PETITION - ESTABLISHING ESTABLISHMENT STANDS

These days it seems a lot gets done in our names by our 'representatives' and other 'leaders'.

Fair enough. Often we are too busy, or lazy, to get involved in the minutiae of governance, which is why we trust elected, and often not quite so elected folk to get up to stuff in our name. Approving and disapproving. Asking and taking to task.

However, often there seem these days to be powerful forces at work that can skew what happens in our name away from courses that we might hope for, and even approve of. Everything from lobby groups to the rather unattractive, if to some degree understandable notion that what might be right, specially for later on (when out of office and either in comfortable index-linked retirement or 6' under) might not attract votes, as such, now.

Worse still, I am sensing some voting on key issues is not so much on the issue themselves, to to removing checks and balances that might at first glance seem innocuous, but actually are there to address more controversial topics at a later stage.

Again, by the time all this happens those who instituted/scuppered the deal might well be long gone.

It might exist already, but I propose a simple chart (with key headings - Nuclear, Planning, etc) of those in power, predominantly MPs, Ministers, MEPs, etc, but also quango heads and even business leaders, who are on record as being 'pro' or 'con' an action/piece of legalisation/etc, especially with their voting record along with a brief, comprehensible summary (this is key, so every voter can understand the issues, at least as well as they are capable of being expressed) of what the consequences of their voting might be and, if and when proven, has/is/will come to pass.

At the very least I want these fine chaps and chapesses to be confronted with the consequences of their actions and, even if they are long gone, in an archived way their descendants can appreciate their legacies (good... and bad).

Perhaps it could be called 'The Parapet Post'? And for some, maybe it become, with cause, a pillory?

ADDENDUM - Bit of fun: as there seemed to be nothing like it, I have submitted a petition:

'The Parapet Post' – a simple online, constantly updated, archived chart/record of our leaders’ voting records on topics, with possible and actual outcomes listed.

We are too busy, or lazy, to get involved in the minutiae of governance, so we trust elected, and often not quite so elected folk to act in our name. Approving/disapproving. Asking/taking to task.

However, these days powerful forces can skew away from courses that we might hope for, and even approve of. Everything from lobby groups to vote-driven self interest.

Voting on key issues can not be so much on the issues themselves, but to removing checks and balances that might at first glance seem innocuous, but actually are there to address more controversial topics at a later stage.

I request a simple online chart (with key headings - Nuclear, Planning, etc) of those in power, predominantly MPs, Ministers, MEPs, etc, but also quango heads, who are on record as being 'pro' or 'con' an action/piece of legislation/etc, especially with their voting record along with a brief, comprehensible summary (this is key, so every voter can understand the issues, at least as well as they are capable of being expressed) of what the consequences of their voting might be and, if and when proven, has/is/will come to pass.

BBC - Poll finds AMs back more powers

Guardian - NEW - How many MPs are climate change sceptics? - LED burning crosses at the ready?

Addendum - 17/07/08 - Oh, wo..e is me. And boy, was it quick:

I'm sorry to inform you that your petition has been rejected.

Your petition was classed as being in the following categories:

* Issues for which an e-petition is not the appropriate channel

Further information: Sites containing this requested
information already exist e.g. http://www.theyworkforyou.com/

If you wish to edit and resubmit your petition, please follow
the following link:
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/TheParapetPost/BCfF51CgkEwAEDq1PTALogg

You have four weeks in which to do this, after which your
petition will appear in the list of rejected petitions.

Hmn. While the cited site is very good, it really doesn't do what I was asking, at least in the easy to assess, tabular, evolving manner I was suggesting.

Still, I still have Pols Porkies or the Wall of sLime to develop.

A week is a long time in climate change

I hate to tell you I told you so, but: Tell Us What You Flaunt, What You Really Really Flaunt

This would not be the same Geri Halliwell who stood up at Wembley and reckoned that it was 'for her daughter's sake' was it?

Nothing blows cred like a two-faced celeb.

ADDENDUM

Meanwhile, across the pond: Will.I.Am Scraps Plan to Blow Up Hummer

With the funniest comment I've seen: 'He could ship it to Baghdad. That'd be like recylcing it and blowing it up.'

And was this the follow-up 'awareness' the organisers were really after: Where is Fergie's love for her HUMMER?

