EPA declares greenhouse gases a health threat | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Headline | National News

EPA declares greenhouse gases a health threat News for Dallas, Texas Dallas Morning News Headline National News

Many are unaware of the role CO2 plays in human and, in fact, all animal physiology. We all recognise CO2 as a metabolic by product, but CO2 plays a far more critical role as the primary regulator of acid base balance. This critical acid-base balance is our most closely guarded homeostatic mechanism. We regulate the acid-base balance by our breathing. If we breath a little faster or deeper we reduce the CO2 concentration in our blood and thus move the balance to the -base side of the equation. CO2 diffuses as carbolic acid in the blood, and by breathing off CO2 from our lungs we reduce the acid content of our body. Not good, if we thus increase the pH -- that is lowering the H+ ion concentration -- we change the K+ ion, the Ca++ ion and others that are critical to life. The reverse is true from holding our breath or otherwise retain more CO2.

Environmental changes in CO2 has the same effect. Up to a point we can compensate for increased environmental CO2 by breathing faster, additionally to a limited extent our kidneys can compensate as well. I am unaware of there being many studies of long term exposuree to moderately increased CO2. The consequences may not have been adequately considered. Hibernation may involve changes in pH that would be similar to increased environmental CO2. Obesity may already be a reflection of our present higher levels.

The consequences of higher levels of CO2 will surely be sever. I read in a recent article that atmospheric CO2 at 570 parts per million will acidify the oceans to the point of completely dissolving of the coral reefs. The ocean, from a mineral standpoint, is completely analogous to our own mineral makeup.

The EPA seems right on target by declaring these changes a critical challenge to our health. I think, however, that we will need to put Rush Limbaugh in a phone booth with a canister of CO2 to get the point across.

Challenge

I have not posted here for a long time. We are struggling to grow from a small niche market of churches and sports teams to a national distribution. I can't say we are winning, but indeed, the Eco-coffee market is growing. The buyer's recognition of and access to good coffee, however, is still not what it ought to be. There is not an industry wide grading system. Without an industry wide certification of quality, there is no way for the customer to identify good taste or good quality. The importer of the quality stuff too finds him or herself at a cost disadvantage and is motivated to cut corners.Environmental and social justice coffee is not necessarily good coffee; it should be because the good stuff comes from the most remote, inaccessible, high mountain rain forests, and that is where fair trade coffee usually - but not always - comes from. The high mountain coffee matures more slowly, more disease free to a more mellow taste. The best, when properly screened, is graded SHB, for strictly hard bean, the highest quality grade. The big labels, big names, usually blend small amounts of the good stuff with the much less expensive commodity coffee to achieve what the roaster thinks is a good taste. It does not take the second cup to tell the difference.Then, there is the issue of stale coffee. The bigger the coffee company the greater the inventory and thus the probable age of the coffee. Let me tell you from a logistics standpoint - and that's what I do - the greatest challenge is achieving sufficient turnover to insure freshness and -- financial sustainability for the company.It is hard to be all things to all people: quality, organic, chemical free, shade grown, carbon-offset, rain-forest and fair trade, never mind good taste. --- How do you know when advertising has little to do with reality?

Indigenous People Guatemala

Current Project Guatemala

Added Value for Indigenous Mountain Coffee Farmers in Guatemala

The Diocese of Colorado Springs with the help of Earth Friendly Coffee and the Earth Friendly Foundation promoted a grant proposal through CRS Guatemala for building a processing infrastructure for the Cooperativas of Acoderol, Olopa and the families they represent. CRS is a very large US charity organization and a trading partner in promoting this sort of project. As with any large grant through the bureaucracy of a big organization there are administrative considerations. This grant may or may not come to pass. If it does not, we will continue with our more modest direct channeling of funds and help Olopa develop their drying patio which was our original intent.Earth Friendly Foundation,

EFF does not handle funds for this or any other project. Rather we direct resources to the indigenous people and their own cooperative efforts toward their own economic and agricultural development. EFF operates without administrative overhead through the use of a trust/escrow account. We believe that the farmers know best what works and what is in their own best interest. Direct funding avoids entanglements and disappointments.

