Soy Crops and Subsidies

Soy is a core crop in our modern world.


Deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest





Plant-Based Diets?



Non-Digital Sources:




To Coffee Lovers

Do you love coffee?

Well, guess what? You are not alone! There’s over a 50% chance that you, as an American, wake up and gulp down at least one cup of coffee each day. Actually, it’s closer to 1.6 cups of coffee, but that’s not the important part. You and 150 million of your coffee drinking companions should expect a great deal of change to your daily ritual. Recently, a study published in Science Advances Magazine determined that over 60% of coffee species are at risk of extinction! Additionally, just over 10% of the 124 species examined were classified as “data deficient”. The term “data deficient” means that the species are not used enough in the coffee production supply chain to determine whether the strands are healthy. Or, in other words, less than 30% of all known coffee species are not at risk to extinction, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s various standards.

Did you know that — worldwide — coffee plants are 3 times more at risk of extinction than any other type of plants? Want to know why? Well, even if we ignore the effects of climate change in the study about Coffea Arabica (the most commonly traded coffee species) we would have to discuss deforestation. Also, as a fun fact, Coffea Arabica amounts to 60% of the worlds coffee trade!

These coffee species moved from the category of Least Concern (LC) to Endangered (EN) almost overnight!

This suggests that if we were able to acquire similar levels of data for all other coffee species similar harrowing inquires may be found. However, climate change is not the only human-induced threat to coffee!

Deforestation plays a significant role in threatening our coffee.

Deforestation is another example of a perverse incentive. When we consider the quality of wood from coffee trees, generally, people in the area desire to use it for timber. This practice coupled with other types of habit-loss inducing practices — raising livestock or other agricultural activities — lead to the continual decline of safe and protected forested areas for coffee to grow.

While it may be hard to give up coffee, it is possible to ensure the health and prosperity of coffee species around the world. In order to make an impact on an individual level, there are two things we must do. Firstly, we have to enhance research capabilities and continue studies by Science Advances Magazine and other organizations just like them. These researches allow us to focus on derivatives in species state of health and give us a higher fidelity look into the problem at hand. Secondly, we must work to ensure more protection of the forested ecosystem that coffee inhabits occurs. This is meant to slow down the continual rate of decline. More time to tackle the external consequences of drinking coffee, also will allow us to help solve the world’s greatest problem. Climate change.

Save our coffee species so we can stay awake in the mornings! If you like what we write, follow us on Twitter @CountCurrent or Instagram @thecountercurrent! Or find us on Facebook!

Hang In There, Bats!

Having trouble sleeping? 

So do your friends, bats! Bats are a vital group to the ecology of mammals, representing 20% of their diversity with over 1200 species

Fruit-eating bats pollinate and disperse seeds for more than 50% of the rainforest, ensuring its vitality. Insect-eating bats control most of the agriculture pests in the United States and those pesky mosquitoes. They have seriously helped humans deal with Nipah virus, SARS, Ebola, malaria and other viruses

Some studies show that bats eat more than 70% of their weight in insects every night!

What does that even mean? According to Bat Conservation International, this would be about 1000 mosquitos in an hour. They don’t only eat mosquitoes either. Some bats even eat stinkbugs on macadamia nut farms, which are a major agricultural pest. In short, bats save lives. 

Texas loves them!

Braken Cave is known to have the largest bat roost in the world, with over 20 million. But, bats are suffering to stay alive elsewhere because of a fungal disease called White Nose Syndrome, wiping out populations in the U.S. and Canda. This fungus originating from Europe resides in more than half of the U.S. and five Canadian provinces. Some scientists even predict regional extinction of bat species from this fungus. The reason it is called White Nose Syndrome is that a white fungal growth becomes apparent on the bat’s muzzle and wings once infected. 

“The mortality is unprecedented in my experience, and I’ve been working with bats for 40 years.”

Thomas Kunz, Biology Professor and Director of Boston University’s Center for Ecology and Conservation Biology 

Since 2000 the leading causes of bat population decline has been from White Nose Syndrome and collisions with wind turbines. So how are we impacting their population? Climate change. Although it is unknown why White Nose Syndrome is spreading and killing more bats , we do know that fungus only grows at cold temperatures. In Albany, NY, people noticed that bats were flying during frigid days rather than hibernating in their caves and being nocturnal. As much as 97% of bat populations have thinned in the North East including New York, Connecticut, Maine, and Vermont. With climate change, weather patterns are becoming more extreme (like the polar vortex sending down Arctic winds to northern, mid-America). With colder weather, bats are likely to come out of hibernation early or offset their nocturnal sleeping patterns. Not only is this disruptive but it severely hurts their immune systems, potentially causing their inability to ward off the infections from White Nose Syndrome as effectively as they could.  

Bats help us fight infections, so let’s help them fight off infections too!

JD Slajchert

Engineer of Words. Division 1 Student-Athlete. Author.








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