Op-Ed: I’m Watching From The Philippines, & Your Venti Latte Math Doesn’t Add Up

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When I started to write for CleanTechnica, I was on my own journey of decarbonization. Literally. I gave up my Nissan Cefiro, with its 6-cylinder VQ2 engine. I divorced my Nissan Terrano with its 2.7-liter diesel powerplant. There wasn’t a proper electric vehicle in 2017 when I started this journey, so I got a tiny, low-emission Mitsubishi Mirage. I started to push for solar, changed to LED light strips, and inverter aircons.

To scrub off the carbon dioxide off my being, I commute wherever I go. Each 80-kilometer trip to Manila from Laguna was about 26.8 kg CO2 per 100km carbon dioxide generated. That’s 19,564 kg per year (if I drive daily). I take the bus to save on that, and since 2019, when I seriously measured it, I’ve saved about 890,000 kg since 2017 just by walking and commuting.

I share this story because as I write this to you, my “developing country” mentality takes over. Because where I come from, the climate crisis isn’t just a policy debate we have on cable news — it’s the weather forecast. And as part of the global CleanTechnica team, looking into your First World fishbowl with a mix of professional admiration and frantic concern.

Five days ago, I read the plea from Zach, our Chief Editor. I was busy traveling to North America doing various domestic duties. But I was processing what he said. Naturally, I benefit from writing for CleanTechnica, but this part of my life I do because I enjoy it. My day job at The Manila Times is the bread and butter. There is something about green journalism that Zach details, in the immense struggle of keeping our advocacy afloat for 17 years. He joked about the “dream” of a rooftop pool and minty mocha frappuccinos in the office.

It’s charming. But let me offer you a perspective from my desk down in the warm and wet, mostly flooded and corrupt part of the world: You guys have a really weird relationship with value.

Here is the truth: Begging to keep an advocacy afloat is hard work. It is harder than trying to find a parking spot in Manila during rush hour. And it is specifically hard because the developed world, our primary audience, has been seduced by the convenience of free information and expensive, sugary distractions.

Without paid, salaried, real writers, misinformation, worst, disinformation, disguised by rigid, academic grammar will flood your screens. That’s the reality. CleanTechnica can easily go paywall, but that would be a disservice.

The Starbucks Index

Let’s talk about your coffee. I see the photos on social media — those cups that look like small buckets.

You pay, what? Six dollars? Seven dollars? That is a significant amount of money in my corner of the world. But beyond the monetary cost, look at the physical cost.

When you buy that Starbucks, you are funding the paper cup that ends up in a landfill (refuse). You are paying for the obscene amount of power required to keep that shop air-conditioned to meat-locker temperatures while the world burns outside. You are paying for the water used to grow the beans, process the milk, and wash the machines.

America, and the rest of the developed world, you need to wake up to the truth: cutting down on just one cup of Starbucks reduces your contributions to refuse, power, and water waste immediately.

If you skip that one latte a month and send that cash to us at CleanTechnica instead, you are swapping a fleeting sugar rush for actual knowledge that helps the planet.

The Narrative Carbon Credit

I have a proposal. You guys love carbon credits, right? You love buying a clear conscience so you don’t feel bad about your flights.

Let’s introduce a new metric: The Narrative Carbon Credit.

We should measure this by the number of characters in a story required to offset 1 gram of CO2. I declare this to be a patented idea of CleanTechnica.  And I will actually submit it to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as soon as I get a reply from them.

When I sit down to write a deep dive on EV adoption in Asia or the latest renewable tech, I am generating “characters of change.” If my story convinces one person to install solar panels, or one policymaker to support wind energy, that story has done more for the atmosphere than you recycling a yogurt cup for the last decade.

But these stories don’t appear by magic.

Zach mentioned that ChatGPT and Google are squeezing us. These AI bots slurp up the hard work we do, chew it up, and spit out a generic answer to you without sending a dime back to the writers who actually did the research. It is digital colonialism. It is extracting resources (our data, our reporting, our years of experience) without paying the locals.