The only restrictions to the farmers’ use of EFF directed funding asks that:
1) Purchases at premium prices, (greater than "Fair Trade") must be competitive for the highest quality beans,
2) Must be Chemical Free NGM agricultural practices,
3) Must follow environmentally responsible cultivation and processing with special concern for waste water and erosion.
4) Must insure that indigenous farmers are actually the beneficiaries of the funds involved.
5) We encourage local indigenous roasting and vertical integration of the processing in order that the supply side be efficiently integrated rather than exploited. The mission as stated poses a challenge for a small import company, but it makes the coffee taste so much better.

Strengthening of Coffee Processing Techniques and Infrastructure in Olopa (proposed date August 2007 – March 2008) Background Information & Project Summary

The Coordinating Association for Rural Development in Olopa (ACODEROL, for its initials in Spanish) was founded in the department (province) of Chiquimula in 1998 with the main purpose of supporting rural development initiatives in the communities that comprise the municipality of Olopa. It is currently made up of 367 indigenous Maya Chortí members, of which 55 are small-scale coffee farmers.

Each of the small scale coffee farmers cultivates his precious hectares (10,000 sq m) of coffee trees in an area ranging in size between 7,000- 14,000 square meters, at an altitude of 1,400 meters (4,500') above sea level. They produce strictly Hard-Bean, SHB Arabica, an aromatic coffee, rich in body and flavor. This is a green, compact, even, medium bodied coffee bean, with a closed fissure. The roasting turns the beans dark brown, with corrugated texture, a closed irregular fissure and very compact. ACODERROL produces approximately 46,040 kgs. of coffee beans per year.

Currently, the coffee producers mill the ripe cherry with the help of their families and do the processing in their own homes. Solar drying of the beans has become difficult because of the cloudy weather, which slows the drying process and in turn can lead to moldiness. As a consequence, there is an inconsistency in the quality of the bean, which in turn has a negative effect on the sale price.

The coffee producers from ACODEROL have expressed their strong interest in building their own coffee processing infrastructure. Their goal is to increase the income of the 55 coffee producers from ACODEROL by strengthening their technical and organizational capacity for coffee processing, and ultimately increasing the sales volume of their coffee.

Additionally, a Guatemala based agricultural education program would allow participating coffee farmers to receive training, better organize themselves, and have access to infrastructure and equipment necessary to carry out coffee processing activities collectively in order to improve their coffee processing techniques and to meet quality standards of international markets.

Goals:
1) Organize farmers for collecting and selling their coffee.
2) Establish a communal concrete patio (1,225 mts2) to dry producers’ coffee.
3) Build a warehouse for coffee storage.
4) Design and implement a training program for 55 small-scale coffee producers --- in coffee processing and management for commercial purposes
5) Coordinate with the National Coffee Association.
6) Build a wet coffee processing infrastructure “beneficio húmedo” (for depulping, washing and fermentation) The wet-mill will be used by, not only the ACODEROL members, but also other farmers that need to use it.

EFF has a special interest in this project because we have a close relationship with the farmers in this region. We want to see the farmers prosper by their own initiative, and this plan is theirs, although expanded in some ways. Some very fine people in Guatemala have been responsive and dedicated in developing this proposal, and we pray they succeed. Also, some very dedicated and caring people in the Diocese of Colorado Springs initiated this proposal, and they have a great interest in connecting directly with the names and places and with the coffee farmers of the Acoderol cooperativa in whatever way they can. We hope this project evolves.

CRS US asks not to post the financial and or details of the grant request and not to make contributions to the project pending the application review process. (The above link is password protected)

Current Project Guatemala

Added Value for Indigenous Mountain Coffee Farmers in Guatemala
The Diocese of Colorado Springs with the help of Earth Friendly Coffee and the Earth Friendly Foundation promoted a grant proposal through CRS Guatemala for building a processing infrastructure for the Cooperativas of Acoderol, Olopa and the families they represent. CRS is a very large US charity organization and a trading partner in promoting this sort of project. As with any large grant, through the bureaucracy of a big organization, there are administrative considerations. This grant may or may not come to pass. If it does not, we will continue with our more modest direct channeling of funds and help Olopa develop their drying patio which was our original intent.

