Quitting Coffee is One of the Easiest Ways to Help The Planet and Yourself

And what do you propose the 20 million or so farmers globally do instead of growing coffee? Not to mention the benefits of shade grown coffee on the environment, which doesn't require extensive habitat destruction, and infact can improve land fertility through nitrogen fixation of some trees commonly used for shade cover...

Thanks for your opinion however

I'm curious what the economic impact would be on countries like Colombia and Bolivia if this went through. Do they have the ability to transform themselves economically?

Hmm, if we all banned coffee, what kind of economic peril would that wreak in the coffee growing regions of the world?

One cannot debate the carbon footprint by growing, harvesting, fermenting, drying, and transporting this commodity but wouldn't the smarter thing be to invest one's dollars in fair trade coffee consumption, coffee that is grown with an eye toward ecological sustainability and that gives fair prices to those whose lives depend on this cash export?

If we're talking about cutting out needless expenses each month in these tough economic times, people should consider canceling their cable/satellite subscriptions. You'll save $50+ a month immediately, be subject to less consumerism/advertising, which will indirectly save you even more $$ in the long run, plus see a reduction in electricity to power your tube :)

That is a resolution I would consider adpoting!

Shut your whore mouth!

And what Nick T said.

Yep, that's pretty much how an addict reacts when his drug supply is threatened (referring to the commenters). People react the same way about cars, "What about all the workers who build cars? What about their livelihood?" The fact that people might lose work just isn't a good enough reason to keep up a bad habit. Or an energy intensive one in this case. Not only can coffee be bad for you health but it is bad for the environment, mainly because of the popularity of it. Yes, you can get fair-trade, organic, shade-grown (by the way NIck T, natural tropical forest is much better than shade grown coffee plantations) coffee, but it still usually has to travel thousands of miles to get to you. Unless you are living in those tropical climates of course. And there are alot of alternatives to coffee bean coffees. Though they may not have the caffeine for the pick-me-up. Instead of so many coffee plantations they could use more organic farms, plenty jobs their for them to switch over to.

I live in Brazil, interior of sao paulo state, an area that formerly produced some of the best beans the country ever grew. Coffee is one of the few remaining crops that is some sort of permaculture, with even 30 year old plants regularly being harvested. Our region has seen a dramatic shift from coffee, literally being ripped out, to cane production for ethanol. It's sad and ugly. There are 1.5 million people cutting cane for a living in Sao Paulo state, they will all be out of a job once the government mandate for mechanized only harvesting is implemented. Some of them will find work in the coffee fields, but very few. An employment crisis looms. Coffee, like anything, is wonderful in moderation, slamming the crop as you have is wreck less, even irresponsible journalism. Coffee provides many jobs to people who NEED them and can be farmed in an eco friendly manner.

Of the dominate crops in our region, corn, cane, beef, soy and coffee, java for certain is the most environmentally friendly crop, from a feet on the ground perspective. It is normal for field workers to reach deals with land owners where rows between coffee plants are used for family plots, beans, corn, even lettuce can be found in between the endless rows of coffee plants. This is not done with any of the other local crops. No way the land currently occupied by coffee, if torn out, gets planted with anything that does not have a more costly environmental impact on the world, and as someone above mentioned, shade grown is catching on, even in this area where quantity coffee is 99% of the crop, meaning large fields, sun grown with very little room left for mother nature.

All journalism is opinion, we've heard yours, but frankly you are grasping at straws for a story, without much knowledge of fact.

Hm - but arn't the 'natural' areas been replaced with 'naural plants' or are you telling me that it's un-natural plants ?

I'm a horticulturalist and landscaper now: ex engineer, machinist, and have 2 science degrees. Not to brag, but to let you know that the main important thing is MODERATION AND INTEGRATION. One extreme to another - organic or chem - there is a balance between growth, production, application, and research of material.
One thing to consider with an exclusive "local only" is you find out how much you can really can't do with far fewer resources. (from transportation, communication and material from many 10 of thousand miles away...) It is quite possible you would be without electricity, gas, oil, wide variety of food, medical assistance, even the material to build your cabin and outhouse.

