Following reports that most of us exaggerate our commitment to the environment, Gareth Kane asks if when it’s OK to sex up your green performance.

There has been much press coverage of the Norwich Union survey last week which suggested that 9 out of 10 of us tell ‘little green lies’ to exaggerate our commitment to the environment, compared with just 50% of us actually willing to change our lifestyles. To be honest I think we should treat this survey as the classic silly season ‘advertorial’ research it undoubtedly is, but it does shed some light on the difference between talking the talk and walking the walk.

Despite it being pretty much their full time job, politicians keep forgetting the need to back up words with action. When David Cameron took over the helm of the Tories he not only suffered from the jibes about his ‘shoe chauffeur’ following his cycle to work, but also had tabloid journalists literally muck raking – going through his bins to check what sort of nappies his kids used (‘eco-friendly’ disposables for the record). Tony Blair tried to grab the global climate change leadership role, despite the enormous carbon footprint of his three long haul holidays a year. Gordon Brown must have been taking note as he swapped his usual New England jaunt for the rather Older England of Dorset as soon as he took power this summer.

As the Government tries to squirm its way out of its renewables targets, Gareth Kane asks, if Latvia can do it, why can't we?

The Guardian has a big splash on the UK's renewables target today - and how it is likely to be missed by a mile. It appears that we're heading for 5% renewables by 2020, compared to the 20% European target that Tony Blair signed up to just this spring. This is not a big surprise as the Government has repeatedly signed up for headline grabbing commitments without a tangible plan to deliver them. And what has been brought forward has lacked oomph.

For example, the Low Carbon Buildings Programme provides subsidies for micro renewables and is meant to help you, the punter, get your hands on your own renewable energy. Unfortunately the scheme has been afflicted with all sorts of procedural problems and starved of cash. When I bought my solar hot water system at the start of this year, I didn't bother with the scheme as my preferred installer wasn't registered and at that time the grants were running out on the first day of every month. Grants were suddenly stopped in the Spring to sort these issues out. They have restarted but the total amount in the pot is still just 2.5% of the cash found recently to widen a section of the M6. And climate change is a priority?

Mulling on evidence that we're happier to talk the talk on the environment than walk the walk, Gareth Kane asks "are we serious?"

A recent study of consumer attitudes in the US has concluded that:

1. That green consumerism is still in a niche,

2. That attitudes are 'mushy' - ie that actions don't always follow attitudes.

I thought that the first conclusion was a bit harsh - the study found that only 29% of US consumers didn't care at all about the environmental impacts of their behaviour. Not bad, in my opinion.

But the mushiness is a real issue. The sales of A-rated energy efficient white goods may be booming, but the Energy Savings Trust estimates that sales of patio heaters are likely to double in the next year.

This morning I woke to an urgent text from my mother warning me that there were problems with the water supply in my area. Worried, I went to the website for our water supply company to read their ‘special situation report’.
It turned out that the torrential rain we've been having had overwhelmed their system and some rainwater had flooded a chlorine treatment tank and the resultant mixture had got into the supply before the system could be shut down. There was no need to panic, the water company advised, just to boil water for drinking and washing until further notice. They also advised anyone who felt ill to ring NHS Direct!

As the hard rain continues to fall, Gareth Kane, keeping a nervous eye on the river that runs past his house, thinks we should get realistic?

"If it keeps on raining, the levee's gonna break, When the levee breaks, I ain't got no place to go" sang Memphis Minnie on 'When the Levee Breaks' back in 1929, referring to the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. You might be more familiar with Led Zeppelin's thunderous 1971 version of the song, propelled along by the apocalyptic beats of legendary Black Country tub thumper, John Bonham. And this morning I can bring this blues/weather riff in a rather tenuous full circle as vast tracts of the West Midlands lie up to their armpits in brown sludgy water.

On Radio 4's Today programme this morning the stories of people fighting over bottled water and panic buying in shops was followed by a piece on housing. Some anonymous Government Spokesperson said it was "unrealistic" to stop building on flood plains. "Unrealistic?!!!", I spat at the radio, "Go and tell the good people of Tewkesbury that their current predicament is 'unrealistic'". Sometimes I get very angry at stupidity and this was one of those times. "Why do you think no one has built on these flood plains before? The clue is in the name."

Following the quiet introduction of the Smoking Ban, Gareth Kane wonders why we're so reluctant to use the full force of The Law to save the planet?

So last week England went smoke-free just like the rest of the UK, and, apart from a slight hiccup in Stoke-on-Trent, there doesn't seem to have been much of a fuss. This made me wonder why we are so afraid to use legal measures to make us more eco-friendly?

Industrialists will howl at what I've just said as they struggle with the latest legislation to come in - the Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals (REACH) directive and the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (delightfully known as WEEE) directive. So let me be more specific - why don't we use the law to make the lives of us citizens more eco-friendly? Other countries have banned (or taxed) plastic bags, introduced compulsory recycling of beverage cartons and require 'pay as you throw' waste charges to encourage recycling, yet our Government is reluctant to consider any of the above.

Was anyone else appalled by a report last week by the Optimum Population Trust, which argued that families should restrict themselves to two children because it is no longer responsible, or environmentally friendly, to bring three, four or more into the world? The thinktank, dedicated to reducing population growth and its effects on the world, would seem to most to be a little off the planet rather than saving it. The fact is, as the Guardian who publicised the report pointed out, immigration is now the main reason for population growth in the UK, and according to the National Statistics Online births are no longer the main cause of population increase. With such an overwhelming fact, it seems outrageous for the Optimum Population Trust to suggest that we should have less children for the sake of the environment. Their report seems baseless on that fact alone.

