by Nikki Rouge

Created on: March 24, 2009   Last Updated: March 31, 2009

Let's face it. You cannot get all the items you need or want locally. We do my best to buy my fruits and vegetables at the farmer's market to minimize our carbon footprint. Most recently, Leslie and I went to the grocery store and looked at imported tomatoes longingly. They, plus the avocados from our tree, would make a killer guacamole. Not to mention salads and sauces. We didn't waver on our commitment and moved on leaving the red rubies behind. But what about coffee, tea, chocolate and other food items we consume regularly? Yes, they are fair trade, but what about their carbon footprint?

Today I bought 5 pounds of coffee at Grounds for Change. The total price including shipping was $46.15, or $9.23. A fairly decent price. We buy this coffee because it's produced at a women-owned cooperative in Peru, and it's a fair trade product. My father was from Peru, so I figured it would be great to help women who could have been my family. Also, by buying their Cafe Femenino through their site, Grounds for Change guarantees that women were involved in the marketing of the coffee as well. Wanna fight women's pay disparities? Then support women-owned business. Cafe Femenino enables us to fight poverty in Peru, and empower women through the simple gesture of enjoying the "right" cup of coffee.

Which gets me to the point of the carbon footprint. How much carbon is emitted by 5 pounds of coffee traveling all the way from a cooperativa in Peru to my doorstep? My guess is that's it's quite a lot. I was unable to find a product-specific footprint calculator. All the calculators I found were lifestyle-based and calculated overall total footprint. But if you think about it, the coffee had to travel from the cooperativa to the port of exit in Peru, to the U.S., to California, to my doorstep. Sounds like a lot of travel when compared to my oranges that come from Fresno or tomatoes from Bakersfield. More travel equals more carbon. So here is the conundrum.

How can you help the planet while at the same time you are hurting the planet? Empowering lower income people, while developing a global middle-class, is probably the only way to ensure that social justice becomes more prevalent. Raising the living standard also ensures that people are better educated. The more education, the better solutions we can create for a dying world. Currently, the solution we have found in the era of globalization is to exchange goods with underdeveloped areas through a fair system where the local economy

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