The shame of it all is we are too integrated with too many people who are lazy, over zealous, or too ignorant to do good.

Is Tea any better? Black or green?

Seriously? I've already gladly gave up meat, fish and eggs and raised my thermostat. I've cut my ecological footprint by a HUGE fraction. I'm not giving up my measly 2 cups of daily coffee.
If you really want to help out the environment, substitute half the meat you eat for whole grains and legumes.

Giving up coffee while maintaining other, more wasteful habits is the ecological equivalent of 'penny-wise and pound-foolish'.

all those coffee drinkers seem a bit tense...

coffee is addictive and not necessary.

coffee is not used to wake anyone up, it just wakes us up faster. I enjoy 20 minutes of easing into full wakefulness. try it!

the notion that everyone would quit drinking coffee if convinced of the value of doing so is silly; the point of this post is that we can make incremental benefits by reducing coffee consumption.

Better alternative: Give up paper coffee cups.

Better alternative. Give up cars. Save the planet and live longer.

Between death due to collisions and physical inactivity, they take an average of three years off people's lives. The stress caused by driving probably takes another year off. And remember, electric cars will not be safer or increase physical fitness.

Sure. Let's stop consuming and importing coffee from Colombia to save the planet. Without coffee, I wonder what they what a hungry Colombian might be forced to grow in those mountains to survive. Hmm. Greens are so naive.

Instead of growing coffee for the rest of the world, coffee growers can return to GROWING THEIR OWN COUNTRY'S FOOD.

And the concept of "saving" these people from having to resort to harvesting coca by keeping them harvesting coffee for us is spurious.

I'd gladly give up all the othe luxuries ( including electricity ) of modern life before I stop drinking coffee, sorry

Uh oh ... here we go again. Flawed food miles math, oversimplified economic analyses that would have us canceling our daughter's dance lessons to save a few bucks because it's 'non-essential to our lives', and a poster who cannot cope with their own inability to moderate consumption.

Thankfully, for those who have given up coffee, heroin has been great in a pinch for consumers, locavores, and growers in country alike!

Trevor Reichman's name goes onto my list of suspected slackers because of this sort of output. This post contains absolutely no content whatsoever and I can well imagine that it was written while staring at a cup of coffee listening to the intellectual equivalent of crickets. But even more glaring than the total lack of content is the absence of any attempt at an intelligent argument. Check out this logic:

"Whatever you believe, coffee is not essential to our lives and thus it is one commodity worth considering giving up entirely in order to benefit the planet and our pocketbooks in a time of economic and ecologic peril."

Do you really want me to list all the things that are not strictly essential to our lives? And what about the implications of your suggestion - coffee is often the only hope for many communities around the world that live in dire economic circumstances. It can affords an alternative to more environmentally disastrous activities such as deforestation or opium cultivation (as in the Golden Triangle in Thailand).

Treehugger with its ability to reach a large audience, "in a time of economic and ecologic peril," should seek to advance the green agenda. At the very least, Treehugger staffers should not write ridiculous articles like this that are of such poor quality they serve only to undermine what we are all trying to do. Sometimes if you don't have anything intelligent to say you should feel good about staying quiet.

Regardless of the politics of consuming coffee, the physiological claims of this article are a bit off. Drinking coffee does not deposit adrenaline in your body - there is no adrenaline actually in coffee or caffeine. Caffeine does cause your body to send signals to the adrenal glands that cause them to release adrenaline. Adrenaline (epinephrine), however, is not a poison. It is a natural hormone produced by your body that is responsible for many important (essential) bodily functions and reactions.

Arasmus is going on to my list of people who keep weird lists.

