Still having trouble resisting the odd punt into the blogosphere, as in the case of this from Newsnight's Ethical Man. Before my wife clouts me, in mitigation there is an opportunity to get the URL across to the media (and, currently, 12 fellow posters, which seems a very small number all in all) such that they may wonder what we are and say hi.
I have had a few eyebrow twitches before on how the life of an 'I'm from the BBC' reporter, whose paid job this year is to be ethical, can mirror an average Joe trying to assess and install a multi-thousand pound sustainable energy system. Lack of film crew can seriously affect the way a supplier, council or local population treats you.
But in this case I thought the piece, and options, accurately reflected reality. Though it did seem prompted, as was my first thought when reading it, by the 'no car/arrived by car' question posed by an earlier poster. Anyway, as always, in case I do get edited, here's my offering:
"This well illustrates that not everything green can be painted in black and white, and almost any effort of this nature will inevitably be an exercise in compromise.
For those who wish to try, it does seem possible to exist in an urban situation without owning a car, but when it comes to needing one it would be nice to have the salary or expense account to enjoy when necessary the option of getting one on demand.
As a countryside homeworker I guess I could use public transport. However I am not sure how long I could sustain bearing the costs, especially those of transit time which I doubt any client will be prepared to support.
Equally, I'm sure if Ethical Man needs to do a far-flung piece, there may be some questions around the office water-cooler, HR and indeed by licence payers should he be away too long by sailing there.
But the importance of this feature is that one gets introduced to, and an appreciation of the options, from the personal to the professional to the environmental (which sadly can be conflicting), and assisted in making informed choices.
Hence in this case, as car was the chosen option for perfectly valid personal reasons, I was interested and impressed that a purely tokenistic vehicle choice was not made rather than barrelling down the motorway lugging a battery. The fantastic makes better copy than the mundane, with many in the media playing a part in keeping things overly idealistic and free of financial consequence (not all, including the BBC it seems, can swing a freebie or loaner from a PR dept!), impractical and hence beyond the abilities of many average families to embrace, no matter how keen they are to do their best.
At least DOING something is better than nothing."
