Note: If you are at UofC, please go through the entire article. The invitation is obviously extended to everyone but is made strong for visitors from UofC.
Coffee is the wonder drug that many a grad student, including yours truly, depends on to cleanse one of ones sins of procrastination. Its the caffeine (trimethylxanthine, C8H10N4O2 [1]) in coffee that gives us the enhanced sense of activeness. Caffeine works on the same section of the brain [1] as cocaine, heroine etc... and as a consequence of that, we get addicted to coffee. This human addiction to coffee has resulted in it being the most consumed beverage worldwide and made coffee one of the most important commodities being traded globally [2]. Estimates indicate that about 400 billion cups of coffee is being consumed worldwide every year [2]. A primary reason for such tremendously high levels of consumption is the ubiquitous coffee parlours in most of the western world and in many metropolitan cities in the third world. Any human activity that rapidly scales is bound to have a huge hidden cost. With most human activity, the cost of sudden and ad infinitum scaling is borne by the environment. Same is the case with coffee. So, it is imperative of us to, at the very least, be aware of the damages that we cause and reduce the impact of our actions whenever and wherever possible.
If you drink coffee at coffee shops even once a week, a really good thing you can do is to get a coffee mug. This is a very simple step and results in significant benefits. Every time you drink coffee out of the disposable cups, you are seriously disposing of a small percentage of the future of the earth. Though the cup you use might be recyclable, what really matters is whether it actually gets recycled and in most cases it is not. Energy is spent in mining the materials to make that cup, energy is spent in making that finished product, energy is spent in transporting it, energy is spent in disposing it. The earth cannot afford such a wastage of energy. Also, by using disposable cups one is unnecessarily generating garbage. I have an earlier post on waste that talks about the hazards of generating so much garbage. If you have your roots in third world countries and if you are living in a 'developed' nation, that post might have some significance to you. If you are a grad student at UofC (addressed to grad students primarily as I am one and most people visiting this space from UofC are grad students) then you do have an office to leave your coffee mugs safely. You dont even have to worry about carrying them everyday. All you need to do is to pick it up when you goto the coffee shop, enjoy your coffee and finally clean your mug. The only expense in this is the initial purchase of the coffee mug. If this is adopted on a large scale, it could significantly bring down the real expense of this coffee frenzy. Coffee mugs are available in almost every store inside the UofC. I bought one recently for $15. Considering the fact that most grad students at UofC are anyways heavily funded (in comparison with many other schools in Canada), this is definitely not big bucks.
If you dont agreed with my claim that buying a coffee mug is going to help, then its a waste of time for you to go beyond this point in this post. Trying to live in a sustainable fashion is not a one off charity act. Its also not an economic act for us to look for specific gains. It should be done because it is the right thing to do. But to do this, we need information. The next part of this post tries to provide just that.
Organic farming [3] is a form of agriculture which avoids or largely excludes the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, plant growth regulators, and livestock feed additives. This is really good as it is gentle on earth and is humane to the farmers as it prevents them from getting exposed to carcinogenic chemicals. Chemical intensive farming naturally affects the environment around the area of the farm. If such a farm is huge, then we are assured of having chemical intensive environments. Coffee being one of the largest traded commodities worldwide, has to be grown in vast tracts of land around the globe. So chemical intensive farming in such vast tracts of land will automatically result in babies whose systems are rich in chemicals. The natural question is, then why doesnt everyone go for organic farming. The obvious answer is that it costs more. So, farms that grow coffee organically depend on you for support.
Vast production of coffee automatically demands huge amounts of agricultural land. Clear cutting of forests to acquire this land is followed by a large number of farmers to reduce the cost of production. But this is extremely deleterious to the health of the planet. Shade cultivation of coffee on the other hand does not need clear cutting of forests [4]. This really ameliorates the planets health. Shade cultivation was the traditional way of growing coffee. But recently sun resitant coffee breeds have been developed. These breeds need chemical intensive farming practices [4] and also encourage the clear cutting of forests. The short term benefit of higher yields are no compensation for long term destruction of the environment.
So, it is imperative of us to try and consume shade grown organic coffee as and when feasible. For those at UofC, there is a coffee business called good earth at ICT and as far as I know (I hope I am wrong and hope that there are more such businesses) that is the only business in campus that offers 100 percent organic and 100% shade grown coffee [5]. No, this is not a sales pitch for Good Earth and I've not been paid by them to write this. Even the ecoclub at UofC have lot of nice things to say about Good Earth [6]. So consider patronising places that sell organic and shade grown coffee. It might cost you a few dollars more every month but remember that you are being a whole lot nicer with the environment.
Coffee is the wonder drug that many a grad student, including yours truly, depends on to cleanse one of ones sins of procrastination. Its the caffeine (trimethylxanthine, C8H10N4O2 [1]) in coffee that gives us the enhanced sense of activeness. Caffeine works on the same section of the brain [1] as cocaine, heroine etc... and as a consequence of that, we get addicted to coffee. This human addiction to coffee has resulted in it being the most consumed beverage worldwide and made coffee one of the most important commodities being traded globally [2]. Estimates indicate that about 400 billion cups of coffee is being consumed worldwide every year [2]. A primary reason for such tremendously high levels of consumption is the ubiquitous coffee parlours in most of the western world and in many metropolitan cities in the third world. Any human activity that rapidly scales is bound to have a huge hidden cost. With most human activity, the cost of sudden and ad infinitum scaling is borne by the environment. Same is the case with coffee. So, it is imperative of us to, at the very least, be aware of the damages that we cause and reduce the impact of our actions whenever and wherever possible.
