Essay by Eric Worrall
The Green Ministry of Fun at the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi has scolded coffee drinkers for ignoring the climate impact of their beverage.
Here’s how your cup of coffee contributes to climate change
Published: January 6, 2023 8.04am AEDT
- Luciano Rodrigues Viana Doctorant en sciences de l’environnement, Département des sciences fondamentales, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC)
- Charles Marty Adjunct professor, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC)
- Jean-François Boucher Professeur, Eco-consulting, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC)
- Pierre-Luc Dessureault Assistant researcher, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC)
Global coffee consumption has been increasing steadily for almost 30 years. With a daily average consumption of 2.7 cups of coffee per person, coffee is now Canada’s most popular drink. It is estimated that around two billion cups of coffee are consumed daily worldwide.
This demand has led to considerable diversification in the ways of preparing coffee as well, including the creation of coffee capsules. The popularity of these capsules has divided the public opinion because this method of preparation, which uses single-use individual packaging, is harmful to the environment.
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The life cycle of coffee
The pollution resulting from the preparation of coffee at home is just the tip of the iceberg.
Before you can enjoy a cup of coffee, it goes through several steps, starting from the agricultural production of the coffee beans, their transport, the roasting and grinding of the beans, right up to the heating of the water for the coffee and the washing of the cups it is poured in.
These steps, common to all modes of coffee preparation, consume resources and emit greenhouse gases (GHG).
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If you live in a province or country with carbon-intensive electricity production, not using the coffee maker’s hot plate and rinsing the cup with cold water can help reduce carbon footprint.
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Read more: https://theconversation.com/heres-how-your-cup-of-coffee-contributes-to-climate-change-196648
I already checked, it is not April 1st. Maybe the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi environment department has been hitting the coffee a little harder than normal.
My 5yr old espresso machine probably ticks all the boxes when it comes to emitting CO2, except for the hot plate, but it sure makes a lovely cup of coffee. I think I’ll defer giving up coffee to save the planet until after I’m dead.
How is it going to work when a latte goes AGAINST your social credit score.
The inner-city leftists will be up in arms.
I won’t be thinking about this over my morning coffee. Waste of good coffee time.
Although I suspect that the volume of my coffee consumption, at 25 grams per day, puts me in the top 2 to 5% of the world’s coffee drinkers (somewhere behind the average Brazilian, from what I’ve read), I welcome any serious discussion of both the health and environmental effects of coffee.
But this “report” rankles by its use of vague terms such as “cups of coffee”. Shame on the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC) for using such unscientific terminology. It also smacks of condescension, given that Hydro-Quebec not only produces its electricity via non carbon-intensive means (unless you count all the oil consumed in building and maintaining the dams and power lines), but even exports it to the US.
Furthermore, its shotgun blame game approach to bullying coffee drinkers is not only unfair, but counterproductive.
A productive approach would be to enumerate separately the environmental impacts of the various ways of distributing, packaging, and preparing coffee, as well as quantifying the amount, by weight, of coffee required to make a “cup” (taking account of the varying meanings of this word).
For instance, I have come to prefer making my morning coffee by freshly fine grinding my 25 grams of organic coffee beans (note the environmental and worker health advantages) and brewing them in a stainless steel Bialetti stovetop pot containing 300ml of distilled (non-negotiable for me) water. I use a simple electric blade grinder at its maximum setting to get the finest grind possible, and so produce the maximum coffee content in the brew.
Having invested a lot of time and considerable money in the search for a better grinder, I’ve come to the conclusion that the claims made for burr grinders are fraudulent.There’s no basis that I can find for the claim that blade grinders produce enough heat to scorch or burn the coffee, and my experience and that of many other reviewers is that burr grinders are not as reliable for producing fine grinds as blade grinders, but are certainly much more fragile. And last, but not least, burr grinders are devilishly harder to clean.
I do have four burr grinders I keep for power outages or camping. But am seriously searching for a decent rechargeable portable blade grinder .
Then I’ll be all set for the next Quebec ice storm, as my Bialetti brewer should work fine on a camping stove.
For the health benefits of drinking coffee, I refer the reader to the considerable data linking increased coffee consumption to greater longevity.
Update: Today I tried increasing the amount of ground coffee loaded into my “6-cup” Bialetti Mokka pot from 25 to 28 grams, as I’ve found these pots perform best when the basket is filled loosely to the brim. And 28 grams fit the bill nicely. In the name of science, I then sacrificed some hydro-electrically produced heat by pouring the resulting brew into a measuring cup to determine that it amounted to 250 ml of the original 300.
So I think it’s safe to say that the Mokka pot method of brewing uses both water and heat sparingly (brewing took about 10 minutes on a medium-low setting of my glass-topped stove)
As for the ambiguity of the word “cup” when referring to coffee consumption, I would point out that, in this case, six Mokka “cups” equal a single standard cup, a quarter of a litre.
So how can one make meaningful comparisons between the actual coffee content produced by coffees ground and brewed by different methods? There are some anecdotal data available on the caffein content produced by various combinations of grinding and brewing methods. But there is more to coffee than caffein, or people would simply take caffein pills.
One thing seems certain to me though, from years of prior filter coffee consumption – 250ml of Mokka brew contains much more coffee than the same volume of filtered coffee. One would think that with manufacturers offering coffee grinders and coffee makers at prices surpassing a thousand dollars, some solid data clarifying this situation would be available…
Capt. Kathryn Janeway
It figures that a Quebec institution would use some triviality like this to push an alarmist agenda because of all the Canadian provinces, Quebec is the most gung-ho in adopting whatever’s fashionable in environmental matters. That is, fashionable but not necessarily realistic. Quebec is the province, incidentally, that most vehemently opposes new pipelines crossing its territory to bring in Alberta fossil fuels. It would rather import them from South American and African nations with some of the worst environmental records on the planet. As well, it doesn’t mind taking the risk of an oil spill in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It also proposes to ban the sale of ICE vehicles after 2035, though as that date approaches we’ll see whether consumer protests will cause the government to change its mind.
Chicoutimi it turns out is 100 mi north of Quebec City in the absolute center of nowhere. I assume this paper is a desperate plea for help.
A long time ago a Muslim sultan tried to ban coffee. I predict this will end the same way LOL.
We’re all grateful that we don’t know anyone whose life is as miserable as the crew that did this research. If I did, I’d suggest they take advantage of Justin’s “MAID” program.
Some a hole paid for them for that study. What on earth do they drink in the morning? Study that into the ground!
Beware. Your coffee is now on the list.
There is no limit to what progressive governments are willing to deprive their subjects of.
Reasonableness is not a prerequisite.
Speaking of coffee, I’m looking forward to my next cup.