices Aren't Linked to Climate Change","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818056,691837437,691837439,691837438,691833340],"class_list":{"0":"post-396932","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-climate-change","9":"tag-coffee-prices","10":"tag-false-media-claims","11":"tag-frida-garza","12":"tag-u-n-food-and-agriculture-organization","14":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/0AQMKPLZLFEEdztN-qeIjqdH0rQ8DR-yXYOw2QBwewu5wEtZTY_whvEr0LE8ykkGbi8nRzQ5wApC1pPEuZTHq_O9HPWMZXxeVmv-TstKAI-e5iicqLds7IZVbXRsMiPWYadyQryj4EIDFoUzdBHVt8LmvG0A2eA-1.jpeg?fit=1280%2C1280&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1Fg8","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":349914,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=349914","url_meta":{"origin":396932,"position":0},"title":"Wrong, Grist, Climate Change Isn\u2019t Causing a Rise in Authoritarianism","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"02\/11\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"A recent Grist article, titled \u201cAuthoritarianism is on the rise. 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