If you drink coffee at coffee shops even once a week, a really good thing you can do is to get a coffee mug. This is a very simple step and results in significant benefits. Every time you drink coffee out of the disposable cups, you are seriously disposing of a small percentage of the future of the earth. Though the cup you use might be recyclable, what really matters is whether it actually gets recycled and in most cases it is not. Energy is spent in mining the materials to make that cup, energy is spent in making that finished product, energy is spent in transporting it, energy is spent in disposing it. The earth cannot afford such a wastage of energy. Also, by using disposable cups one is unnecessarily generating garbage. I have an earlier post on waste that talks about the hazards of generating so much garbage. If you have your roots in third world countries and if you are living in a 'developed' nation, that post might have some significance to you. If you are a grad student at UofC (addressed to grad students primarily as I am one and most people visiting this space from UofC are grad students) then you do have an office to leave your coffee mugs safely. You dont even have to worry about carrying them everyday. All you need to do is to pick it up when you goto the coffee shop, enjoy your coffee and finally clean your mug. The only expense in this is the initial purchase of the coffee mug. If this is adopted on a large scale, it could significantly bring down the real expense of this coffee frenzy. Coffee mugs are available in almost every store inside the UofC. I bought one recently for $15. Considering the fact that most grad students at UofC are anyways heavily funded (in comparison with many other schools in Canada), this is definitely not big bucks.
If you dont agreed with my claim that buying a coffee mug is going to help, then its a waste of time for you to go beyond this point in this post. Trying to live in a sustainable fashion is not a one off charity act. Its also not an economic act for us to look for specific gains. It should be done because it is the right thing to do. But to do this, we need information. The next part of this post tries to provide just that.
Organic farming [3] is a form of agriculture which avoids or largely excludes the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, plant growth regulators, and livestock feed additives. This is really good as it is gentle on earth and is humane to the farmers as it prevents them from getting exposed to carcinogenic chemicals. Chemical intensive farming naturally affects the environment around the area of the farm. If such a farm is huge, then we are assured of having chemical intensive environments. Coffee being one of the largest traded commodities worldwide, has to be grown in vast tracts of land around the globe. So chemical intensive farming in such vast tracts of land will automatically result in babies whose systems are rich in chemicals. The natural question is, then why doesnt everyone go for organic farming. The obvious answer is that it costs more. So, farms that grow coffee organically depend on you for support.
Vast production of coffee automatically demands huge amounts of agricultural land. Clear cutting of forests to acquire this land is followed by a large number of farmers to reduce the cost of production. But this is extremely deleterious to the health of the planet. Shade cultivation of coffee on the other hand does not need clear cutting of forests [4]. This really ameliorates the planets health. Shade cultivation was the traditional way of growing coffee. But recently sun resitant coffee breeds have been developed. These breeds need chemical intensive farming practices [4] and also encourage the clear cutting of forests. The short term benefit of higher yields are no compensation for long term destruction of the environment.
So, it is imperative of us to try and consume shade grown organic coffee as and when feasible. For those at UofC, there is a coffee business called good earth at ICT and as far as I know (I hope I am wrong and hope that there are more such businesses) that is the only business in campus that offers 100 percent organic and 100% shade grown coffee [5]. No, this is not a sales pitch for Good Earth and I've not been paid by them to write this. Even the ecoclub at UofC have lot of nice things to say about Good Earth [6]. So consider patronising places that sell organic and shade grown coffee. It might cost you a few dollars more every month but remember that you are being a whole lot nicer with the environment.
References
[1] How coffee works at HowStuffWorks
[2] Economics of coffee - article in wikipedia
[3] Organic farming - article in wikipedia
[4] Shade coffee explanation
[5] Good Earth homepage
[6] Ecoclub at UofC
5 comments:
For me its not Coffee, its Tea. Are there any specific forms of Tea that I should look to consume?
From time to time, I drink a lot of Dole. These days I am switching to paper container juices. I also drink Lipton green tea which comes in attractive glass bottles which i throw away. environmental impact of that?
Although I didnt buy my own coffee mug, there was one at my desk which seemed pretty clean and unused. Probably left behind by the guy before. Abaysu! :) typical cheap indian grad!
Thanks for pointing out the value of choosing organic coffee. Consider fair trade coffee as well. Our choices can affect more than just ourselves.
Debbie
www.organic-food-and-drink.com
Nice post, well researched. Suggest you make a series on such things. One thing that comes to my mind is the unrestricted use of polythene bags.
I have one more suggestion. It might be good to have a dedicated blog/site for environmental issues, if you are going to take it very seriously. You can even join forces with some like minded ppl.
This would help in spreading the message to a wider audience, which I guess is the goal of such posts.
@gskg
I have no ready made answers but I can look around and find some stuff..
@debbie
thx for pointing it out... I actually wanted to write about it but this post took a lot of time and somehow I forgot to include it.. anyways thx again for pointing it out...
btw, have we met before? how did you land here?
@narasim
thx for dropping by dude... suggestions taken.. I think I am quite serious about it but there are quite a few road blacks ahead.. things will hopefully become clear once I cross those... lesse...
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