K-Cups are so bad for the environment that their inventor has expressed regret that he ever came up with the idea for the Keurig coffee pod system. But are the pods really so bad? It depends what they’re being compared to. “In some cases, brewing a cup of joe in an old-school filter coffee maker can generate roughly 1½ times more emissions than using a pod machine … assuming packaging does the most harm to the environment is often misguided. Instead, experts say, it’s important to look at a product’s entire life span — from the time it’s made to when it hits the landfill — to figure out which changes might have the biggest effect on improving sustainability.” WaPo (Gift Article): Single-use coffee pods have surprising environmental benefits over other brewing methods.

+ More than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets by biggest provider are worthless, analysis shows. (I just spit out my coffee.)