Peru's coffee growers turn carbon traders to save their farms from climate change

Want to talk espresso but not sure which forum? If so, this is the right one.
User avatar
michaelbenis
Posts: 1517
Joined: 15 years ago

#1: Post by michaelbenis »

An interesting article in today's UK Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... on-trading

Also a call to action: "Nothing short of a coffee industry revolution will protect the livelihoods of 25 million small-scale producers who produce 75% of high-quality coffee"
LMWDP No. 237

User avatar
Gui Marques
Posts: 49
Joined: 13 years ago

#2: Post by Gui Marques »

We still don't understand all the drivers behind this, and often climate change is confused with climate variability (note they mention el nino...) witch has multiple different time cycles, some still largely little understood (like the decadal ones).

So, climate change is hopeless. It WILL hit us, some worse than others, and all the CO2 fuss won't help until a lot of the damage is done, if ever (I'm not saying we should not cut in CO2 emissions though).

Thus, my point is that, rather than wasting time with this carbon trade, more time and research than ever should be directed to understanding the direct effect of the climate change on their backyard (rainfall patterns, streamflows, etc) and identifying which adaptation measures they should take to cope with that (better land use management to cope with different erosion forces, different coffee species to withstand new climate conditions, flood management).

Those are the only things that can save their farms.

Gui Marques

User avatar
the_trystero
Posts: 918
Joined: 13 years ago

#3: Post by the_trystero »

Those are pretty much my thoughts, too.

Carbon trading just seems to be yet another financial vehicle for people to make money off of without producing anything. Just because one entity treats the air well doesn't mean other entities should be able to sponge off their efforts, at any cost.
"A screaming comes across the sky..." - Thomas Pynchon