Thursday, July 20, 2006

Talk is cheap. Doing costs.

Not a bad little article blog I stumbled across in the Times today, which actually had some suggestions. And, so far, some rather interesting responses:
And as it asked for an explanation, I offered mine (sods have a character limit, so I had to actually think about what I was saying rather than letting fly a stream, which makes for a shorter than usual blog):
"Why? Talk is cheap. Doing costs... especially money. Not attractive to those more keen on making gold before green (I advocate they need not be mutually exclusive). Short-termism is rife these days, especially in boardrooms and cabinets. CEOs and ministers will be long in their gold-plate-pension-funded mausoleums before the consequences of their actions kick in. It's hard, not very fashionable, and probable career suicide, to think a few generations hence.
There are those who care, and seek to act. So as someone who has invested a lot personally in a small effort to redress the situation, please be careful with that rather broad, negative 'we'.
Controlling, restricting, scaring, banning, fining, etc may all serve certain roles. But these and even 'informing', using millions of taxpayers' money, are not really delivering a great ROI so far, planet-saving wise. So I applaud your incentive-driven advocacy.
A rallying cry of ‘Re:wards 4 Anything 'Re:'!'
Might even catch on."

Addendum:

"Whilst waiting to see if my previous post on this has been accepted, I now see a fair few have appeared. So I hope I may add another comment.

It is interesting, inevitable, ironic but a little sad that such a piece seems to have generated so much more talk surrounding the 'factual' causes of global warming and/or man's contribution. Or not. With a 2-wrongs dose or two of 'But they're doing it'.

I do care, but in the context of the piece do such issues matter?

Surely it is simply efficient in this ever more populating world to engage with every and any cost-effective reduction in waste - and maximisation of efficiency - that we can?

Or we can just keep on talking, and squandering the one resource that Status Quo fans would deny us: time."