Yes, the caffeine in coffee stimulates the adrenal glands, which releases adrenaline into the body on a daily basis. Some claim that the accumulation of adrenaline acts as a poison to our bodies, since it is not transferred into urgent physical movement, such as running from a predator.

seriously?

i'm an economist with over a decade of experience in economic development and this is about the last place that i'd start to save the planet. some of the most successful development programs in africa and latin america have focused on the development of the coffee sectors - forming cooperatives, improving product quality, encouraging shade grown coffee, streamlining the marketing channel so that the growers capture more of the price per pound. these are all good things. and there are not a lot of licit and environmentally sustainable income generating opportunities in rural highlands where coffee is grown - what alternative are you proposing that would be a net benefit to society?

and think about the market signal you're sending - it's likely that your audience tends more towards the organic or shade grown coffee, so do you really want to discourage people to stop consuming coffee that provides better income and less environmental degradation while the rest of the world chugs their nescafe?

do you want to discourage treehuggers from patronizing local coffee shops and roasters while mcdonald's and 7-11s sell gallons upon gallons of the stuff? in styrofoam cups?

your suggestion is not well thought out.

I'm with happyfarmr. My wife is working at Peets while going through school. Sure, Peets is a huge company but she tells me great things about how they try and buy from small farms with strict human rights plans, and Peets sells a lot of certified (and uncertified) organic coffee.

If the the environmentalists (generally better educated richer people who can afford coffee like Peets') all stopped buying from these kinds of companies we would be left with 7-11, Dunken Doughnuts and Starbucks what frankly don't care where their coffee is from.

Coffee is one of the few consistent and harmless pleasures some of us have in this chaotic world: the warmth, the aroma, the taste, the calm.

I'm a rather green, tree-hugging type of individual compared to a lot of people, but I think short-sighted articles/notions like this tend to hurt the green movement A LOT. It's sort of a bad apple of thought that ruins the whole bunch of sensible ideas and ways to treat the environment better and create a healthier balance.

Give up coffee? How 'bout give up chocolate? Give up sugar? Give up a world of non-local products? Let's give up every single thing that requires "removal of established natural areas" (i.e. every single thing in the modern world). In that case, our species might as well be tribal again, give up technology, or just give up living; it's less of a "footprint."

The reason coffee is one of the worst suggestions and things to target is for the very reason that it's the #1 consumable commodity. The network of worldwide distribution is already in place. Even if demand for coffee was to plummet, that demand would probably still be extremely high: high enough to support the distribution to your city's restaurants, offices, and supermarkets -- regardless of your lack of purchase. I doubt demand will ever drop low enough to lessen the impact of shipping freighters, processing plants, roasting, trucks, grinders, packaging, brewers, and other supplies by any meaningful measure -- at least not until something more pleasing and relatively safe/non-addictive (e.g. not heroin) comes along. Drinking coffee is a nearly harmless (and sometimes healthy) activity to all people involved, as long as workers aren't being exploited. It's the backbone of countless people's communities and one of the joys of life to many people.

In short, it's not going away. If we want to get it greener, we must simply wait for solar power and alternative energies to hurry the hell up and become affordable; and, in the mean time, we must support the good in the industry by buying sustainably grown, fairly-(or directly)-traded coffees.

And as far as other reasons why one might give up coffee (personal/health reasons, etc.), that's entirely a separate issue.

I am a vegetarian who is going vegan to help animals and the environment. Please don't touch my morning joe ;).

However there are alternatives to coffee like barley or oat coffee, which is nice but isn't as nice as coffee though (just in my opinion I am a javaholic)

I agree with the statements that it is better for us to support organic coffee as it helps local communities and promotes a better soceity for the people in these countries. I think it would be better to switch to organic than to cut it out altogether.

I too feel a bit guilty about drinking so much coffee (and tea), but for a reason you don't mention - using all that electricity to boil the water. I put the kettle on at least three or four times a day for this.

