So I was in a Starbucks the other day, and one of their displays happened to catch my eye. In front of clichéd images of mournful African children, was a wicker basket filled with bottles of ‘Ethos’ water. The Ethos display included an impassioned treatise on the plight of Africans and the ever-worsening crises brought about by a lack of clean drinking water. While these are hardly trivial issues (maybe even enough to give the yuppies pause while they sip their Grande Caramel Macchiatos!) Ethos sought to reassure us. There are solutions, and we can help - they involve buying their water. The light is at the end of the consumerist tunnel, because you can sleep soundly in knowing that $0.10 of the purchase price of every bottle of Ethos water goes towards NGOs working to alleviate the problem. Before you know it, you’re responsible for saving the life of [insert stereotypical African name here]!

Great. I almost lost it when I saw that each bottle of water cost $2.35. Not only are they perpetuating the environmental catastrophe that is bottled water, they get to double their margins by pandering to the faux-guilt of affluent suburbanite trash. Congratulations, Ethos!

If you have any feelings whatsoever about the cause, ask for a fucking cup of tap water (or better yet, bring a travel mug - Starbucks cups can’t be recycled), send your $2.35 directly to the charity of your choice, and quit being a fucking tool.

(Tangentially, I feel that I need to laud San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Ann Arbor for banning the sale of bottled water at city events. While I don’t know the specific arrangements in the other cities, in Ann Arbor, re-usable plastic bottles will be sold and filled with tap water, instead. There’s something fundamentally evil about the commoditization of basic human necessities.)