I handful of weeks ago, before watching Pirates of the Carribean 3: Braveheart on a Boat, I made the egregious mistake of walking into a Starbucks. There, nestled cosily between the Happy Planet Opaque Grape Juice and the Fancy Italian Word was a bottle of Ethos water. Unaware of the product's nature, my thoughts drifted to my dissatisfaction with the hot chocolate peddled by that particular drinking establishment, whilst one of my companions handed over three Canadian dollars for a bottle of the polar liquid.

The minimalist, modern design of the plastic bottle caught my eye, and I grabbed the bottle from my friend's hands to examine the peripherary text. It advertised my capacity to help the world by buying water. I was intrigued. They had appealed to me, ironically not by ethos but by pathos and logos, suggesting a practical way for me to help those who truly need it. Their goal is to raise ten million dollars to give fresh water to developing nations.

The concept, in and of itself, is philanthropic.

Then I noticed the price. Ethos bottled water costs $3.00 per bottle. Whilst mine party members ran off to see Johnny Depp battle the evil forces of Bill Nighy, gears began turning in my head.

Metal Gears.

Ethos bottled water, at $3.00 a pop, costs more than the average bottle of water. And water isn't cheap. Really, in a western nation, every cent you pay for water is a cent too much. Bottled water trades chemical for biological uncleanliness. But I engage in digression.

"Every time you purchase a bottle of Ethos™ Water we will contribute 5 cents toward our goal of raising at least $10 million by 2010." So readeth the website. So let's plug those numbers in. Time to fire up the old TI83.

10,000,000 (The number of dollars needed) / 0.05 (The amount of dollars contributed by each purchase) =

(Pause of excessive drama)

200,000,000

That's two hundred million bottles of Ethos water that need to be sold in order to raise the ten million dollars of which this company is an aspirant.

But the fun stops not there.

200,000,000 bottles X 2.95 (The amount of dollars that are not donated to charity from each sale) =

590,000,000

Over half a billion dollars of gross income for the company. I have no idea what each bottle of water costs them, but given that it's basically a cheap blastic container and a substance that can be acquired for next to nothing in North America, the overhead for each bottle is low enough for this to result in hundreds of millions of dollars in net profit.

So I see why their goal of ten million dollars is so important to them. Because it carries with it the very agreeable side effect of making them richer than Ringo Star (admittedly, the Beatles didn't let Ringo touch the chequebooks). The owners of Ethos could build a swimming pool and fill it with dollar bills with that kind of bank account.

I respect the general idea of Ethos, and it's better than doing nothing at all, but here's an alternative. Buy your water elsewhere (or just drink tap water, princess) and donate the difference to a charity that brings water resources to developing nations. I can tell you that if you're buying two dollar (still extortionate) bottles of water and donating the dollar you save to charity it will make a much larger contribution to global anti-poverty efforts that buying ten bottles of Ethos will. Put your money where you mouth is; don't go token.

And it is for that reason that 1st Prop stands in favour of the motion: "This House Believes that math skills are important in daily life."