Inspiration

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The dilemmas of an ethical consumer

The dilemmas are coming out of my ears at the moment. So where to start? Perhaps I will warm up with a little of my story:

Although I have always been aware of what I have bought, and was brought up and grew up with a very environmentally conscious mindset, the last few years have seen my ethics become a whole lot stricter - in a non-anthropocentric sense. As members of our community that is all nature on this planet, I am convinced that each of us human beings has the duty to do our best to appreciate and respect what nature has gifted us with. This gift is the basic building block of everything, which I believe, in moral terms, is life (and I don't mean only human life).

So the latest opportunity to become more ethical, to align my actions more closely with my principles, arose when we sold our car. What an act of liberation! But soon reality hits you: living in middle class suburbia, this so-called 'loss of mobility' immediately presents you with a challenge. Yes, gone are a gazillion car-related worries (in the UK these consist of: road tax, petrol costs, annual MOT testing, unnecessary repairs, cleaning the car - honestly, I have problems enough cleaning my flat! Who wants to have to clean a car in addition?! -, insurance etc etc.) BUT "hello" to a whole host of different challenges, mainly consisting of: how do I do my household shopping ... without breaking my back? It's even more difficult for me, with my ethical conscience looming over me as big as... well, a very big thing. How do I shop ethically without breaking the bank and without having to spend half my spare time on it (by going to one shop to buy my potatoes, and to another in a different part of town to buy my butter)?

Coffee health and ethics

Coffee growing in Goias, Brazil

With it being April Fool's Day, I should flex my creative muscles, come up with some fantastic story and post it here. Or, with it being Easter Monday, I should write about Easter eggs (both the real and the "copycat" chocolate kind). In fact there is an interesting piece of news I came across yesterday relating to the ranking of chocolate Easter egg manufacturers according to their use of (unsustainable) palm oil. But I will follow my intuition and, instead, write about coffee.

I do love my quality and responsibly-sourced cup of coffee, and I am always interested to hear more about what effects it might be having on my body, as well as about where coffee comes from, how it is grown and what social and environmental effects the cultivation of coffee has. I am a regular at Monmouth Coffee Company in Covent Garden. It is my "creative haunt", as I have come to see it. I just came across this interesting, if superficial Alternet article on the (potential) good and bad effects of coffee on health/the human body: "10 things coffee does to your body". Makes an interesting read for those of us who are coffee lovers (or haters), and possibly gives us one more reason to drink coffee...responsibly.