BBC - Jeremy Vine Show - Interesting debate, if a twofer

I wrote to Prof: Luckhurst:

I was just sent an email linking to the Jeremy Vine discussion you had (I presume a while ago at the time of the BBC withdrawal) regarding Live Earth.

I just wanted to say how nice it was to hear a calm, rational and considered analysis of the situation.

As a committed environmental campaigner and sometime commenter, I was saddened how polarised the discussion around this issue became, though not surprised in light of how anything climate change is immediately consigned to extremes. The media is more than complicit in setting up this situation. So your comment on the blue waters in between that are seldom acknowledged or addressed really resonated.

As did the point, which was key to my lack of enthusiasm, that previous such efforts simply had not worked. And if 'awareness' (itself a rather vague target at best) was all, then as far as I could see the main result was the vast majority of normal folk were further put off by the superficial posturings of a celebrity-obsessed green elite.

And frankly we are seeing it again with the latest surrounding Mr. Gore. However sincere he might be, I cannot separate the messenger from the message. And there seems a huge disconnect between what is being said by a minority of hugely rich and privileged folk who can afford to play with such things (and not really doing that much to mitigate their own lifestyle excesses, frankly), and the general population that are being talked down to from rather shaky pedestals with populist pronouncements that are almost exclusively negative, scaremongering, guilt-tripping, fine-laden or... plain wrong and open to damaging rebuttal (and what will get remembered more? The good stuff or the cons?). Which makes the efforts of methodical, reason-based, pragmatic and incentive-based attempts at persuasion all the harder to 'sell'.

I want to see this planet turned around. It's my greatest possible legacy to my kids. But by heavens those who have taken it upon themselves to do it 'for our own good' are making a mess of it so far. And the media sure is not helping. And I often have to wonder what the motivations are.

Meanwhile, our elected representatives continue to lead by example...

Noting the source, but the facts still seen clear: Prescott stretches 'junket' into family holiday

Ditto: Blair’s farewell tour stains his green legacy with carbon

Sunday Telegraph - Things we won't miss: Two Jags, 19.8 staff, a £2.4m bill

Don't fly as fly do, fly as I fly.

This was billed as a 'must read'. All I can say is... why?

Well-grounded fear of flying

As I was just saying on my blog and site, which are available, free, along with some stuff you can DO....

'Re: the unearthed 'exclusive' in little-known publication Newsweek.

Noted enviro-writer Mr. Monbiot's plan is certainly 'a' plan, if honestly described by him as being based on 'inexact science', with a few of his 'rough estimates' lobbed in, with the odd 'guess'. I just hope the deniers don't see that little lot as an opportunity for robust rebuttal.

Beyond offering such unwelcome ammo to the 'do nothing' camp, I'm not sure quite how practical this plan is. But then you don't sell many books or get invited to many interviews based on the politics of compromise. News media like to drive ratings first, not inform, and the best way is to pop a couple of pit bulls from opposing camps in the ring and let the games begin. Let's see what big-oil funded shock-jock they can wheel out to say anything that hasn't been countered a million times before.

I'm sure a lot more will read and respond to the magazine (me, I am happy to get it online), but to add to the mighty one views (rating 0.5) at my time of reading the linked piece, and having read a lot of Mr. M's thoughts before, to be charitable and acknowledge the breadth of his knowledge in this arena it seemed to suffer from some rather drastic editing.

I can't recall quite how he promoted his book, Heat (available in all good bookstores at a very reasonable price), or gets to and from his many commitments without the need for personal transport, but as Frank Drebin says, that is not important right now. I am sure getting paid to do his job travelling about is more important than many other folk with careers and families to support.

As for trading the eco-consequences of such travel, is this just between rich folk, or does the population of the globe get to play too?

Per Mr. Cameron's (our Leader of the Opposition here in the UK) notion, I'm guessing a few hundred thousand Kalahari bushmen are ready to let you get to the Earth Aid concert in a private 737, with on board LPG Humvee, based on their allocation. With about 5.5 billion more folk waiting in line.

Green Air - Flying the Sanctimonious, Irony-free Skies'

Isn't it Ironic?

Or was that Alanis Morrisette who wrote that? No matter. I still think it is pretty ironic.

