This reminds me of the research conducted in Britain by the marketing company CACI, which showed that the most "enthusiastically green" areas of Britain are "also likely to have the highest negative impact on the environment".

This was also reflected in research conducted by Stewart Barr at Exeter university. Barr concluded that, "Green living is largely something of a myth. There is this middle class environmentalism where being green is part of the desired image. But another part of the desired image is to fly off skiing twice a year. And the carbon savings they make by not driving their kids to school will be obliterated by the pollution from their flights."

Similarly, Brotherhood of St. Laurence research in Australia has found that wealthy, tertiary educated households, the very demographic which is most likely to vote Green (I may well be wrong about that, as this is only my own supposition, although research shows that such is the case in Europe at least) have twice the carbon footprint of poorer households.

Moving from the general to the particular, this type of - let's be blunt here - hypocrisy is also amply demonstrated by the poster idols of the Green movement, people like Al Gore, Sting and Prince Charles.

Do as they say, apparently, don't do as they do.

I can't tell from reading the article whether the author is incapable of seeing the bleeding obvious, or whether he is simply reporting the work of others some of whome deliberately ignore it.

But if the sort of folk more likely to live in the inner city also are more likely to like "air conditioning, spa baths, down lighting and luxury electronics and appliances", then it's hard to see why their consumption would reduce if they moved to low-density areas.

Whereas it's easy to see why people living in medium or high density suburbs would reduce car use (although this only happens in a big way when an entire city (ie, peoples' homes _and_ the places they go to) is properly served by public transport, which seems only to happen when the whole city is of a reasonable density).

That is, correlation does not establish causality, but is sometimes reflects it.

Many new outer-suburban homes have things like solar hot water and water tanks, which urban unit blocks don't allow. Even in small blocks, a unit owner who wants solar hot water installed where its possible, will encounter a hostile and recalcitrant body corporate.

Buildings should have solar hot water panels over the whole of the roof, preheating water to feed a bulk hot water system, with high-efficiency gas to finish the job.

We need to get rid of rules that allow body corps to hassle people who dry linen or clothes on their balconies, often a busy person may put the sheets or clothes out and may need to leave some things out for a whole day or 2 because on balconies there is less sun exposure.

To save on waste of space and reduce emissions further, it should be mandatory that the unit block feature on each floor a small bank of high efficiency laundry machines and gas-fired dryer, this reduces the need for everyone living alone to use more applicances, such machines should be provided for the residents to use at no cost.

On stairs and lifts, stairways should be designed so they can be accessed and used for ordinary access to/from the floor and building as well as lifts. I do but say that even 3 story blocks should have a lift, thats for the safety of people carrying heavy articles, people having disabled or aged visitors, and safety of furniture movers.

Most of the urban high greenhouse emission is because of gentrification, and the extra electrics used in such rich apartments and houses.

We could also reduce our greenhouse footprint by curtailing immigration, as those coming from poorer countries increase their footprint when coming here and living our way and developing a taste for consumerism and a western way of life. I suppose that would upset business as a surplus of labor is needed to keep labor costs down.

Before we had town planners, [or any other sort of planners], or green activists, Brisbane grew into a somewhere that was renowned as being a great place to live.

Now we have thousanda of planners, making grandiose plans to "maintain" our lifestyle, & even more green activists, planning on things they can stop us doing.

As everyone knows, Brisbane is becoming a much less desirable place to live.

To protect our lifestyle, we should shoot all planners, forthwith. Just what we should do to/with all green activists, I'll leave up to you.

The ACF is famous for hiding from the population debate. The urban growthists (whether Cox or his critics) are, of course, opposed to the idea of limiting population. The entire debate about whether suburban sprawls is "green" or not is pointless. More people just mean a greater total environmental impact no matter how you pack and stack them. The building industry is as "vital" a sector as any other part of the economy. We need it until we don't. If we stop expanding population and so just maintain or replace existing buildings we will still need a building industry - just a much smaller one without the boom and bust cycle it is subject to now.