No sooner do I crawl back to my desk after Dave's gorgeous bit of optimism as to our 'leadership's' intentions and/or competence rendered me incapable, I now read this: Can shopping save the planet?
Er, no, Mark, and I know you're just asking a rhetorical question. It's reduce, reuse/repair... recycle. Not consume, waste and consume something new - (I wrote that first off, and then weighed into the meat of his piece to critique it indetail. So apologies, it is there... at the end. I just think it needs to be up front).
But the rest of the piece is fair enough. Shame most media are trying to promote two mutually exclusive sets of practice. And that they have a vested interest in one... now... a lot more than the other. Let me sample a lot of good stuff from a long piece:
However, you don't have to dig very deeply to start coming across some glaring contradictions in this new corporate crusade to save the world. If News Corporation really wants to inspire low-carbon behaviour among its audience, will it stop running car adverts and other enticements to carbon profligacy? The Sky Travel section of the company's website is stuffed with low-cost holiday and city-break offers, featuring destinations as far afield as the Dominican Republic and Egypt, with nary a mention of global warming.
Indeed, the deeper you look, the more absurd this all gets. If O2 wants us to keep the same mobile phone handset for longer, why do they sell phones that have such an incredibly short lifetime? With new designs and handset functionality appearing all the time - and being heavily marketed by companies such as Nokia and Motorola - ask any kid in the playground how they feel about having an out-of-date phone, even to help the environment. Or take DIY energy-efficiency superstore B&Q. Is B&Q really helping us all to save carbon when the company still sells patio heaters in virtually all of its stores? On the high street, Marks & Sparks may be leading the pack in flogging T-shirts made from organic, fairtrade cotton, but isn't the whole idea of fashion the antithesis of a sustainable approach?
Perhaps the best example of the knots that companies are tying themselves into on climate comes from the supermarket sector. Here Tesco has been a pioneer to develop a system for putting carbon labels on all its products. But the move has been complicated, to say the least.
Moreover, some purportedly "green" products may be even worse than those they are intended to replace. Tesco is positioning itself as the UK market leader in selling biofuels. However, evidence suggests that biodiesel made from palm oil feedstock may be many times more carbon intensive than even fossil fuels.
Another controversial attempt to try to resolve the contradiction between consumption and sustainability is carbon offsetting. Most of the big firms that trumpet their green credentials use offsetting to some extent. But offsetting has come under fire as being little more than a conscience-salve, somewhat akin to the purchasing of papal indulgences in the middle ages.
At least we each got a blog out of it.
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