How a cup of coffee contributes to climate change | Hacker News Reader

How a cup of coffee contributes to climate change

theconversation.com

14 pointsnick__m27 comments

To put the study in perspective, driving a single mile in your car will emit the same amount of CO2 as brewing 8 of the least efficient cups of coffee listed in the study, and using a single gallon of fuel emits 360 inefficient cups worth of CO2[0].

So basically if you want to ‘offset’ a years worth of daily coffee, drive approximately 20-30 less miles per year.

[0] https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-t...

I was wondering when they'd come for coffee.

Where I live it's not just coffee. Almost all veggies come from half a continent away. Supermarkets are always filled up with exotic fruit from overseas.

Almost every city has a dozen dollar stores where almost all the stuff comes from China.

Transportation of veggies is quite optimized and is almost never the biggest contributor to the carbon footprint of any food or drink product.

Case in point here, looking at the graph, most of the footprint is in the coffee production and preparation, and 5-10% is attributed to transportation.

It's almost alwys better to get tomatoes from a sunny southern region than to grow them in a heated greenhouse locally. Even better to eat seasonally, but then someone will shout "now they're coming for our tomatoes".

How did you guys live before industrialization? Because you understand that unless climate change is solved, the most likely end state for your locale is being forced by nature to go back to whatever you had before industrialization. The whole point is to avoid that end state. So they'll come for your coffee, they'll come for your cheap Chinese junk, or else you'll naturally lose it all anyway.

Ecofascism is the term

The term to describe people who are working to destroy the planet, yes.

That's funny. I thought the purpose was to avoid living in a hyper Industrial dystopian Wasteland once nature collapses.

I thank you ecological collapse is far more likely to lead to this outcome than widespread subsistence farming

As we are learning it incredibly hard to get people to change their habits and behaviors especially when it means their utility will take a hit. Getting people to drink less coffee is just not going to happen. The more of these types of articles I read the more I am starting to realize the importance of carbon removal to solving our collective problem.

Adding a specific tax for coffee and rising it by 1% every quarter would probably work in removing some consumption. And it would generate resources for the government.

That'd be political suicide.

How about a tax on breathing?

The average human produces around 1kg of CO2 per day - from the article, that's equivalent to 4-6 cups of coffee. I assume larger people and more active people contribute significantly higher.

A tax on personal CO2 emissions beyond the politburo approved 1kg per person per day will do wonders.

Are you trying to equate coffee drinking and breathing? I am sure you understand those 2 things are very different.

If you need coffee to literally stay alive, you might be consuming it a tad too much ;)

And how many coffee growers would it shift out of their current state of wretched poverty, downward into something worse?

What exactly would yet another green tax achieve?

Fund underperforming government employee's pensions?

And then we could use that one percent tax to subsidize low-income coffee purchasers to complete the loop

It's well-known that "carbon footprint" was popularized by oil companies around the time of Inconvenient Truth so that we don't come after them. [0] Even so, before you worry about your coffee tackle the low-hanging fruit first. Drive less, walk and cycle more, go vegan, and stop flying.

[0] https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sh...

There are a few synthetic coffee startups that claim to have a lower carbon impact, though it's hard to tell if this is just marketing guff.

For example: https://atomocoffee.com/pages/beanless-coffee

That looks a lot like meatless meats - random, I mean scientifically engineered, mix of miscellaneous plant products with caffeine and some other ingredients to make it taste like coffee.

At that point, I'd rather drink Coke.

Yummy. Can't wait to enjoy my fake cup of coffee as I snack on my roasted grasshoppers.

Hey, maybe for lunch I'll have an Impossible Whopper!

The future is freaking awesome!

> Ingredients: [...] Chicory Root [...]

Hey, that's the stuff my (great-)grandparents drank, during and after the world wars! They didn't additionally "upcycle" date seeds, whatever upcycling means in that context, though. :D

Personally I would just switch to pure chicory root or wheat coffee before using such an overpriced "premium mocca faux". $17 for less than a litre of "coffee" is quite the price tag.

So the concept of Original Sin outlasted the belief in Christianity. Interesting...

Whatever. sips.

Hmm, so good. I can stop any time btw!

I do it twice/year to reset tolerance. YMMV.

Does it make a noticeable difference? I quit coffee once for a month or two (it's been a while) and only had 2 days of very mild headaches. After that, didn't notice anything except that I REALLY missed the taste of coffee :) And the ritual.

I didn't notice anything when going back on coffee, either, I don't think it makes me more "productive" or focused or anything. I just like the taste.

It does to me; coffee makes me very awake, aware and happy after a 15d break.

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