By Sarah B.
Posted on Oct. 6, 2009. Listed in:
So here’s the really bad news. Just when you thought it was safe to walk down to your local coffee shop and sip on that trim latte, the Carbon Reduction Institute tells us that each latte has the same carbon footprint as leaving a 6o watt light on for 3 hours .
Damn ...so here I am thinking about the problem of climate change , painfully evident everywhere we look at the moment , and I can’ even rely on a much needed cup of coffee to be inoffensive.
Actually if I think about how much coffee I drink .. Maybe 3 or 4 a day , every day , then Ive just emitted a whole lot more carbon than I like to think about .
Ah, but it tastes so good, and then my organics friend sitting here with me tells me he reckons the carbon emissions are the least of the problems with the coffee Im drinking .
And starts telling me how often this stuff gets sprayed. So now here I am with my heavily sprayed, carbon emitting latte, still managing to like the taste – a lot ..and he starts telling me what its sprayed with .
Among these gross sounding things, he says is endosulfan ,a pesticide used against many insects . But then he tells me how long these poisons stay in the environment ( several months after application ) and then that its poisonous to humans. Damn ..I’m hating this cos the coffee still smells great .
In Australia a number of businesses have decided to make their coffee carbon neutral. Jasper Coffee has now made changes that include making the business carbon neutral and taking action on all sustainability fronts... so Im leaving my coffee here ( actually its finished anyway !) and going off to find a carbon neutral coffee supplier which sells organic coffee ! I fear it may be harder in New Zealand than it needs to be .
More cool stuff on Celsias:
UK Supermarket Chain to Exclusively Sell Local Dairy
the sprays on coffee have been bugging me for some time . And Im not finding many organic outlets - despite looking quite hard
Written in October 2009