Every fall, there is one beverage that I must order at least once, and I bet you can guess it …
Yep, a pumpkin spice latte. With each sip, my senses are dazzled by the comforting smells of baking spices and the subtle nutty notes that can be detected in the drink’s sugary pumpkin syrup.
It’s one of the many aspects of fall that make it my favorite season, hands down.
I’ve always thought of it as one of nature’s most brilliant shows. After months of mainly green tones, landscapes start to light up with fiery colors. Simple walks around a neighborhood become almost like a celebration with refreshing, cooler temperatures and colorful leaves being scattered in the wind like confetti.
And honestly, a wonderful addition to these walks is a pumpkin spice latte warming a cardboard cup clasped lovingly in my hands.
But this convenient and splendid seasonal pleasure certainly comes at an environmental cost, which is also threatening my favorite season.
I’ve known this intuitively, but of course, I’ve wondered … how bad could it be?
I’ve decided to finally do some digging to find out, and to figure out how I can make my coffee drinking habits more sustainable—while of course still as enjoyable as possible.
Coffee Farmers Have Cause for Distress
On Oct. 11, Reuters reported that coffee farmers in Colombia, which is the world’s 2nd largest producer of Arabica coffee, were unable to deliver up to about 1 million bags of beans. This comes as coffee prices have risen around 55% this year.
Although the Reuters article did not specify this, there are numerous reports that climate change is having an impact on Colombia's coffee bean production.
A Colombian coffee farmer told science magazine Eos that higher temperatures cause coffee harvests to be scarce because certain low temperatures are needed for the “setting” of the coffee plant's flower. Additionally, farmers have seen more bleeding of the wet season into the dry season and vice versa, which has led to wetter conditions that can also limit harvests.
The main reason for this spike in coffee prices, however, is that the world’s largest coffee producer, Brazil, is enduring historic droughts fueled by climate change (NPR, September 2021). You can probably guess the caffeine-addicted country that is Brazil’s most significant client: yep, the United States.
Honestly, of all the spooky elements of this time of year, a world without coffee is the scariest!
But in all seriousness, I hope we never have to face this terrifying reality. Yet it seems climate change is racing us towards it.
The director of Valorizacao, a Brazilian company that exports coffee worldwide, told NPR in late September, “It's very serious. Last year, we had one of the lowest rainfall readings on the coffee-producing areas for the last 90 years.”
However, it’s not only drought that Brazilian coffee farmers have to contend with. Climate change is causing other significant and unusual weather events, including pushing rains later when they do come in addition to triggering heavier frosts and even hail storms that all cause significant damage to the coffee plants (NPR).
As you can imagine, the negative impacts from the droughts and other strange weather patterns extend far beyond simply harming coffee bean production.
A sign of the severity of the droughts affecting areas in Brazil where coffee is grown is that a lake created in the 1960s in Minas Gerais that was twice the size of Chicago has dried up (NPR). The lake was so large it was called the Sea of Minas Gerais.
And for those who aren’t coffee drinkers, sorry: Brazil’s tumultuous weather may still put one of your favorite elements of breakfast at risk.
Brazil produces about four-fifths of the world’s orange juice supply, a third of the corn and soy used for hens that lay those eggs used for many breakfast favorites (anyone else obsessed with eggs benedict??), and a stunning half of the world’s sugar exports (Bloomberg).
As a keen baker—check out this easy bread recipe post!—my concern for this situation extends far deeper than coffee.
And this is skewing a bit off-topic, but if you aren’t even someone who is a huge breakfast person (I can understand as someone who used to work 2nd shift and had a hard enough time waking up in the morning, let alone figuring out what to eat), unfortunately, there is still more bad news: Brazil’s climate catastrophes are among the reasons that the U.N.’s food inflation index has spiked 33% in the last year (Bloomberg).
It gets worse: droughts are also causing sources of Brazil’s hydropower to dry up—which is a similar situation as the American West (Bloomberg).
What We Can Do
Ready for the good news? You can make a difference—yes, it’s a cliche, but I know how a lot of these issues seem so overwhelming, they can make you feel powerless.
In our capitalist society, your purchases as a consumer matter. For an uplifting example, between 2000 and 2015, child labor dropped by about a third thanks to consumers shopping more ethically—that amounts to about 78 million fewer children forced to work for profit (worldvision.au).
One tip is to buy from brands that have made commitments to support more sustainable coffee production, such as Nespresso—You can find sustainable initiatives often advertised on coffee bags, such as “Fairtrade,” “Rainforest Alliance,” “Utz” and “Smithsonian Bird Friendly” (www.conservation.org). You can learn more about coffee producers who are taking significant steps towards sustainability by visiting https://www.sustaincoffee.org/commitments#browse-commitments.
You are probably familiar with Fair Trade but might be wondering what it means. Fairtrade means that farmers in developing countries are paid an amount that is fair for their crops, which often promotes more sustainable agricultural practices (sustainability.uq.edu.au).
