Coffee makes you crazy

I did something about a month ago that I never thought would enter my mind as a possibility. I gave up coffee. Pretty much cold turkey.

Now comes a determination by the American Psychiatric Association that caffeine withdrawal is an actual mental illness. It has been officially listed as such in their professional bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

They don't mean withdrawal that results from giving something up. They mean the symptoms a caffeine addict experiences whenever the customary caffeine level in their system declines. Such as around noon, after the morning cuppa wears off. Or when you get home from work, when the afternoon pick 'em up cuppa is hours behind you.

If you drink more than two or three cups of coffee a day, you may experience withdrawal symptoms including headaches, grumpiness, trouble sleeping and difficulty focusing. Also:

People with this level of intoxication will show five or more of the following symptoms: restlessness, nervousness, excitement, insomnia, flushed face, diuresis, gastrointestinal disturbance, twitching, rambling thought or speech, tachycardia, arrhythmia, periods of inexhaustibly, or psychomotor agitation.

I gave up coffee after more than 25 years because I began to notice it was affecting my mood and my sleep. My addiction also affect my habits. For instance, on short dayhiking trips I would go to great lengths to bring along the necessary gear to be sure I could prepare a cup of hot joe on the trail. And I often had to mold my work schedule around that afternoon cup.

Frankly, I didn't think I could live without coffee. But the quitting process was surprisingly easy. There was only one hard day, about two or three days after I quit, when it felt like my system "crashed." I was in a kind of stupor, incapable of much activity or focused thought. But the very next day, I was fine.

I must note that I did not give up caffeine entirely, only coffee. I now drink mostly green tea, which has about a third as much caffeine.

This is all relevant because climate change may wipe out Arabica beans, which account for 70 percent of Earth's coffee production. So as I see it, the sooner we humans can wean ourselves of this addiction, the better off we'll be. I never thought I'd say that.

My stuff: Climate change may wipe out 82% of native CA fish

That includes numerous species of salmon. By contrast, only 19 percent of nonnative fishes will be lost.

"We'll be making choices," says Peter Moyle of UC Davis. "Either we have these species around for the future, or we don't."

Published in The Sacramento Bee on May 31, 2013.

 

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Solar energy breakthrough?

Maryland inventor Ronald Ace claims to have made a breakthrough in solar thermal energy generation that could eliminate mankind's dependence on fossil fuels. The "solar trap" design is promising because Ace claims it captures nearly 100 percent of the sun's energy, which no other technology has even come close to achieving. Details are sketchy, but expert reviews are underway and a patent has been filed.

 

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Troubling milestone

Atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has reached 400 parts per million. The last time it was this high, humans did not yet exist as a species.

 

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Atlantis redux

The Washington Post recently published "What sea level rise looks like," a valuable series of animations portraying different future potential water depths and how they affect well-known areas of the nation's capitol. Reminds me of the fabled lost city of Atlantis, lost to rising seas in a long-lost era. Below is a screen capture from the WaPo story showing how three stages of sea level rise affect the Washington Monument.

Would like to see this done for every community in the U.S.

 

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Sidewalk art

A leaf impression in the cement, painted.

Merton on solitude

When society is made up of men who know no interior solitude, it can no longer be held together by love: and consequently it is held together by a violent and abusive authority.

-- Thomas Merton, "Thoughts in Solitude," 1958


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