But there is another, perhaps stronger and more humane, reason for not curtailing bringing children into the world…

Related stories: Too many children is bad for the environment | The Green Parent Magazine

Catching the end of the Live Earth concert in London, Gareth Kane asks what was that all about?

The weirdest moment of the BBC's coverage of Al Gore's Live Earth concerts was Jonathan Ross asking the Pussy Cat Dolls of their opinion of green politics in California. The PCDs, bless their little cotton hotpants, seemed convinced that Arnie "The Governator" Schwarzenegger" was the "mayor" and didn't seem to know much about anything else. I was left wondering cynically whether the Dolls had just been told by their management "Lots of rich treehuggers will be watching - get out there, shake your asses, and shift some units".

But the whole thing was pretty weird and I'm not just talking about the popularity of James Blunt. Beforehand, it was widely sneered at for burning loads of energy flying performers in and amplifying and lighting them as you do in a large concert. The "poverty" concerts (Live Aid, Live 8 et al), didn't get so much grief for spending huge amounts of money putting on big shows featuring extraordinarily rich people lecturing us about extremely poor people. So why pick on climate change?

As a survey shows that nine out of ten consumers don't trust business on climate change, Gareth Kane asks are we right to be so cynical?

A survey by Consumers International last week made grim reading for those companies trying to prove their green credentials - only 10% of consumers believe industrialists when it comes to climate change, compared to 50% who trust green campaign groups and 60% who trust scientists.

Certainly big business can be ridiculously naive when it comes to trying to build trust. Shell recently organised a environmental summit, and invited along Greenpeace, WWF and Friends of the Earth. Unfortunately these guests didn't act with much decorum, publicly lambasting their hosts for boasting about their relatively modest green projects while quietly "expanding their carbon-intensive tar sands operations in Canada" and "failing to put out its illegal flares in Nigeria". The whole thing was a very expensive way of generating bad publicity.

Playing around with the UK Government's new carbon calculator, Gareth Kane asks are we being honest with ourselves?

Last week I tried out the UK Government's swanky new Carbon Calculator. I threw in my stats and got a grand total of 3.82 tonnes - compared with a national average of 4.48t - pretty good but helped by the fact that I haven't flown in over a year. The calculator is very swish and easy to use, but I was concerned with what it didn't count - food, clothing, other products, work, waste disposal etc, etc.

This got me thinking. Environmental author Chris Goodall reckons that if you take the UK's total carbon dioxide emissions and divide them by the population, then you get 12 tonnes each, not 4.5tonnes. So we are responsible for almost three times as much carbon dioxide what the Government is telling us we are responsible for. But is that the whole picture?

As Toyota gets a rap on the knuckles from the Advertising Standards Agency, Gareth Kane asks how do you know that you're not being ripped off on green claims?

With the rush to appear Green/Ethical/Cuddly, it is almost inevitable that business will overstep the line when it comes to blowing their own trumpets. It looks as if the UK's Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has started a crackdown, criticising Toyota, Volkswagen and Scottish & Southern Energy Group amongst others according to the Guardian. Personally, I thought that the ASA were quite hard on Toyota - when calculating the amount of carbon dioxide that their Prius hybrid would save over a conventional car, they used the average mileage of a US citizen, rather than their UK cousins. On the other hand, taking a hard line now could prevent consumer cynicism destroying the whole ethical consumerism movement.

As IKEA give another green gift to their employees, Gareth Kane considers whether 'the man' can make you a better global citizen.

It was announced today that IKEA are giving away 9600 energy efficient lightbulbs to their staff to encourage them to reduce their ecological footprints. This isn't the first big staff giveaway from the Swedish Superstore - they give everyone a folding bike at Christmas to encourage them to cycle to work. 90 promptly appeared on ebay, leading to some snorts of derision, but personally I would like to work in an organisation where only 1% of the workforce was so unappreciative.

Leaving aside the question of whether a company should seek to change the lives and attitudes of their employees, this story got me thinking about how much difference an employer can make.

President Bush has once again lived up to his hype and rejected any binding agreement for the USA to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Despite Tony Blair’s insistence that he can influence the president, he has once again failed to deliver any tangible evidence of this so-called ‘special relationship’. Maybe there is a special relationship, Bush and Blair seem to have an affinity with each other that allows a lot of give and take between them, Blair gives a lot and Bush happily takes a lot. Joking aside, where does this leave the rest of the world?

[Via The Telegraph]

With the news that his favourite socialite and amateur film maker is now banged up (in jail that is), Gareth Kane looks at the two extremes of consumption.

I thought I'd heard it all about Paris Hilton until I found out this weekend that she spends $35 a bottle on Bling H20 water for her dog. The Bling H2O website makes no secret of the fact that their mission is to take money off stupid rich people. Well they don't quite say that, but if you are really trying to define yourself by the water you drink (or feed your dog), then you're unlikely to be a closet intellectual. And surely if you really wanted to make a statement about how cool you were, you wouldn't go near a product with 'Bling' in its name. Or maybe Paris, not normally renowned for dry wit or artistic statement, is being ironic?

US president Bush has confused the issue of global greenhouse gas emissions control in a clever move to stall any real progress at the G8 summit next week. Where anyone with any kind of concern for our planet’s future, and hence our own future would see this as a disaster for greenhouse gas emission reduction, our prime minister, Tony Blair called it an important step forward. An important step forward? To undermine the rest of the world’s efforts and to refuse to accept any responsibility for global warming is a step forward? Where British and German officials have stressed that a requirement for the next international climate agreement should be binding caps on carbon pollution for developed nations and limiting climate change to 2 degrees Celsius, President Bush is refusing to accept any cap on greenhouse gas emissions for the USA, as he thinks it will damage the economy.

[Via The Guardian]