You show me yours...

Green credentials are all the rage. Mr. Brown has shown us his by popping a few quid on a flight and a few p on a litre, so he is now covered.

So I was interested to note two stories from two extremes of the political spectrum. One, in the Mail on Sunday, was about the closure of Post Offices. Won't this tend to make people need to travel more to do their Royal Mail thing? The other, which I actually was surprised had not made it anywhere else (at least that I noticed), was that a pre-budgetary tax raid has ruined an airline carbon reduction scheme.

Telegraph: Stop Jim
BBC

Prudent and green, Gordon, prudent and green.

Taking it to the Max

This was interesting: We may yearn to be green, but we can't afford to be gullible

Not so much for the content, which is really nothing new, but that we still find oursleves spinning around the same old 'tis/tisn't cliches. Even those subsequent to my plea:

'I started reading from the top with such hope. I refer of course to the comments posted so far in reply to this article. While buried amongst them there is essentially a potentially valid rebuttal to some of the 'facts' Mr. Hastings has researched and passed on, which would make for an interesting further debate, I end up seeing the same old camps staked out, issuing left-right, urban-country hissyfit swipes.

This is all surely way beyond political inclination or socio-economic aspiration?

Why are we still at a point where someone like myself still feels unable to arrive at some sort of objective conclusion based on factual information and substantive evidence?

Ignoring the aesthetic aspects (I actually find that one outside Reading a wondrous image, though I would concede having scores whirring in my backyard would not be that fun) and financial ROIs (I could live with, or least be prepared to make the sacrifice of extra expense of the energy generation if it takes CO2 out of the air... soon), but the jury still seems out on the overall environmental ROI anyway, which is surety the main point?

I despair of the hot air still being expended by all talk and no action, but Mr. Hastings does have a point that such massive investments have to be proven to be practical solutions. I can't believe the numbers are not now pretty clear, and can be explained in ways for layperson to judge before they support this initiative or that eco-tariff.

I am already backing off a home turbine because it doesn’t look like the numbers do work on any basis. Solar panels are also under question. Even sending a goat for Christmas now seems likened to lobbing in a cluster bomb.

May be such dissent is being sown and fostered by those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Divide and rule? I don’t know. But this makes it all the more critical for those with the passion and belief to not rush those of a lighter-green hue into directions that can backfire and create future resistance to more positive solutions.'