Additionally, it’s best to avoid the waste of single-use paper cups and K-cups. While you might think those paper cups are recyclable, they have a heat-protecting plastic coating that makes most unrecyclable (recyclecoach.com). Think of the mushy mess the cup would be with hot coffee if there wasn’t that coating!
Limit Landfill Waste
While the cardboard and styrofoam cups are convenient, they are responsible for 2.2 billion pounds of waste each year in the U.S.—to put that in perspective, those disposable cups alone could fill 78,571 garbage trucks each year (www.cityofberkeley.info). And all of that paper has to come from somewhere: 11 million trees are also required to make those cardboard cups.
You may wonder what the significance might be of avoiding a cardboard cup since well, let’s face it, everyone uses them. Well, I was surprised when I learned that exchanging even one disposable cup per day over a year could save “23 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions, 281 gallons of water and keep 16 pounds of solid waste from going to the landfill” according to FoodPring (foodprint.org/blog/reusable-coffee-cup-ban/).
Now I understand of course that initially with deadly COVID-19 spreading that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended the use of single-use cups to prevent the spread of the deadly virus.
However, in case you are still concerned, the latest CDC recommendations say that surface contamination is not the main way that COVID-19 can spread, although studies have shown that the virus can last a bit longer on plastic.
Paper cups can have less of an environmental impact than styrofoam, and I would like to give it to Dunkin Donuts for replacing their non-reusable styrofoam cups with paper cups that use paper that adheres to the Sustainable Forestry Initiative Standard. (https://news.dunkindonuts.com/news/dunkin-donuts-to-eliminate-foam-cups-worldwide-in-2020)
Coffee Prep that Considers the Planet
Additionally, it’s best to choose an energy-efficient coffee preparation method. These include a French press or a Moka pot according to the University of Queensland Australia.
I LOVE my French press—there’s something about the simplicity of just boiling the water and pouring it over the coffee grinds. It’s also fun to observe the coffee grounds bubble to the surface as the waterworks its magic. For the wonderful earthy smell of fresh-ground beans, I suggest grinding them yourself with a small coffee grinder.
The magic of coffee grounds goes beyond making coffee—they also can make excellent fertilizer if you throw them in the compost as they are high in nutrients including nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium (sustainability.uq.edu.au).
Oh, and if you’d like to make your own homemade pumpkin spice coffee for a walk in a reusable mug (which has the bonus benefit of keeping your coffee piping hot longer!) here’s a great recipe: gimmesomeoven.com/pumpkin-spice-latte/.
If you are hooked on the convenience of the Keurig K-Cups, don’t fret: a recycling company called Terracycle now has a program to recycle some of the K-Cup brands. You can collect them and send them back using a Zero Waste Box. I know this comes with a hefty price tag, though, so maybe it could be a group gift to a friend or family member who’s passionate about environmental causes, or perhaps an office initiative where everyone chips in some money to give back to the planet.
Vote for Climate Advocacy
While of course, individual actions do make a difference, voting is one of the most effective ways to make your voice heard about environmental action.
I say this now because although there’s not nearly as much hullabaloo for the elections coming up this November 3rd, it’s just as important—if not more important—to support local officials who are for environmental advocacy.
Early voting has already started in many areas.
If you are interested in looking up who is going to be on your ballot, I suggest visiting: ballotpedia.org/Sample_Ballot_Lookup.
Another way you can get involved to save coffee and of course, all of the other incredible aspects of our planet is to support initiatives such as Biden’s Build Back Better legislation.
There is A LOT included in this plan so it can certainly be confusing to navigate, but some basics for this blog post (I hope to go more in-depth in a future post) of positives for the environment include (according to The Guardian):
A $4,000 tax credit (at least) for those buying an electric vehicle
Additional tax credits and grants are available to communities and businesses that are working on clean energy projects
Payments and fines for utility companies that encourage them to phase into using renewable energy and clean up fossil fuel emissions (although this and other clean energy aspects of the plan are facing the possibility of being slashed as arguments about the plan continue).
So obviously I’ve got a bit beyond the realm of coffee here. However, when I think about a world without coffee, or in which coffee is an astronomical price, I feel an immediate desire to do something about climate change.
And
This fall has been one of the wettest I can ever remember. The leaves are still putting on a show but it is certainly dampened (literally and figuratively) by a lot of grey, rainy days recently.
Yes, climate change is likely behind this–it accelerates the water cycle by causing more evaporation, meaning there are stronger downpours, particularly in the Northeast (Climatecentral.org).
Most concerningly, this is causing dangerous flooding in the Northeast’s most densely populated areas, including the New York City area where in early September, a deadly flash flood killed 41 people (NBCnews.com).
While I joke that coffee is a lifesaver, what could truly be life-saving is to take action to prevent more deadly weather events fueled by climate change.
So I hope that just as a cup of joe can fuel us through our busy workdays, it can also be a precipitant for vital climate change advocacy.
Sources:
gimmesomeoven.com/pumpkin-spice-latte/