Sheryl Crow starts global warming tour

Now I'm the first to applaud mitigating the effects of going about one's business, but when we stray into going the extra mile to boost awareness of the damage of going the extra mile then, well, that is just... typical. And a tad barking.

BBC - Madonna heads UK Live Earth bill - about which we will doubtless hear more... a lot more

Are you a money-grubbing, career-obsessed coprorate toady?

If you work in marketing, apparently not, at least when it comes to saving the planet:

Marketers switch on to carbon neutral

Sadly it's a paid for sub, by a magazine by and for, well, marketers, so infer away.

I simply ponder out loud that when it comes to recycling, about 90% of people say they do it, and 20% actually do.

And it's not like the Beemer upgrade to full leatherette at next fiscal hinges on it, hmnn?

A new source of free, but doubtless still taxable, energy

Ministers suspend solar panel grants

As it is obvious they think the sun will shine from there no matter what they do, I'd suggest photovoltaics in every Ministerial chair seat.

Doing the rounds.

Up on the roof...Cameron's wind turbine arrives

I do wonder what the enviROI - the return on investment to the planet in terms of carbon saved, and the bit that really matters to those serious about making our kids' futures better - was of designing, making, delivering and erecting this edifice?

Is it possible that it actually has been worse (I only ask... I don't know. But if the lifespan is in excess of the payback period, what then)?

If so, then it truly is a fitting testimony to the fact that we live in an era of spin over substance.

Procrastination can have its merits

A wee while ago Dave of Solarventi wrote asking me my thoughts about M&S's 'There is no Plan B' eco-conversion.

My reply at the time was that I'd be more impressed if they would answer my calls and those of some others (like Dave) who had a few actual suggestions on reduction and reuse that might actually do more than spin the hype turbines. Then I forgot all about it as I now have 500 emails in my in-box since the weekend.

But then I read this: Is Rose's footprint as green as it seems?

Now I have been a bit exhausted by the venom flying about when critics address the man (sorry, PC-types) and not the science, but I do rather share the notion that if the message the messenger is bringing is one of 'do as I say!' then not doing it personally chips at the old pedestal foundations a tad. Especially when these folk are either rolling in it and/or have long since ceased to have any grasp on the realities of paying the bills by being in waaaaaay too much power.

So to the merry ranks of Tony 'Well me not flying isn't really isn't practical when I have lectures to fund my mortgage(s)' B, David 'See how it spins... and the turbine' C, Richard 'My whole fleet is flying on old chips, including the geriatric billionaire space tourists' B et Al 'But I only fly my own jet because I'm busy' G, I think we can add Stuart 'My Beemer may be saving the planet, but the fleet of trucks following behind with liquid hydrogen refills may not be' R.

PolPorkies.info almost has enough to kick off.

Ya think?

Though I doubt I'll ever get my calls answered now.

Just made for a Pol's Porkie!

‘Do as I say, not as I do’ is Barroso’s green message

Thing is, if you stick yourself on the pedestal of telling folk what to
do, you really need to figure that a) it's not such a bad idea to do it
yourself, and b) try to have been doing it at least a while or c) at
least before so telling, and d)really don't go to near anything that
might smack of 'imposing'.

Failure to do one or indeed all lends you to being labelled
a) hypocrite ( “This is an opportunity for European leaders to match
intentions with deeds, to turn words into actions.”... Bless), b) a total
plonker and c) totally undeserving of your authority, salary and
pension by , well everyone, really.

Including any colleagues whose last vestiges of credibility
and authority you have just evaporated in the eyes of a cynical
world media and utterly frustrated voting, cash-cow-no-longer,
public.

And frankly, whacking a fir in the firmament is not much better if we
are trying to offset the problem within the 10 year window indicated
by the IPCC. While it looks good to ones mates in the City, the things
don't grow that fast and not all schemes even work on a viable
EnviROI basis anyway.

Meanwhile, those figures are interesting. May I ask if they are for
urban use (as favoured by those in power who don't get out much),
an average cycle or for country/motorway travel?

I just ask because from my country home to anywhere with 2 hrs by
Fiat Panda seemed to me a better bet than Prius. It's hard to see how
a higher capacity petrol engine in the latter, lugging a big, unused
battery, would deliver better emissions performance.