I profoundly disagree. I have travelled all over the world to meet coffee farmers - usually small scale subsistence farmers for whom this is their only source of cash income, needed to pay school fees, buy cooking oil, medicines and mosquito nets. It's an incredibly important industry in many parts of the world.

The consequences of ceasing to buy coffee would be severe, not only on the quality of life of the farmers, but also on the environment as more people are forced off the land and other interests move in.

The food miles are not especially relevant since coffee is shipped, not flown, and it's not shipped in refrigerated or temperature-controlled containers.

Ok so I get the idea that drinking less coffee would be better for the environment. I get that. But could you please site your source on where adrenaline is labeled as a "poison"? Last I checked it was a hormone...

Here we go again with the crazy pseudo-science....

How in the hell do you guys get off calling adrenaline a "poison". It's a frickin hormone that your body makes every day under normal conditions, and makes a bit more of it in emergencies so you can jump out of the way of a sabre-toothed tiger. It is not a poison.

You guys need some serious beefing up of your science editing. I know this site has a number of readers who are into the whole "cleansing" and "detox" and other such alternative medicine, but for those readers who actually have a formal scientific education (covering such things as what is a hypothesis, what are adequate controls, how well is the study powered, are the statistics any good) then your site falls WAAAY short. Your next hire should be a scientific editor, who fact-checks your outgoing posts for pseudo-scientific scare-mongering mumbo-jumbo. Their first job would be to wipe this post.

Easier said than done whenever you're a college student who sometimes has to stay up for nights in a row.

It could be worse you know, at least consumers can choose to buy shade-grown, organic coffee.

Brazilian cattle come in only one variety: ecologically devastating.

Or would we prefer to have all of our coffee farmers switch to soy? To hell with shade grown, they'll just clear cut all of their land.

i'm with Zx on this one - the point of the green movement is not or should not be to bring us back to previous centuries where our impact on the environment was less but to advance us to the point where we can develop technologies that will minimize any harmful impact we have on the environment. I certainly don't want to be living on a farm eating only what i grow and not traveling any further than i can walk bike or ride a horse!

I heard recently that coffee bushes actually make tolerably good houseplants. If you had to produce your cup of coffee yourself and could only produce enough beans for about four cups a year, I'm sure you'd treasure it more.

I can't stand coffee but I have a pretty serious chocolate addiction, and there's no way I'm getting a cacao tree to grow in my house. But if I could I totally would. And I am definitely getting some Camellia sinensis to supplement my tea addiction.

As the world converts over the next 200 years to renewable energy, shipping and preparing coffee will have minimal impact.

Humans are animals just like any other and have a right to consume resources.

I drink coffee because it is delicious; its drugs have little effect anymore.

Thanks for all the comments, readers. This has been a great conversation/debate. Please note in the first paragraph of this article, that we are recognizing that there are two schools of thought in this debate, the one that claims health benefits, and the one that claims health problems. Some of you have focused on the claim citing health problems, especially relating to adrenaline, so let me expound on that source a bit.

Kosher standards claim that when adrenaline is injected into an animal before death, that it contaminates the meat. That is why, in kosher slaughters, that animals cannot know that they are about to die. The death must be quick and painless. This article cites the following:

"The main reason for these killing guidelines is simple: Animals, like humans, release chemicals in the body when they fear for their lives. For humans, adrenaline is released throughout our body to help us deal with the impending situation. Similarly, animals also release hormones at the first sign of danger. These hormones remain in the meat after the animal is killed. This can be harmful to the person who ingests these hormones."

Some believe that the accumulation of our own body's adrenaline, if not used up by quick and urgent movement, such as running from a predator, can be toxic over time and create long term health problems.

Dr. Williams, in this article claims the following:

“Adrenaline makes the heart pump harder and faster, which results in higher blood pressure. As the blood pressure rises, a patch of endothelial cells in an artery supplying the heart is eroded by the rapidly swirling currents of blood.
The adrenaline also stimulates fat cells to empty into the bloodstream. These cholesterol-filled cells migrate to the damaged artery. Over the course of years, they mature into an arteriosclerotic plaque that may block the flow of blood to the heart.”

