I recently observed the same myself, in my private blog: That the people I knew who made the most noise about being "green", who virtuously declared that they rode their bike everywhere around the inner city, went vegetarian or vegan "to save the planet" ... still thought nothing of taking at least one, sometimes more, overseas trips a year. Or buying the latest, power-guzzling games console.

I can't find a link offhand, but I believe a survey in the UK recently found the same - that those who were most ostentatiously "green" often had the biggest carbon footprint because of their addiction to cheap air travel.

As for Sting and Al Gore ...

“The article went on to explain this great new concept called “eco-driving”, which apparently is all the rage in Europe”.

It is not a great new concept, and it did not come from Europe. Anyone who has ever driven a car knows this, and motoring ‘experts’ are asked to trot it out on current affairs programmes every 6 months. And, yes, we all know that most Australian families have more than one car that they don’t really need.

And, while the car industry might put $5 billion back into the economy, how much has it got out of the taxpayer over the years? Why do we insist on having a car industry when countries with huge populations like the US are in big trouble in the industry, and the UK no longer manufactures cars? Japan is also in trouble.

The Rudd Government might have come “…to power on a strong platform of climate change mitigation”, but that was just another lie to get in. They still intend to bring in another 200,000 unneeded migrants, and allow Victoria to steal another 75 billion litres of water from the Murray Darling Basin.

Remember! This government was the opposition that moaned and groaned about the Howard Government having control of the Senate. Rudd will just over-ride the Senate!

The car manufacturing industry has nothing to contribute to cutting back emissions, nor will it have anything to contribute to the economy as it needs more and more taxpayer’s money to stay in business.

Instead of propping up a dying industry, the plug should be pulled, and the people who lose jobs in the industry can take the place of the ridiculous numbers of immigrants brought into the country

Mr. Right writes:

"This government was the opposition that moaned and groaned about the Howard Government having control of the Senate. Rudd will just over-ride the Senate!"

Er, excuse me, how will it do that without the numbers (Howard's mob at least had the numbers to over-ride the Senate, but Rudd's lot don't).

"Instead of propping up a dying industry, the plug should be pulled, and the people who lose jobs in the industry can take the place of the ridiculous numbers of immigrants brought into the country."

Ah, life is so simple.

While we're at it Mr Right, why don't we deport all the redundant oldies? They tell me Howard's white elephant on Christmas Island has 800 vacant places. That's a start.

A fine article that points out the obvious.

O dear Alanta, you miss the most important point of NPEism; the blithe acceptance of continuous growth.

No matter how committed an environmentalist might be, if they are not up in arms and very actively protesting about the ever-increasing human population, economic turnover and pressure being placed on our planet, then they are squarely in the NPE box!

It is NOT good enough for environmentalists (?pseudoenvironmentalists) to concentrate entirely on reducing per-capita greenhouse gas emissions or increasing the efficient use of fossil fuel energy, while totally ignoring the fact that there are ever-more people consuming energy.

It is crackers to set an example of frugality by riding one’s bike a lot of the time instead of driving, if you are going to have nothing to say about the ever-increasing number of drivers in your town, state, country, or planet!!

““Er, excuse me, how will it do that without the numbers (Howard's mob at least had the numbers to over-ride the Senate, but Rudd's lot don't).”

Er, ask my source, Spikey. Prof. Dean Jaensch, Professor of Politics at Flinders University. He says it would be constitutional; nothing to do with numbers.

“While we're at it Mr Right, why don't we deport all the redundant oldies?”

That sums up your standard of thinking. Kick out Australians who have made the country what it is, and bring in foreigners.

Aren’t you a pensioner, by the way? You could go to Christmas Island with my blessing. But, be quick. There won’t be 800 places for long. The Australian has reported an upsurge in people attempting to get here illegally since the Labor Government cave in on detention and other restrictions. Four loads caught by us and put on the island, and more stopped by Indonesia.

Non - Practicing Environmentalist is a beautiful expression.

It is so easy to blame everybody else. It's all Kevin Rudd's, John Howard's, George W. Bush's or Sting's fault. It is never our fault.

Anybody who wants to oppose any environmental recommendation only has to say, it will cost money or it will cost jobs and the environmental recommendation is eliminated or watered down to nothing. And we all agree. Geosequestration will never save 10% of the greenhouse gases produced by coal fired power. But it will allow us to continue to think we are doing something, which is more important than really doing something.

Making money is the most important thing. Money makes us happy. Environmentalism and sustainability are esoteric concepts not real values. Money has a real value.

Maybe our kids will understand better. They have been getting environmental education for a few years now. They might understand that the earth is finite and there are limits to what we can take. I hope so, but they will have to be a lot stronger than we are.

