Environment shmenvironment

I slagged off the Mail in my last post and with very good reason, but just to show that I'm not a complete limp-wristed wet liberal, I'm going to have a go at Simon Hoggart and his diary piece in today's Grauniad. I quote [comments added in square brackets]:

In fact, the market for recycled paper has collapsed, so there's no point in sorting that [okay...], and that glass is mainly used for road beds, since it is hard but permeable. No point in recycling that anyway: there is no world shortage of sand. [Good grief, where do you start with this? No, there is lots of sand. There is also lots of glass that gets buried in landfill when it could quite easily be recycled, thus reducing the need for more landfill space.] Most household rubbish around the country still goes into landfill anyway. [True, but that doesn't mean you have to add to it.]

Like so much associated with the green movement, this procedure has a religious quality. It even takes as long as the average church service. [Er, I seriously doubt that it does, unless they've radically pared down service durations since I stopped going.] The doctrine keeps changing: envelopes used to have to go separately, with cardboard. No doubt following some green synod meetings, we are not enjoined to pile them all together. [Heaven forbid that we have to make any changes whatsoever to our daily routine!]

Although it's largely a waste of time [says you], we must perform these rites as a sign of our commitment to the ecological faith. To question them would be like insisting that communion wine wasn't really the blood of Christ... [Well as I say, I hardly think sorting your rubbish to be recycled consumes huge chunks of your valuable time. If you put stuff out for recycling, there's a chance it might be recycled. If you stick it all in your wheelie bin then it definitely won't be. A slim chance is better than none at all, no?]

One difference is this: like church spires, onshore wind turbines have no practical value except as symbols of the faith, visible to all. Except that spires improve the appearance of the landscape, and turbines do the opposite. [Ah so that's what this is really all about! Our Simon is quite obsessed with turbines. I'd love him to provide irrefutable evidence that they don't work and thus have "no practical value". I'll concede that maybe they're not very efficient and don't create all that much energy. But once again: fossil fuels are going to run out. Sooner or later we will need to rely on alternative sources of energy. Will Mr Hoggart's grandchildren thank him if, sometime in the future, their electricity has to be rationed thanks to people like him who refused to countenance new sources of energy because they had an ever-so-slightly adverse effect on their lives?]

In some ways it's good that the Guardian is prepared to print guff like this, as it displays a semblance of balance against the relentless green agenda that permeates the rest of the paper. Simon's comparisons of the green movement to organised religion are valid, as there's a very good argument that the George Monbiots of this world actually put more people off doing their bit for the enviroment because people resent being preached at.

It may well be that the planet is doomed no matter what we do, and all these sudden drives to reduce our carbon footprints have come far too late to make a difference. Ultimately it all comes down to whether, when faced with a seemingly hopeless cause, you should still make an effort to change things for the better or whether it's best just to resign yourself to the worst. In Simon's case, I'm surprised he summons up the effort to stay alive and breathing, seeing that he's going to die at some point anyway. (His diary touches something of a raw nerve with me, you may have noticed.)