And if so, may I presume this is just the first in further attempts to get
all of 'us' to conform to an ideal that works in the corridors of
'power', and really has little to making the world better for our kids.

ps: while toe-rag is not a bad moniker for the beast (I believe used,
with some irony in smoke-black form by a 'Have you cut your 20%?'
TV commercial not so long ago, I do concern myself that the noble
tribespersons may not fancy the spelling used here.

George of the Rumble

Another from Grist - Turn Up the Heat

Makes you proud to be a Brit, eh?

For every two Beckhams, we have a Monbiot. So at that rate... we're toast. Celebs. And anti-celeb celebs. Can live with 'em, can't... er... no that's about it. And I guess that applies to me too, as an anti-anti-celeb (as I can often 'wonder' in places such as this just how sincere some are themselves or, if sincere, effective on a planetary scale as opposed to on a nice little personal earner basis).

So thank you for this link.

It's so odd. By any measure I trawl the e-pages of the UK media a bit more than most (who needs to get a life?) and until this moment I had no inkling such a thing existed, even courtesy of our George's usual hunting grounds, which I read daily and have done for a few years.

Well worth a gander.

I wonder what other people think of it? I'll have to declare an interest, I had/have something similar in mind, called Pol's Porkies, which stands for POLitician's PORky Pies, which is Cockney slang for lies. But I soon extended it to anyone in the public eye who said one thing and did another. Even better if the former was high-profile and the other low rent.

http://junkk.blogspot.com/2007/01/gloucester-old-spot-now-departing.html

Now I have registered it, but have yet to build it. So it's a might miffing when GM crops (geddit?) up and it turns out he has beaten me to the punch.

Popping over the parapet, and with glasses tinted green with envy, I have had a scope and do feel moved to cock a critical eyebrow, as I am wont.

First and foremost, and with no book in the offing... yet... I am always a tad suspicious of anything that is associated with a sales effort. Somehow it seems to weaken the purity of the concept.

Next, and purely subjectively, though with a few decades as a designer under my belt, it all comes off as a bit placard waving graphically, typographically and in copy terms. I thought I'd arrived at a Marxist rallying point to march on Westminster - to protest the price of non-Fairtrade lattes en route through Islington.

This, and the style makes me almost sympathetic to Chris, Richard and our Tel, etc. 'George' is watching you! Which makes 'George' Big Brother, which makes him...?

I also note, and Grist readers will hopefully appreciate this, a distinct lack of humour here. Hard to empathise with very much, frankly.

Which in one way is a pity, because having read his home page mantra I can't disagree with it at all. But in another it is good, because I think, immodestly, I can do a lot better. Mainly by not doing much at all. I intend Polsporkies.info to be of the people, by the people for the people, in much the same way as Junkk.com is. Frustratingly, he has also similar version to my TushTissue (for highlighting 'papering over' jobbies, rather than 'dealing withs') and even NewsFlip, as in the bird, but also as 'flip' commentary, highlighting news that is so superficial as to muddy already murky waters.

But for these I intend to just create the system, probably tabular (said, done, date, attribution, date, etc) make it as user content manged as I can. Then retire immediately having lit the fuse. I very much see it as a factual grid with a only a little moderation to ensure factual accuracy, minimal law suits and perhaps scope to inject a bit of fun to keep things bubbling.

And when I collect my award from Nelson Mandela (it's in there on his site - if you are going to drop a name, his is well worth it), I will worry very much how I detour from my global book tour to do it with out looking down the barrel of my own gun through the hole in my foot. Glad to see he is not all talk though (the actions being...?)

Because there does seem to be a new breed of Green elite whose jobs require them to buzz about (legitimately, by some logic) telling other folk that they should not have jobs that require them to buzz about. This, on occasion, has seen the odd mention of the phrase 'double standard' and even the H word being levelled back. With some justification I may add. And which does weaken the foundations of certain pedestals. And as I have opined before, a fallen idol can do more damage crashing down, and undo a lot of good they may have achieved whilst evangelising.

Fortunately I don't tell folk how to behave. I just ask questions, share information and try to lead by as best an example as I can.

It's less stressful.

Uh-oh... incoming!!!

Space, the final affront?

Hawking to get brief experience of weightlessness on space flight

As an eminent scientist, one can only presume he will be taking his place to further our understanding of the planet and the changes it faces, say, in climate.

If it were just space tourism or a cheap PR gimmick it would be harder to justify as I doubt this thing is powered by rubber bands or even biodiesel.

