Speaking about competitive threats, a colleague of mine once said that “The problem isn’t what’s someday going to eat your lunch. The problem is what’s in your kitchen when you get up, already making its breakfast.” Even for those who accept the reality and magnitude of climate change, it may still seem like a “going to eat your lunch in a couple of decades” thing; what if it were in your face, tomorrow morning, across the breakfast table?

What if I don’t mean this metaphorically? You may often pour a cup of the world’s most widely used psychoactive drug to start the day. Let’s enjoy our caffeination while we can: “It’s just a miracle that we still have plants producing coffee,” said Sara Morrocchi, the founder and CEO of coffee-focused agriculture consultancy Vuna in comments about a year ago.

If that sounds hyperbolic, a study published earlier this year puts numbers on the situation:

Overall, we analyzed daily temperatures in 25 coffee-growing countries. These 25 countries account for about 97% of global coffee production — and all of them experienced more coffee-harming heat during the past five years because of climate change. On average, countries experienced about 47 extra days each year of this harmful heat because of climate change.

Unsurprisingly, it’s not just about temperature:

Coffee plants need a good amount of rainfall, but they also need it to be predictable. Climate change is throwing a wrench in that, causing longer droughts in some areas and heavier, more intense rainfall in others. Too little water, and the plants wither away. Too much, and they can get hit with fungal diseases like coffee leaf rust and cherry rot. They can’t win either way: rainfall has to remain the same as what they’ve been acclimatized to for centuries.

These are not hypothetical concerns: “Imbalance in the climate system has created warmer and more humid conditions – ideal for pests and pathogens. The Financial Times reported that coffee leaf rust is spreading rapidly across coffee farms in Central America, causing a sharp decline in production,” observed a wide-ranging note from ASEZ (“Save the Earth from A to Z”) in March of last year.

Angst over threats to our morning coffee can’t be calmed with some pre-dinner wine and cheese, because both of those amenities are also in climate’s crosshairs:

French wine production this year is expected to fall 6 percent from 2025 after a summer of unprecedented heatwaves and drought, the agriculture ministry said on Monday, predicting the most paltry harvest for some 70 years… The 2025 figure was already an historic low, marking the lowest production in France since 1957. The decline expected in 2026, which is 17 percent below the average seen between 2021 and 2025, is due both to shrinking vineyards and lower yields caused by drought and summer heatwaves, according to the ministry's statistics service.

Even if you buy more wine from California than from France, this is not a time for a “Je m’en fous” (or even one of the more polite French versions of “I don’t care”): last year, researchers from University of California at Davis warned that

Temperatures exceeding 35°C…can cause lower wine grape quality… [For] Cabernet Sauvignon from the Napa Valley, the premier region for Cabernet Sauvignon in California…low and high temperatures are harmful and hot weather later in the growing season is especially harmful.

As for the cheese,

Some of France’s most beloved artisanal cheeses are under threat from the effects of climate change, scientists and cheesemakers warn. “Before, we used to have a problem with the grass every 15-20 years,” says Laurent Lours, who has been a dairy farmer and cheesemaker for 35 years. “Now, it’s about every other year. And it’s getting worse.”…Farmers who produce many of the country’s top-tier cheeses have been forced to cease production. And the distinct flavor of France’s “terroir” cheeses are at risk.

Again, it’s not just about France:

For Laini Fondiller at Lazy Lady Farm in Westfield, Vermont, her underground aging cave has been suffering due to climate change. The cave is naturally climate controlled, so it runs without electricity, but changing weather conditions have impacted her ability to safely ripen some cheeses there.

There is, moreover, a particular karmic “what goes around comes around” where cheese is concerned, because “Cheese has about eight times the [methane] emissions of milk, which is probably a yield issue, because it takes 10 pounds of milk to make one pound of cheese” as estimated by researcher Alexandra Jones. “Methane produced by animals is the largest contributor of greenhouse gases and 77% of that methane is emitted by cattle – where most cheese is derived.” We’ve talked about methane here before, so I won’t add to my word count this week by repeating the reasons why it’s very very bad.

Climate change is not over the horizon. It’s not even knocking at the door. It’s already in the kitchen, and it’s making itself at home.