Earth Friendly Foundation, EFF does not handle funds for this or any other project. Rather we direct resources to the indigenous people and their own cooperative efforts toward their own economic and agricultural development. EFF operates without administrative overhead through the use of a trust/escrow account. We believe that the farmers know best what works and what is in their own best interest. Direct funding avoids entanglements and disappointments.

The only restrictions to the farmers’ use of EFF directed funding asks that:
1) Purchases at premium prices, (greater than "Fair Trade") must be competitive for the highest quality beans,
2) Must be Chemical Free NGM agricultural practices,
3) Must follow environmentally responsible cultivation and processing with special concern for waste water and erosion.
4) Must insure that indigenous farmers are actually the beneficiaries of the funds involved.
5) We encourage local indigenous roasting and vertical integration of the processing in order that the supply side be efficiently integrated rather than exploited.
The mission as stated poses a challenge for a small import company, but it makes the coffee taste so much better.

Strengthening of Coffee Processing Techniques and Infrastructure in Olopa (proposed date August 2007 – March 2008) Background Information & Project Summary The Coordinating Association for Rural Development in Olopa (ACODEROL, for its initials in Spanish) was founded in the department (province) of Chiquimula in 1998 with the main purpose of supporting rural development initiatives in the communities that comprise the municipality of Olopa. It is currently made up of 367 indigenous Maya Chortí members, of which 55 are small-scale coffee farmers.

Each of the small scale coffee farmers has an average coffee plantation ranging from 7,000- 14.000 square meters in size at an altitude of 1,400 meters above sea level. They produce strictly Hard-Bean, SHB Arabica, an aromatic coffee, rich in body and flavor. This is a green, compact, even, medium bodied coffee bean, with a closed fissure. The roasting turns the beans dark brown, with corrugated texture, a closed irregular fissure and very compact. ACODERROL produces approximately 46,040 kgs. Of coffee beans per year.

Currently, the coffee producers mill the ripe cherry with the help of their families and do the processing in their own homes. Solar drying of the beans has become difficult because of the cloudy weather, which slows the drying process and in turn can lead to moldiness. As a consequence, there is an inconsistency in the quality of the bean, which in turn has a negative effect on the sale price.

The coffee producers from ACODEROL have expressed their strong interest in building their own coffee processing infrastructure. Their goal is to increase the income of the 55 coffee producers from ACODEROL by strengthening their technical and organizational capacity for coffee processing, and ultimately increasing the sales volume of their coffee. Additionally, a Guatemala based agricultural education program would allow participating coffee farmers to receive training, better organize themselves, and have access to infrastructure and equipment necessary to carry out coffee processing activities collectively in order to improve their coffee processing techniques and to meet quality standards of international markets.

Goals:
1) Organize farmers for collecting and selling their coffee.
2) Establish a communal concrete patio (1,225 mts2) to dry producers’ coffee.
3) Build a warehouse for coffee storage.
4) Design and implement a training program for 55 small-scale coffee producers --- in coffee processing and management for commercial purposes
5) Coordinate with the National Coffee Association.
6) Build a wet coffee processing infrastructure “beneficio húmedo” (for depulping, washing and fermentation) The wet-mill will be used by not only for ACODEROL members, but also for other farmers that need to use it.

EFF has a special interest in this project because we have a close relationship with the farmers in this region. We want to see the farmers prosper by their own initiative, and this plan is theirs, although expanded in some ways. Some very fine people in Guatemala have been responsive and dedicated in developing this proposal, and we pray they succeed. Also, some very dedicated and caring people in the Diocese of Colorado Springs initiated this proposal, and they have a great interest in connecting directly with the names and places and with the coffee farmers of the Acoderol cooperatives in whatever way they can. We hope this project evolves.

CRS asks not to post the financial and or details of the grant request and not to make contributions to the project pending the application review process. (The above link is password protected.)