Shooting the Messenger #101

More on Gore

There a very good, US-based, free eco-newsletter called GRIST. I like what they are doing. I like their style. Usually.

'You are bang on. The best way to handle attacks is with good nature. And the best way to promote good nature is with humour (there’s not enough ‘u’ in humour, for the benefit of some of our US friends... evidently).

However, I would suggest that on its own this is not enough. You also have to listen (not in the way our government here does, which is without hearing, so as to keep on doing what they would anyway), engage and communicate. Or at least make the effort. Which means getting inside various heads you may not wish to (which now makes me realise why my government doesn’t hear: there’s nothing to stop anything that goes in one ear go straight through and out the other!).

And that means dealing in facts. Not just the facts of the matter, but also the facts of how matters get reported these days.

Even in the old days, which I still hanker after, this held true. I recall a Rolling Stone ad campaign... Perception: Reality. There’s what is. There is what should be. There is how what is should be reported and is. And there is appreciating that fact.

We are in a hype-driven, celebrity-obsessed culture. There is a vast industry feeding off it, with a serious interest in keeping a lot of folk employed and paid very well on the incoming, ongoing and departing antics of those selected or who volunteer to be the icons. Hence you can carve some serious column inches, readership, broadcast minutes and ratings with the ‘problem’. Then you can keep it bubbling in the same way for a while with ‘awareness’, usually surrounding the icon, and then when it gets a bit tired you can feed off the decaying bits by turning the icon info a fallen idol.

Which is why I get a bit concerned by the various icons the common man, woman and child often get presented with. Here in the UK our very own PM is shaping up as a ‘Green Ambassador’, but only once a few things that are a ‘bit impractical’ to his personal social life and professional career have been established as ‘not applicable’. Mr. Gore is different. When it comes to the environment he has form, and it is long-standing and mostly good.

However, we are living in the today of the media spotlight, with all those (purely personally opinionated) factors ranged at a public figure, ready to boost and then burst at will.

Look at this very blog and posts. What has happened? What are the %ages ‘pro’ & ‘con’? And this is a specialist eco-publication! I don’t know about rearranging deckchairs, but it reads more like shuffleboard to the death before the thing sinks. What on earth is a semi-informed, give-a-hoot populist press and TV news industry going to make of it all (from my reading the ‘tabloids’ here they could have cared less, and the ‘qualities’ such as the Times. Telegraph and even greener, more liberal, papers like the Indy and Guardian went pretty much with the ‘bubble prick’ side, I’m afraid. As did the BBC)?

That is an inconvenient fact of life. No point railing against it. It’s here to stay. And will get worse. So to manage it you have to play the system with skill. Which means everything from the selection of your candidate to working with the media by their rules... and be purer than the driven snow. Circling the wagons and retreating inside a comfort zone of like-minded huggers may offer respite, but won’t deal with the real, harsh world. You need to get out and deal. But you need to be consistent. ‘Hypocrisy’ is a very sticky brush to get tarred with, and difficult to remove. Worse even than doing wrong, so long as you do not commit the heinous crime of changing your mind, as our Leader of the Opposition will find should he come down hard on drug use having been given free pass for indulging while young, silly and very rich.

Speaking of which, while no fault of the individual, and no valid reason to not have an opinion or wish to express it, rolling in it does carry certain problems when telling, or even suggesting how other folk should, or need to behave. As does celebrity, which these days does tend to equate to rich, no matter how gobsmackingly unworthy it may be.

Because there is a slight tendency for a bit of a ‘them’ and ‘us’ thing getting set up from the get-go; more than happily exploited by those who can feed off the tensions created.

To save the future, we are realistically looking at some ‘doing without’, which does not quite gel with global population expansion, economic growth, greater (ie: powered) efficiencies, etc, but there you go.

And to paraphrase another intense farm book wildly, ‘Some can do without more easily than others’. It’s all relative. For every downshifting Pious Prius Person living a posh urban lifestyle, there is a Fairly-concerned Fiesta (it’s a small Brit Ford) Family who may not mind a bit of upward mobility and find it a bit rich that, while flying private jets is OK to spread the word about not flying is necessary for some, it’s not any more for their two week bit of sun a year.

