Standing around an Audubon Society store the other day I picked up a bag of coffee beans that was promoted as being “shade grown”. I had no idea what that meant, but according to the packaging growing coffee in the shade is somehow better for birds. I’m a fan of birds, so I was curious enough to Google it.
Despite my inclination to hug trees, I’m generally skeptical of the latest “save the planet” fads. Reading through the documents, however, their arguments seemed to make sense. The basic concept appears that most coffee plantations are made by clear-cutting forests (not good for birds, and reducing carbon uptake). Further, most coffee strains don’t fair well in the direct sun they’re now forced to be in (so varieties are bred to withstand the light). Roll into this the larger plantations tend to be run by larger corporations (not community farmers) and use more chemical (not organic) fertilizers.
Among the links I turned up, I found a company in Oregon that flipped each negative attribute on its head. Enter Grounds for Change, a roaster and distribution company that claims it’s coffee is:
100% Organic
Shade Grown
Fair Trade
Carbon Neutral
Now, that’s a cup of coffee that’ll shine your Earth-friendly halo. And to top it all off, it’s super tasty.
… all I need to do now is figure out how to offset the carbon for transit from Oregon to Massachusetts.
UPDATE:11/7/2008
I received a couple more links thanks to @2xlp that are worth a look, too:
Up until recently I’ve not had a very high opinion of mushrooms as an ingredient in most recipes. Admittedly, I don’t have the most sophisticated pallet when it comes to subtle tastes. So when a dish calls for mushrooms, I figured that I might as well substitute them with soggy cardboard.
Following a stint of rainy weather this summer, though, I started to see mushrooms in a new light. Specifically, when we were tromping through some of our favorite hiking trails we started to see an amazing array of mushrooms popping through the undergrowth. This spawned an interest in learning more about them so we could identify them. As we dived into the details, we also found out which were edible… even though we had no intention of popping wild mushrooms into our mouths.
So, in a recent trip to the market we purchased a selection of the wide variety of available mushrooms. We brought them home and sauteed them in a dash of butter for an impromptu taste test. I was pleasantly surprised that each had a noticeably distinct flavor. I’m not enough of a gourmand to really understand how to use them each in a specific dish, but at least now I get how more accomplished cooks might put them to good use.
And next time I encounter a recipe calling for mushrooms, I’m going to bypass the standard tasteless variety and go for something flavorful. Perhaps we’ll even get ambitious enough to find a way to grow them at home.
According to a story I heard on NPR’s Morning Edition this morning, eating meat takes a bite out of your carbon footprint. Specifically, it’s the production of the meat that takes its toll on the environment.
As global demand for meat products has increased in recent years, so has awareness of the environmental damage that the industry causes. Modern meat production uses enormous amounts of energy, pollutes water supplies and creates greenhouse gases.
An interesting quote in the piece was that by decreasing your yearly meat intake by 20% has the equivalent carbon offset as replacing your average mid-size sedan with a Prius. As they said Americans consume about 40% more meat per year than Europeans, it seems we’ve got the wiggle room there to make this happen.
Another snippet in the segment talked about how the adverse environmental impact would also be offset by eating meat that’s produced more locally. A lot of the issues arise from large scale feed farming and transportation.
After checking out the Aptera, I seriously wonder if it’s worth moving to California (the only state they’re being sold). I mean, come on… 300mpg? How can my puny Prius compete with that?
I’ve seen this trend happen over the past few years, but it’s always a bummer to watch my fuel efficiency drop with the temperature. One day I’m happily bopping along at an average 52 mpg, then whamo, the thermometer dips near freezing and I’m pumping out carbon at 45 mpg. I even scrape out another one or two miles per gallon by keeping the temperature in the car just above the point where I can feel my fingers.
This year, however, I just experienced the worst gas mileage of my hybrid-driving career. I was stuck in an 8-hour traffic jam during a recent snow storm that dumped something like 2 inches an hour on Boston. There I was, inching along with the rest of the commuters (when we were inching at all), and all I could do was watch my average miles per gallon plummet. The constant draw on the battery to keep the lights on, the windshield wipers moving, and the heat and defrosters going dragged me down to the 31 mpg mark.
So, when’s that arcology I’ve been promised gonna’ be ready?
Assuming we’re all gonna’ buy stuff anyway… the folks at UTNE Reader have teamed up with Moment Marketing to create EarthMoment.com. The online shopping site sells stuff from standard retailers (Apple, Barnes and Noble, Circuit City, Macy’s, Sharper Image, etc.) at what appears to be MSRV. They then donates half of their commission-based revenues to Carbonfund.org, a nonprofit organization supporting projects that reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
It seems like a relatively good idea… though I’d prefer to see them work out an integration model with existing shopping portals. By building their own, they’re going to have to get the word out it exists for it to succeed.
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