I understand that our coffee consumption benefits the economies of other countries. This article is written from the perspective of coffee drinkers such as myself, who don’t have enough of an income to justify spending $50 a month on the stuff, especially now when we need to focus on being more domestically productive and sustainable in the long term.

I subscribe to the school of thought that if we don’t demand large amounts of imported and unnecessary commodities, such a oil and coffee, that those agricultural regions can be better be used to provide essential food crops to their own region as well as neighboring regions currently undergoing serious food shortages. It is all about finding the best uses for the limited and shrinking spaces on the planet.

This article doesn't claim that quitting coffee is THE ONE most important thing a person can do. It merely states that it can be one relatively quick and easy fix.

Again, thanks for all the comments. Keep em coming.

I read Trevor Reichman's follow-up comment with even more shock and surprise as I read his original piece.

To support his claim that coffee causes health problems, he links in his original article to a document that says coffeee produces adrenaline and in his follow up comment to a study that claims that in the long-term, anger can cause "a threat to one's health" because getting angry signals "the adrenal gland to pump large doses of adrenaline and cortisol into the bloodstream."

Reichman has taken a study on anger and claimed it will do just as good as a study on coffee because coffee also produces adrenaline. (1) So you have no actual scientific evidence supporting your point then? (2) How does the amount of adrenaline produced by being angry over the long-term compare with the amount of adrenaline produced by drinking coffee over the long-term? (3) Does coffee produce counter-veiling effects on the body that may cancel any negative effects from the adrenaline or even produce a net benefit for the body? Reichman's logic is alarmingly close to; a car is black, a crow is black, a car is a crow.

Reichman's response to the economics point continues to show an unwillingness to engage reality. He suggests that if we stop demanding unnecessary goods, foreign lands will focus on becoming a pastoral oasis supplying food to their local and neighboring countries.

Firstly, take a look at the best argument you can find for free-trade and in particular respond to the evidence that free-trade (apart from supporting peace - cf the European Union post World War 2) has over time done a better job of raising living-standards than protectionism.

Secondly, a better approach to encouraging food cultivation in the developing world is not to stop demanding "unnecessary goods" but to stop dumping food produced by Western farmers in local markets in the developing world. While the food products of Western farms are dumped in those markets, local producers will not produce food if you don't drink their coffee because it makes no financial sense for them to do so. Instead they will try to survive in the sort of grinding poverty that you cannot even imagine.

Thirdly, how do you propose that we decide what is a necessary and unnecessary good? Its a ridiculous question isn't it? Because its a ridiculous idea.

Fourthly, why do you get to choose what you want to do based on the best return that you can find in the market for your interests but people in the developing world should do what's necessary? We need more teachers in the US - how do you feel about quitting what you do now and becoming a teacher in a public school in a disadvantaged neighborhood for $25-30k a year for the rest of your life? Its necessary!

Finally, to say this piece has led to such great comments and discussion and to thereby imply that it is of great polemical value is a degree of self-delusion reminiscent of those that argue that there are two scientific schools on the subject of evolution. It is not a good piece, its illogical and ridiculous and the only reason I have taken so much of my time to respond to it is because I want to send a clear message to Treehugger editors that they should not waste their valuable platform on this sort of drivel but should instead help us to transition to a more sustainable economy by providing intelligent if not actionable information.

How about we just cut back on our coffee?
By buyiing less we save energy even land mass.
and we could even pay more for it.
I consider my 2 cups of Kona Coffee a day a luxury.
I savor each swallow.
I also use my coffee time for me. Either enjoyiing the nature out my window,or considering things I have done today or stuff I would think about doing tomorrow.
Moderation and more enjoyment oof the process .To me that is the key.

