As a drug it's actually pretty benign.
But every time I buy coffee, I am feeding the beast of global exploitation and environmental damage.
Compared to drinking coffee, the alternative is: simply don't do that. And if I take the alternative, the carbon footprint, other environmental footprint reduces a bit and reduces the profits of exploitative power structures.
The industry is just a waste of fossil fuels and logistics, really, seeing as it serves no particular purpose because life runs just fine without coffee.
Your consumer choice is not an effective political tool.
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.
....but...if it makes you feel better... 👍
In short, a strong belief that ethical consumption will lead to ethical practices is not warranted – purchasing as voting is a weak feedback mechanism at best and there are other actors who are able to influence the system. The danger, however, comes in believing that this mechanism can make substantial political change. Ethical consumption gives the individual the illusion of contributing to progress; of “doing their part” by making purchasing decisions. This illusion can detract, and probably has detracted, from trying to put forward an avowedly political agenda that seeks to mobilise people collectively to make the changes they support. Instead, it individualises ethics, it individualises politics and it reaffirms us as consumers rather than citizens – it is a part of the profit-maximising, pathologically-externalising neoliberal market system that has caused many of the problems ethical consumerism seeks to alleviate, rather than being an alternative.
Filling my F-350 bed with hamburgers wrapped in styrofoam screaming no ethical consumption under capitalism
Third way: buy coffee directly from the Zapatistas. It's great, I buy it all the time. Not cheap but you're avoiding the exploitation. I suppose you still have the environmental issues, though.
But good for you if you decide to go through with it. I don't like how if I don't have coffee in the morning, I eventually get a headache so that tells me maybe I should scale back.
https://www.onelovebrigade.com/product-page/1lbs-of-thunder-s-select-blue-mountain-coffee
Supposedly this brand is legitimate too
Another plus is the Zapatista coffee ships quickly from Michigan if you are ordering in the US
I don't know if you can in the US, but I can buy Cuban coffee at my local drug store chain.
Definitely can't in the US. Sucks, I'd buy all my treats from Cuba and the DPRK if I could.
I'm lucky that i know a few people who go to cuba regularly, so i get them to pick up a few bags of coffee for me when they get back. Can't stand grocery store coffee anymore.
Do whatever but if it's exploitation you're concerned about you could always buy coffee from the Zapatistas
Happy to fully support the decision, but remember that things that are enjoyable do have a purpose. Enjoying life is a natural purpose we don't often acknowledge.
Getting off coffee will reduce your tolerant to caffeine which will make it more effective when you need a stimulant.
For when you need a safe-ish stimulant then synthetic caffeine pills are far better for the environment and workers. Cutting out agriculture always does that.
Just Coffee is a worker owned coop where the farmers receive their share of the profits. Additionally if a farmer within the network has a bad year of harvest due to climate change or disease they still get paid because who knows what next year can bring for anyone. The coffee is also very good.
Finally, as far as environmental impact goes coffee is actually a crop that benefits greatly from the preservation of native habitat within the farm. Basically by leaving plots of undisturbed habitat within the coffee fields you'll have higher yield than if you were to clearcut the forest for more Coffee. This is due to native pollinators using the forest as refuge and BEF (biodiversity ecosystem function, increases in biodiversity result in increases in ecosystem functions). That doesn't change the damage that farming in general does or the climate footprint of shipping coffee from around the world, but there are worse crops.
Link to just coffee: https://justcoffee.coop/about/
Link to paper on coffee farms: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10457-008-9120-y
Equal Exchange is a coop that only buys from coops and tries to make sure growers are fairly represented and such.
Also in terms of flavor, all their single-country coffees are good, but the french roast, midnight city roast, etc are so-so.
More succinctly: caffeine is benign, the coffee industry is not at all benign
It's not benign. Causes a lot of health issues. Caffeine itself is bad, but coffee is the worst of them. I'm feeling so much better after quitting long-term addiction. The book Caffeine Blues as well as some others talk about all the problems or https://reddit.com/r/decaf
Just buy caffeine pills. Wal-mart sells generic ones and each pill is the same as a cup of coffee. Works great.
Much cheaper too.
I purposely avoid caffeine, meaning no coffee or soda. But once every 3 months, when I've slept like shit, and have something important coming up? I can drink one cup and it'll feel like a genuine mild stim for an hour - enough to get me out of the house and on the way.