Specialty Coffee Quality

Coffee Quality:
The parameters of quality coffee unfortunately remain ill-defined. To answer the more obvious questions about quality, you may want to consider the following:

The really good coffee is becoming harder and harder to find and to purchase. The good stuff comes from remote, high altitude volcanic rainforests. Access is difficult. Lower down in the valley, clear fields, mechanized farming, insecticides and fertilizers even genetic modification yield far greater production and thus profit. The more the indigenous farmers of these remote high mountain family hectors are marginalized the less attentive they are to their coffee production. The historic name recognition associated with the increasingly scarce high quality beans leads to a blending of the good stuff with more abundant coffee thus retaining name recognition while adulterating the quality in the blend. Business is business; the ground coffee may hide defects as well.

Let’s talk about our Guatemala High Mountain Coffee as an example. On a practical level there are 4 elements to its high quality.

1. 1st the beans are graded SHB. That is strictly hard bean Arabica. This is the highest grading in Guatemala.
2. 
   2nd we score the various samples from the high mountain cooperativas by Guatemala's number one tester, (taste tester and cupper as they call it.) Ours all score 89 or higher on the cupper scale, and they know how to do this in Guatemala better than we do here.
   
3. 3rd is the roast. The common quality problem with one very popular Roaster for example is unequal size of the beans in their blend, resulting in the small ones burning while the larger ones are just right. This burned taste has even become a sought after feature for its strong rugged taste, but with care dark roast can be achieved without burning; in so doing, it leaves the third cup far more palatable. We use what is called a European prep that screens the beans for size and fragments. Ours is a "single malt" coffee, not a blend. When blending there is the problem of one bean roasting faster than the others. In Guatemala they roast the different beans of the blend individually, whilst in the US, most if not all roasters do them together. Spill some sample beans out on a white counter top and note the faults that I described; from a blend, note the color differences.
   
4. 4th the chemical free nature of the product adds substantially to the quality. Certification is actually no guarantee because there are allowable exceptions, while some of the best beans come from farms that cannot afford certification. Run of the mill beans may be contaminated by most anything from organo-phosphates, fumigation, diesel fumes or another product shipped in the same container. Additionly there is consideration of the storage climate and age of the product. There is obviously a health issue here too.
   

The SCAA, Specialty Coffee Association, is struggling with a system of grading the specialty coffees. As yet there is no clear quality certification unless you know the terms as above and have access to the data. We think that the American perception of quality coffee needs to include the concept of Fair Trade, documented quality (not advertizing), the healthfulness of the product, the environment and perhaps a bit more discerning palate. There are very few US coffee vendors who give heed to all of the above considerations.

Rugby World Cup, England vs. France

"PARIS, 12 October - England and France arrive at their semi-final match brimming with confidence after defeating their more favoured southern hemisphere rivals.
After a difficult start to the world cup, Brian Ashton and Bernard Laporte's sides (England and France) turned the tournament on its head when they defeated Australia and New Zealand respectively last weekend."

"Rugby is played on grass with speed! --- reads the bumper sticker" This is the right venue for coffee, whether player or old-boy on tour at the World Cup.

As it turns out, "Youth Rugby" is alive and well in the US. Veterans of the early days of pioneer rugby in the US give something back by coaching youth teams, high school and younger, Many of the young clubs/teams finance their activities and travel expenses by selling Fair Trade Coffee. Earth Friendly Coffee Company supplies wholesale quantities of extremely high quality coffee to many clubs for resale and fund raisers. You can support these youth rugby clubs by buying their gourmet quality coffee online. http://groupformingnetworks.com/

Rugby, unknown by most Americans, plays with far more complexity and elegance than American football and with a level of sportsmanship largely lost to our game (Joe Perterno's teams not withstanding.) Furthermore, the sport fosters an international spirit of camaraderie among rugby players and former players. This fraternity displays itself nowhere or more so than at these World Cup events. The series plays out over weeks and in many cities, in this case across England and Europe with the finals in Paris. The pageantry, singing and parties in these far-flung cities matches or surpasses the spectacle afield --- or "on the pitch."

http://www.rugbyworldcup.com/index.html