You lead... by example. And hence you need to ask whether the EnviROI (Environmental Return On Investment) is worth the ‘awareness’ of the ‘problem’ vs. the sense of discord sown.

We are starting to get more and more celeb ‘green’ stories and events, and it is striking how the media who get invited into the inner circle (I almost fell off my chair laughing at one gushing report from the backstage VIP ‘Green room’, which had to be cordoned off from the hoi polloi who wanted to see their idols scoff eco-canapés and bubbly) are quite happy to be part of this elite new ‘club’. While a few, either without an invite or with a few remnants of journalistic integrity, do wonder how a PR from a non P-on going from a Hummer to a Lexus Hybrid 4x4 a) warrants a story, b) is in any way making a sacrifice or c) helps the planet, lugging a big battery down the motorway.

So it is perhaps reasonable to expect our ‘green’ ‘leadership’, self-appointed, thrust upon us or, fingers crossed, worthy, to at least try to do what they say we should do.

I don’t really think Gandhi would have quite got where he did with his cause if he decked a few folk who got in his way and then justified it because he was carrying an important message on non-violence, so you just gosh-darn well cut him some slack... or else. Equally any of his entourage. And I do believe if he, they or indeed any supportive entity had tried to argue otherwise they would have got short shrift. Too much flailing about and saying ‘look who’s talking’ just comes across as a tad holier than thou, and not a little defensive and indoctrinated.

So, in such a case, are questions on the validity of the messenger’s effectiveness in bearing this message ‘an attack’?

Looking at the originators (speaking of tarring with broad brushes what is a right wing vs. a left wing think tank anyway?) of the piece, it is probably meant to be so. And I am grateful for a level of back story insight from this and other blogs to have a better idea of the facts. Plus a very reasonable, and unexploited (even here, beyond the original poster, though some have posed questions I hope will see answers to clarify doubt) explanation of high usage to supply a home office (as is mine, hence running the house utilities 24/7) and a staff, though I might need security at some stage for having doubts others would seem to wish to deny me on some issues.

Because some remain, and it really doesn’t matter to me who started what or said what once the debate is engaged if certain facts are established. And beyond the energy usage one that will never change is the media. Was this managed well? About as well as the UK government handled road pricing, I’d say. A sensible notion for future transportation now an electoral albatross to any who dare mention it, even in more considered terms.

I too favour personal responsibility for actions, and by my lifestyle would estimate my family will do quite well from most initiatives.

However I still have a lot of doubts as to who gets to decide (there are also a few Kalahari bushmen may wonder why they don’t get to trade a holiday to Aspen with a broker from Brooklyn flying overhead to sort out some carbon credits between those who have them to trade), as an ex-engineer who dealt in numbers and efficiencies, and a current ad man and green-lite writer who understands short-term politics, corporate activist priorities and corporate PR/CSR greenwashing only to well.

I know it won’t... can’t be 100%, but I don’t want to see any efforts in the name of green on behalf of my future generations carved up between government, NGO and financial trading empire builders’ departments, staff, pensions, comms budgets, fact-finding tours, climate change conferences in nice sunny places. Or subsidising celebs and their massive support systems and sycophantic media camp followers, to have nice parties to boost ‘awareness’ of how much they need to do this so we can’t .

Do what you do best. Live the life. Share it online. Do before you talk. And if it’s worth it, fun and inspiring, people will want to read about what you do.

They may even follow your example.'

New Consumer - Al Gore & Diaz: ‘Live Earth climate crisis gigs will reach 2 billion

Getting some offside, but maybe one on?

Terence Blacker: Pimp your ride the green celebrity way

Dear Mr. Blacker

While I can only agree with all else you have written (and indeed delight in blogging on relentlessly - Mr. Gore's inconvenient utility bill today, for instance), I do rather hope that Mr. Banks opted for low-energy, long-life bulbs. Otherwise he is helping neither his financial nor the planet's environmental ROI.

And by being one of a long line in celeb pedestal pronoucers to look a tad shaky to us mere mortals, I do wonder if he is doing the cause of genuine green advocacy to the masses much good either.

From your article's thrust I'm guessing not. But uncritical media complicity will tend to maintain the trend, no? Though one suspects there is ratings value in sending out the PR going in and then catching them on the way out with commentary such as yours.

ps: Replacing a fleet of expensive motors with one expensive motor really only helps the green thing if its use in this case is weighed against a) other dirty great big SUVs and b) where it gets used. On a motorway it's mainly lugging a heavy battery around, which helps the planet.. er.. how?