By the way Tea drinkers.did you kknow that many of countries native plants werecdestroyed because Great Britian had to have it's tea?

Yeah I drink TEA. I need to give that up.
It wiill be hard but i will try.

My second cup is waiting
genaman

Thanks for taking the time to comment, Arasmus.

I wouldn’t say that a car is a crow, but I would say that they both absorb heat instead of deflecting it if they are both black. I think that you are right that I could have given a better example than the study that anger has on the body. The point was that that both anger and coffee both undisputedly deposit adrenaline regularly into the body. That particular article, demonstrates the medical effects of regular adrenal gland stimulation. The other article I linked to, from How Stuff Works, provides a better correlation to the negative effects directly related to coffee. And as mentioned before, this article recognizes that there are varied opinions on the subject. This article is not an announcement that coffee will kill you. But it does open up a conversation about whether coffee is worth considering giving up in order to save money and resources. I think that most of the articles on TreeHugger, even some of mine, point to the positive environmental and technological advances and successes.

I checked out your blog. I especially liked the video about the guy who tracks all his consumption and other daily activities. I do that too!

Anyhow, I just wanted to let you know that you have been heard.

Trevor Reichman now goes on my list of nice guys. So many lists.

It's unfortunate that you opted not to do even basic research for your "article."

The simple fact is that current trends are away from commodity coffee and it's negative agricultural practices and toward improving quality, sustainability, and profitability.

The article isn't providing any sort of benefit to anyone but you, assuming that you have become better informed and retracted your unsupportable statements.

The fact is that that coffee still is the 2nd most traded commodity in the world, and since most of it is exported to the countries who can’t grow it themselves, its overproduction and overconsumption has obvious repercussions, as does any unessential commodity which travels thousands of miles to the consumer. A trend toward more shade grown coffee is great, but most coffee production is not shade grown, and even with shade grown coffee production, its export and over consumption has a negative impact. Even though I haven’t been able to kick my own one cup a day coffee addiction, I still personally subscribe to the belief that coffee is an unessential comfort drug and more than ever, I can’t afford it. I do not drink coffee to support coffee farmers or independent coffee shops. I drink it because I am addicted to it. It has been much harder for me to quit than meat was. I do agree that this article could have been better researched and presented. I do appreciate the feedback.

Here is an excerpt from the findings of the World Wildlife Fund:

“The severe thinning or clearing of forests for planting shade-grown coffee is also a major concern. Considerable biodiversity is lost both above and below ground. Microorganisms in particular are affected through clearing, soil disturbance, and exposure.

Even with shade coffee the number of tree species can be reduced by 80% or more. Mammals and reptiles show declines in populations and species diversity relative to natural forests. Bat species are reduced by half or more in agroforestry systems such as shade-grown coffee. Furthermore, species that do better in disturbed ecosystems tend to dominate ecosystems tend to dominate areas of shade-grown coffee."

“There is no evidence that any area of coffee production, whether shade or full-sun, has ever been allowed to revert back to "natural" forest. Habitat conversion, it seems, is forever. In regions like Parana in Brazil and Java in Indonesia, shade-grown coffee has given way to full-sun coffee or other agricultural crops altogether. This conversion can mean a reduction in the local labour needs.”

Read the rest of the article here.

- Trevor Reichman

It's funny to read some of the comments...

Guys, caffeine and coffee are very unhealthy. You don't need a study to see and understand that when you consider some of their basic effects on the body - stress hormone release and blood sugar destabilization. That and their severe addictiveness and withdrawal symptoms - which has many people chasing symtoms with various otc and pharmecuetical drugs when the real problem is simply some moinor level of caffeine withdrawal (due to variation in daily intake) makes caffeine one of the very worst drugs.

Face it, you defend caffeine because you are addicted to it and need to rationalize your junky-habit. if you had to quit it, you wouldn't be able to function for weeks. You likely couldn't quit it if you were paid to.