More Fair Trade on the High Seas

by Zarah Patriana

Published December 14, 2008 @ 01:42PM PT

Last week, I mentioned the Greenheart project, which is in idea of establishing a vessel ship that will run solely on sun and wind. Not only will the vessel be used to promote sustainable energy, but it will also be used to carry and promote Fair Trade products. I called out to you all asking if anyone had any further information, because the project sounds so great. Rodney North ("Answer Man" at Equal Exchange), who has been so helpful with information in the past gave some insight. Not so much on the Greenheart project, but something on another effort to import coffee under sail power that recently failed.

NEWS ITEM FROM JAN. 2008
Coffee traders rescued from 25-foot seas GALVESTON — Three people who had planned to deliver 10,000 pounds of coffee from Belize to Texas on an eco-friendly sailboat were rescued Tuesday by the U.S. Coast Guard after they were struck by 25-foot seas 200 miles offshore.Joe and Terry Butcher, owners of El Lago Coffee Co., along with Joe’s brother, Douglas Butcher, planned to ship the coffee via their sailboat, Red Cloud, from San Pedro on Amgergris Cay in Belize to Galveston Bay. The trio hit trouble late Tuesday morning when the Gulf of Mexico waves swelled to 25 feet and the winds kicked up to 30 to 35 knots. Their engine had died earlier, leaving them at the mercy of seas.Perkins called the Coast Guard about 11:45 a.m.The guard dispatched a boat, a helicopter and a jet to rescue the Butchers and their dog. They arrived about 3 p.m., hoisted the people and dog from the boat, refuelled on an oil rig, waited for almost half an hour until the wind died and then returned to Ellington Field where a family friend was waiting to take them home, Coast Guard reports state.(Source: Galvestondailynews)

Yikes. Maybe Greenheart needs to think of a back-up plan in case this happens to them.

The amazing Rodney also shared some useful information by doing some interesting calculations of his own regarding the carbon footprint of shipping coffee. (Thanks Rodney!)

Also, for what its worth, as an exercise just last night I calculated (roughly) the carbon footprint of shipping coffee from Brazil to NYC via those big modern container ships. There are many assumptions involved but basically the carbon footprint of shipping enough coffee for one pot of coffee (2.5 oz) is 1/10th the footprint of the energy required to simply boil the water for that same one pot of coffee.
In fact when it comes to being green the choice of using an electric kettle or a gas stove to prepare your coffee is much important than the fact that it was shipped from 5,000 miles away.