While industry giants drag their feet on ensuring that their cocoa is not produced by child labor, demand for fair trade-certified chocolate is growing, and the industry is learning valuable lessons from the success of fair trade coffee. At a fair trade-certified cocoa cooperative, child labor is prohibited and the farming methods used are better for the environment. Additionally, these co-ops are independently monitored and are expected to make contributions back to the community. Fair  trade chocolate still makes up less than 1 percent of the $13 billion chocolate market, but sales and profits are growing rapidly, and the certification makes a real impact on farmer’s lives. It can mean the difference between being able to send a child to school or not.

I plan to sit back on Valentine's Day evening and savor some fair trade- certified dark chocolate. My Valentine's Day consumer consciousness is not over though: Flowers, another wonderful, ephemeral expression of love, come with a downside too.

A rose is a rose is . . . toxic and carbon emitting?

When a dozen long-stemmed red roses arrive at my office, for the moment I am giddy and excited. But later I can’t help but think about the fossil fuels that were burned to transport them all the way from South America. I keep that thought to myself because I don’t want to offend my husband, who thoughtfully surfed the Internet, entered his credit card number at an online flower shop, and pressed send. I’m lucky that my husband thinks to send me flowers, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if instead of going to his computer, he’d walk to a local florist with an organic greenhouse using only the fossil fuel of the rubber on his shoes.

Most people don't realize that flowers, just like vegetables, are best bought from local, organic sources. More than 70 percent of cut flowers sold in the United States are grown in South America, where besides contributing to carbon emissions, they are grown with pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides that are restricted in the U.S. because they are highly toxic to workers. Flowers from South America are also infused with preservatives to keep them from rotting during shipment. An estimated two-thirds of Colombian and Ecuadorian flower workers suffer work-related health problems, ranging from stillbirths and miscarriages to impaired vision and neurological problems, according to the International Labor Rights Fund.

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