Moreover, AI’s data centers already use up 4.4% of energy in the US. Replace us writers with AI and your carbon credits exponentially grow!

The Burger & The Blockbuster

Let’s look at your other luxuries.

• The Fattening Burger. We can keep a blind eye on cow farts polluting the atmosphere. But if you drop $15 on a gourmet burger that makes you sluggish and hurts your health, why not divert at least one luxury patty to charity? Our charity?

• The Movie Ticket: You spend $20 to sit in the dark and watch a fictional hero save the world with CGI explosions. Stay home on Netflix, Hulu, and Disney.

• The artisan (rather artesian) water bottled in Fiji, the Alps, or Norway to drink while sitting in a city with perfectly safe tap water. You are literally shipping heavy liquid across oceans in single-use plastic. The emissions from manufacturing the bottle and the freight shipping are astronomical for something that comes out of your kitchen faucet for free.

• Shein or shame fashion or H&M for a specific Friday night out, only to have it sit in the back of the closet (or a landfill) forever after. Remember, the textile industry is responsible for up to 10% of global carbon emissions. That cheap shirt traveled thousands of miles, used gallons of water to dye, and is made of synthetic fibers (plastic) that shed microplastics. I am not saying go used or Salvation Army, Marshall’s is a great option and one I always use.

• Patience reduces carbon. Ordering a phone charger or a pack of pens online and clicking “Overnight Delivery” because you can’t be bothered to drive to the store or wait three days. Last-mile delivery is a carbon nightmare. Rush shipping means trucks go out half-empty and planes fly more frequently to meet arbitrary deadlines. Waiting 3 days is free. Rush shipping costs extra (or is hidden in a Prime fee). Donate the difference to CleanTechnica.

• Here is one that only takes a sweater or a warm body to solve. Keeping your house at a chilling 68°F (20°C) when it is 95°F (35°C) outside, or wearing a T-shirt inside when it is snowing because you have the heat blasted. Heating and cooling buildings is a massive chunk of global emissions. Fighting the seasons rather than dressing for them is a pure luxury of cheap energy.

• Stop the annual tech swap. Trading in a perfectly good iPhone 15 because the iPhone 16 has a slightly better camera. Most of a phone’s carbon footprint comes from manufacturing (mining rare earth metals, assembly). tossing a working device is an ecological crime. Keep your phone for 3 or 4 years. Here in the Philippines, we use phones until the screen falls off, and then we tape it back on. Take the $1,000 you didn’t spend on a new phone and become a “CleanTechnica Hero” donor.

• The “Short-Haul” Flight. Think about it. Flying from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, or London to Paris, to save 2 hours of travel time compared to a train or car. Takeoff and landing use the most fuel. Short flights are incredibly inefficient per kilometer. Take the train or the bus. It’s slower, but you can read our articles while you ride. This article was written on a FlixBus from Chicago to Indiana with spotty wi-fi and a inverter charger.

• Finally stop the “Crypto” speculation. Running energy-intensive rigs or supporting proof-of-work currencies just to gamble on digital coins. Bitcoin mining consumes more electricity than entire countries (like mine!).  Invest in the real economy — or better yet, invest in the information economy that helps solve the energy crisis crypto is contributing to.

Why not spend that money on the people trying to save the actual world?

You have the luxury of “understanding” First World problems. You have the luxury of debating which electric truck is the most aesthetic. We are asking you to pay for that privilege so that the information keeps flowing.

We don’t have a paywall because we believe this info is important for society — even for people who can’t afford it. That includes people here in the Philippines and across the Global South. When you subscribe, you aren’t just buying access for yourself; you are subsidizing the education of the rest of the world.

So, put down the Venti. Skip the burger. Cut down on the beef. Don’t let the bots win.

Turn that consumption into a contribution. If we can convert a donation into a story, and a story into action, that is the best exchange rate you are ever going to get.

Support our work. Keep the lights on. Because if you don’t, the only thing you’ll be reading is whatever the robots of Zuckerberg, Bezos, or Altman decide to tell you.

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