But yes... let us visit a municipal dump, where health and safety regulations forbid the supply of unchecked electrical equipment through charity shops or auctions.

May I therefore direct you at a place where making and mending is made fun and friendly to those with less cash to flash, and don't feel it, or anything else needs to go to be burned either.

The author has been courteous enough to reply, and nice enough to offer his best (makes it worth the effort writing when that happens):

Thanks for your interesting email and for directing me to Junkk.com. All (energy-saving) power to your elbow.

Issues! Bless you...

Going green is seen as 'the' issue

Nice to know I am not jumping on a bandwagon.

'...some of the most powerful players in the sector called for action on environmental issues despite the fact that many of the executives flew to the event in private jets.'

'Stephen Schwarzman, head of the Blackstone Group, was most vociferous, saying anybody who did not watch the documentary An Inconvenient Truth by the former US vice president Al Gore, had to be "intellectually deficient".'

Bet he wishes Big Al's untilty bill had cropped up the same day he said that:)

One and one's lost plot.

As I munch on my Big Mac and Fries, while I can see some environmental (how many fields to support one cow?) and even health benefits, I can't help but think that if it was as simplistically put as it has been reported (in the Indy, mind), the guy is a little more shy on reality grasping than I had thought.

Charles suggests McDonald's ban

Indy - The Third Leader: Burger kings

Mad - A Big Mac by appointment to the Burger King in waiting

It's a stretch to equate the HRH's A&P remarks to have been targetted at a competitor such as MacD. I'd say it was just a case of 'foot-in-ones-mouth disease'.

What a nice way to end a Thursday - a charming note from the author conceding I may have a point. Now if only we could all comment and chat in such a civilised way!

Telegraph - Star chef backs the Big Mac
Indy - Janet Street-Porter: Charles is cashing in on our food snobbery

Gored?

I am very glad that I have established Junkk.com on the basis of information, incentive and reward, rather than fright, guilt and fine, but despite this there is the small matter of setting an example.

There is a limit to how much I can say 'do what you gotta do', so when something makes sense to do, or not, to help the situation, I will try and share it. Which means I should and would feel a bit uncomfortable advocating not flying so much as I book the family for a weekend in Verbier to catch the last of the season's skiing.

So you have to feel, but only a bit, for Mr. Gore: Al Gore faces truth about his own energy use

Typically the issue seems to have immediately descended into who is behind it all at the expense of the facts, but as at least some seem undoubted there is the question of example.

And that is where the darlings of the green elite need to start getting their houses in order. For a start, by at least switching the thermo down and a few rooms' lights off.

And I do question how many firs can get whacked in the firmament to allow them to keep on emitting rather than simply cutting back.

Gore feels the heat
Guardian - An inconvenient truth: eco-warrior Al Gore's bloated gas and electricity bills
Indy - Gore faces up to inconvenient truth over his electricity bill

Circular Argument?

Honda F1 scraps sponsorship logos

This is a vehicle that rushes round in circles at vast speed using fuel and emitting global warming gasses right?

You know, maybe they read my blog on what the effect of someone having a fag was, and that's why they ditched the tobacco guys.

Hey, I'm scooping the big guys:

Being Green

They could always suggest car-sharing.

All the drivers get in one car and rush around really carefully. Then get Richard & Judy's
& Sunday Kitchen's production company to hold a a phone competition on who was the winner, as it really could still be anyone's guess!

Honda go for green with logo-free car made to save world one pixel at a time

I think I'll pass on the Civic Hybrid. It's got a bit too much baggage (literally... for all my non-urban trips I'd be lugging round a battery)

piMP my ride!

Ministers put foot down on carbon emissions

'The number of miles driven by ministerial drivers has increased sharply...'

Well, hot diggedy. Anyone would think they say one thing and do another.

No2. He flies harder.

'Airmiles Andy' attempts image overhaul

I just liked the headline (actually both theirs and mine)

I also liked this: "But by employing Sir Digby, he is suggesting that he takes his role seriously, and is working to be a more effective trade ambassador."

I'd suggest he's a good candidate for tushtissue.info, as to me it reads like he's got in some paid spin to do a papering over job... badly.