Photo via Plinkk This year's coffee prices area already at a 12-year high due to low crop yields in South America, but it looks like prices could tighten again in the future if a particular beetle continues to bask in warming weather. Arabica coffee, a climate-sensitive plant, is grown in Ethiopia and Latin America. However, Ethiopia and other regions have seen a slow but steady rise in average temperatures, more variable rain fall, and what could be mos...Read the full story on TreeHugger

photo via flickr If only Visa treated my debt the way the U.S. is treating debt from developing countries. On Friday, the Obama Administration announced that it will cancel debt from Brazil in exchange for forest protection. The U.S. has done the same for Bangladesh, Belize, Botswana, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Indonesia, Jamaica, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and the Philippines. Deforestation accounts for about 20 percent of global warming emissions, making zero deforestation a priority in places like Brazil and Indonesia, which rank third and fourth for GHG emissions, respectively. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

photo: Parthan via flickr With the ongoing heat in Russia and the flooding in Pakistan (not to mention landslides in China) everyone's commenting on the connection with climate change, with the appropriate caveat that no single weather event can be linked with it but... Well, here's an interesting addition to those: Dot Earth points out a study from back in 2006 linking increased frequency and intensity of mon...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Climate change is (obviously) a subject that's greeted with heaps of controversy just about whenever the topic is broached. Unlike most phenomena that a vast majority of scientists have agreed is occurring after years and years of meticulous study, climate change is apt to cause a ruckus (or at least some grumblings) when brought up in any kind of social forum. You, the informed TreeHugger reader, are most likely aware that global warming is real, caused by man, and will cause a number of serious problems if left unaddressed. But those who ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image via Encefalus Any respectable blogger working today is at least aware of the many social media websites that contribute to our articles reaching a wider audience: Reddit, Yahoo Buzz, Stumble Upon, and, of course, the granddaddy of them all, Digg. Digg is the most powerful 'social media' website -- stories that get submitted there stand to be viewed by more people than anywhere else. Yet over the years, as I wrote story after story here at TreeHugger, I started noticing a trend -- if my post directly concerned c...Read the full story on TreeHugger