Climate Science Alliance Affiliated Artist Audrey Carver has been collaborating with Professor Colin Orians from Tufts University and Costa Rican coffee farmers to portray the science and impact of climate change on these crops and communities. Check out her new collection “Resilience: The Faces of Coffee in a Changing Climate.”
Artist Statement
“When you sip your morning coffee, 2.25 million people around the world are doing the same. Coffee is commonly considered one of the most valuable commodities in global markets, meaning that it is an important export for many developing countries, and an enormous industry in many more. With 25 million coffee farmers globally and millions more consumers and caffeine addicts, coffee is literally running much of the modern world (Watts, 2016).
It is common knowledge, however, that the modern world is changing, and fast. With global temperatures rising and the largest anthropogenic climate event in history underway, coffee arabica and its farmers are facing an uncertain future. Climate change is affecting the resilience and yield of coffee crops, which in turn destabilizes markets, prices, and livelihoods. In order to move forward without the predicted 50% loss of production area by 2050 (Watts, 2016), adaptation strategies will be necessary.
This series represents the potential loss to coffee farmers and plants, as well as potential adaptation strategies. I have shown farmers with potentially lost crops and livelihoods, paired with plants in various stages of health, to visualize the interdependence between plants and people, our actions and their lives. The situation is complex, but not devoid of hope: there are sustainable futures amidst precarity, we just need to look for them.”
- Audrey Carver
Audrey Carver has collaborated with the Climate Science Alliance since 2015 as an Affiliated Artist and Fellow. Her work conveys critical climate science in a way that evokes emotion and connection. Her newest project, “Resilience: The Faces of Coffee in a Changing Climate,” is a collaboration between Professor Colin Orians from Tufts University, Gabriela Garcia, Andres Vega, and Costa Rican coffee farmers to portray the science and impact of climate change on these crops and communities. To learn more about Audrey’s work, please visit: www.climatesciencealliance.org/2018-climate-art-fellow
“Resilience: The Faces of Coffee in a Changing Climate”
Works Cited
Alfonsi, W.M, et.al. Climate change options of coffee rust disease. American Geophysical Union. December 2016. https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMGC51A1133A/abstract Web.
Avelino, Jacques, et.al. Effects of slope exposure, altitude and yield on coffee quality in two altitude terroirs of Costa Rica, Orosi and Santa María de Dota. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. Wiley Online Library. May 4th, 2005. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jsfa.2188. Web.
Badilla, Sidey. In-person interview with Audrey Carver. Llano Bonito, Costa Rica. 2019.
DaMatta, Fabio. Ecophysiological constraints on the production of shaded and unshaded coffee: a review Field Crops Research. 2004.
Garcia, Gabriela. In-person interview with Audrey Carver. Tufts University. 2019.
Jha, Shalene, et.al. Shade Coffee: Update on a Disappearing Refuge for Biodiversity. BioScience, Volume 64, Issue 5. May 2014. https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/64/5/416/2754235. Web.
Koehler, Jeff. Coffee Rust Threatens Latin American Crop; 150 Years Ago, It Wiped Out An Empire. NPR. Oct. 16, 2018. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/10/16/649155664/coffee-rust-threatens-latin-american-crop-150-years-ago-it-wiped-out-an-empire Web.
Ovalle-Rivera, Oriana, et.al.Projected Shifts in Coffea arabica Suitability among Major Global Producing Regions Due to Climate Change. Public Library of Science. April 14, 2015. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0124155 Web.
Orians, Colin. In-person interview with Audrey Carver. Tufts University. 2019.
Tucker, Catherine M, et.al. Perceptions of risk and adaptation: Coffee producers, market shocks, and extreme weather in Central America and Mexico. Global Environmental Change. Science Direct. February 2010. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959378009000478. Web.
Vega, Andres. In-person interview with Audrey Carver. Tufts University. September 24, 2019.
Watts, Corey. “A Brewing Storm: the climate change risks to coffee”. The Climate Institute. September 2016.