carbon coffee

It’s dark outside. Dark and cold and uninviting. The Carbontoddler cries when I remove her from her Tigger sleepsuit and force her arm into as many layers of clothes as I can. With the usual bickering and chivvying, I walk the boys to school then return for my daughter. Today I intend to drop her off at nursery by car, drive to a village seven miles down the road, and work in a cafe, on my laptop. I avoid meeting Carbonlite’s eye as I grab car keys and run out of the door with my daughter and her lunchbox. The temperature outside isn’t very different to inside. Even though it’s the depths of winter, we’ve made a pact to keep the heating off during the day. Carbonlite deals with this by piling on layers of clothes; at the last count he had five. I deal with it by going out..

I order a coffee and try to shut out the guilt. Not only have I left Carbonlite at home to suffer in frosty silence with a massive workload, but I’ve used the car for a short journey again. Why? Because I’m a pathetic fair weather cyclist. I just can’t motivate myself to open the shed. I know it’s damaging; economically, environmentally and also physically; I'm putting on weight faster than the carbon mother in law gets through a litre of whisky.
Disgusted with myself, I pick up a magazine. “The lazy girls guide to going green” the cover shouts at me. I sigh, opening it to page 64. “If you’d like to save the planet, but think it all sounds like too much hassle, here are some easy tips that won’t turn your life upside down.” Why not turn your life upside down? It might be fun. It might save the future for your kids. Resistant as I can be to some of Carbonlite’s improvements, we at least both understand that life, post Al Gore can never be same again.

It's all the usual stuff about buying an eco kettle, sealing the gaps, washing clothes at a lower temperature, and turning off the tap mid teeth clean. I’m mildly interested in the fact that I’ll save more energy if my fridge is full. But the only time a car is mentioned is to inform me that driving is more efficient if I put more air in the tyres. But air never trashed a polar bear. What about emissions, petrol, unnecessary journeys? I leave my coffee to go cold; while it might be unleaded, it tastes too much of carbon.