Non - Practicing Environmentalist is really an awsome term :-)
But unfortunately there are many of them - they just talk and don't act.

I think it is a pitty that many companies are turning to environmentalist thinking out of the wrong reasons - namely money! "Green" products are a real trend right now, but I guess most of them are not as green as they claim to be...

Being Green has become a bit of an industry - some with shaky credentials to boot.

Like most things it will be the grass roots who will make the difference without fanfare or fuss they will just get on and do it while the rest are still harping on about exchanging ETS points so the polluters are still able to pollute.

Overtime there will no doubt be some change due to necessity. But, at the moment until there is proper investment in alternatives, a stronger public transport system, some decentralisation and discussion about population and growth mentality the talk will be seen as image spin and nothing else.

One of the worst things we can do as a practicing environmentalist is to react based on a single newspaper article or a skilfully presented image. Environmentalists even those non practising ones should take the time to be fully informed.

As Alanta points out its worth checking behind the headlines, but then ignores her own advice as describing the approved Tasmanian pulp mill and logging as more “detriment than good”.

If she had checked behind the rhetoric she would have found the pulp mill will use the latest modern technology to safeguard the environment including Elemental Chlorine Free (ECF) bleaching. ECF has been described by the World Bank and other experts around the world as complying with international standards for Environmental, Health, and Safety Guidelines for Pulp and Paper Mills. See http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/enviro.nsf/AttachmentsByTitle/gui_EHSGuidelines2007_PulpandPaper/$FILE/Final+-+Pulp+and+Paper+Mills.pdf

With another check we find the pulp mill will reduce shipping to a quarter of the present shipment of woodchips, saving a million tonnes of greenhouse gas each year.

In addition when the carbon capture and storage resulting from sustainable forest management and the establishment of new forest is counted and balanced against emissions from harvesting, slash and from timber product, Tasmania forestry is carbon positive.

So much so that Tasmania has, according to the latest Department of Climate Change figure, reduced its greenhouse emissions by 25.9% from the Kyoto base year. Clearly the workers within the Tasmanian forest industry are practicing environmentalists.

Logging and the new pulp mill, not only create jobs but also a better environmental future by producing renewable, recyclable and carbon positive products

Cinders -

If all of this is true. Why ram the project through without the standard Environmental Impact Statements and public reviews? I was in favour of the pulp mill until I heard that they didn't want to follow the normal procedures.

The EIS is a good system for laying all your cards on the table and saying here is how we intend to operate this plant, here is where the pulp will come from and here is how much pollution will be generated. The public can then say "your calculations or assumptions are wrong" and dispute the statements in the EIS with their own calcuations and assumptions. The pulp mill then has to commit to opertating the plant in the way they said they would or they lose their licence to operate.

When the pulp mill developers didn't want to go through this process under the normal time frames, it looked like they had something to hide.

It is understandable that ericc is not aware of the environmental credentials of the pulp mill. The ‘30 second’ news report or the front page headlines has concentrated on the sensational claims, rather than the benefits.

So it is also understandable not to be aware that the developer did submit an Integrated Impact Statement in accordance with normal procedures to the Resource Planning and Development Commission. The IIS cost $11 million with over 350,000 hours to prepare over 40 reports in conjunction with 43 consultants. These and additional information can be found at http://www.gunnspulpmill.com.au/iis/default.php

The impact statement was part of the assessment process which started in 2003 with a world wide scientific and engineering investigation to develop a set of environmental standards that were world leading and fully protected the Tasmanian environment.

The project assessment started in December 2004 is documented at http://www.tasmaniapulpmill.info/approval_process . Anyone would think that 24 months would be more than a normal time frame for a decision.

Whilst the longest delay was the RPDC finalizing the guidelines for the IIS (12 months) at a preliminary hearing in February 2007, over 2 years later, the commission advised that the completion date of 28 May 2007 can no longer apply. The RPDC blamed Gunns for the delay!

The Chairman then stated “An approximate and I think very optimistic, completion date has now been forecast for late November of this year.” Yet it was more than likely to be sometime in 2008. No wonder the developer pulled out stating there was a lack of certainty to the process.

The alternative assessment by State Parliament and by the Commonwealth EPBC Act had fixed time lines that both the developer and the assessors had to meet. The alternative assessment also provided the opportunity for lobby groups to make a full range of submissions that were tested in the process.

The assessments showed that the mill can be "green" providing jobs and a renewable and needed product for society whilst having no significant adverse impact to the environment.

Spot on, Alanta Colley!
I'm so impressed with all those good people who are getting big plasma screens so that they can learn more about the environment with those beautiful environmental programs!!
Christina Macpherson www.antinuclear.net