Scanning Starbucks' Napkins

The name sells coffee

As I changed trains on Sunday, I had a 30 minute stopover at Duisburg and decided to get a coffee.

Of all the coffee shops in the station, I had seen a Starbucks Coffee sign on the platform which was 70 metres away – I was willing to drag my baggage and self all the way to the global giant in a German city railway station.

Not so much for the coffee but for the fact that they do muffins – the muffins are not perfect, there are times I have looked at the muffins and thought I was in some biohazard laboratory with fungal spores cultivated on the surface of the muffins.

But ignore the eyes and mind, go for the taste and all will be well. I hate chocolate in my muffins, in fact, I only do blueberry muffins and when hard pressed vanilla or banana.

I’ve been silly

Too many choices of coffee and as I remembered the Undercover Economist, I realised I had been fleeced the moment I walked into the café, I was suckered and the fool in me was about to be parted from my money.

I ordered a Caffe Mocha Grande from the wall menu which according to Page 35 of my copy of the Undercover Economist with embellishments translates to - I want a cappuccino, mix that with hot chocolate; I feel special - and then make that big by adding water and milk; I feel greedy - and top it with whipped cream; I feel piggily gluttonous. Then charge me over twice the price of a regular coffee.

Did I also get a lemon cake too? My waistline is getting strained already.

I settled in a corner to down my coffee, muffin and cake and as I wiped my mouth of the crumbs, I noticed my napkin had one of those green messages that is supposed to make you feel concerned whilst delivering nothing in reality.

Annoying napkin

The napkin was made from 100% recycled fibres using a bleach-free process, one can be glad for that but the other messages took away from my satisfaction with the snack.

I could not say if it was the More plants, More planet. STARBUCKS COFFEE or the Less napkins, More plants, More planet that annoyed me more as a message that was a non-message; though if contrived enough, it could mean we all depart for the moon.

Similar to the message to save the trees as the paper is friction and pressure heated to bind the toner as you stand by the laser printer ready to pick up your essential printouts.

The trees have already been felled, that is why it is already paper in the laser printer – For crying out loud.

So, here I was in Duisburg, Germany using recycled paper to wipe my mouth and then noticing that the napkin was manufactured in the Netherlands; it would had have to be transported from somewhere in the Netherlands – so much for recycling and the carbon footprint of transportation.

Less Schmaltz, More muffin, More Coffee – I say.

Save us from the Carbon Nazis

The earth is changing

It is getting relentless and distracting, switch on your television and the chance is you are watching a drying up river, a depleted forest, marooned polar animals and wayfaring icebergs.

Amongst us, it is reports of severe drought in Australia, desert encroachment in Africa, floods in Asia, forest fires in America, severe hurricanes in the Caribbean or heat waves in Europe.

The sum of it all, global warming, or at least that is what we are beginning to believe it is.

We do need to do something about it, however, I do wonder if the way we are going about it has not been hijacked by a more sophisticated erstwhile membership of the anarchist Animal Liberation Front.

Offsetting your footprint

So, we have to measure our carbon footprints, reduce our carbon generating activities and consider carbon offsetting if our nominal carbon footprint is extended for satisfying out luxurious tastes.

Now, I naturally cannot sleep with my lights off or without having some sound playing in the background, I would be travelling to Berlin in the weekend and the choice between a 2-hour round-trip and a 12-hour journey is obvious if I want to maximise my holiday time, travelling by air than by train.

I would like to switch off my television, DVD recorder, video tape player, stereo player and microwave oven instead of leaving them in standby mode, but I would loose channels, time, settings such that getting the systems up and running would be an utter inconvenience, it should be manufacturers creating systems that retain all that in non-volatile memory.

Have to keep them going

Forget my fridge and alarm clock, and I need a night light; I have not been able to eat enough carrots to see in the dark. The supermarket on the ground floor brings food from all corners of the world, I am spoilt for choice and it closes at 9:00PM. If I want local produce, I have to go to the market, which is open till about 4:00PM when I would still be at work.

Supermarket food contains enough additives to keep for a while, fresh produce whilst tasteful has to be consumed sooner which means more inconvenient trips a week for foodstuffs.

Anyway, that is my selfish attitude to Global Warming, mind you, I do not have a car, and I mainly use public transport and do not directly use any fossil fuels in my house.

The march of the Carbon Nazis

But it is getting a bit too far, a whole lot of sanctimonious tree-huggers are now saying we should stop flying - now, I am no fan of no-frills air travel, they have rubbished the quality of travel one was once accustomed to hardly 10 years ago.

However, I would not squeeze into a cattle-class seat for the price of an imperial suite on QE2, it is annoying enough that the cost of flights is just 60% of taxes when it comes to European travel.

Then some people who desperately need to get a life queued up from 03:00AM for the £5.00 "I'm not a plastic bag" bag at Sainsbury's, this green thing might just gain traction if such interesting people were composted for plant nutrition.

They have also co-opted the Queen of England into this outrageous carbon trading scam, no, she would not be kayaking across the Atlantic to America, rather her courtiers would be finding ways to offset her carbon footprint - the last time I looked, though her feet were in shoes, they were hardly half the size of my long boats. Green Queen, they say - give me peace!

Gosh! I forgot, she was 81 on Saturday - Belated wishes, Ma'am.

The march of the carbon army is like some marauding pillage of our heretofore sacred liberties, that I am now screaming - Save us from the Carbon Nazis.