You people realise you are living in a society protected with environmental laws/regulations, don't you? Or do you think they all just 'happened' out of thin air because of market forces? Surely you are not so delusional.

palimpsest,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_restrictions_in_Australia#Queensland

Steel ,not all of the environmental laws are there to protect us.Many of them are there for the Govt to collect revenue.Back in 1990 general waste in Sydney was charged at $11.00 per tonne.Now it is $120.00 per tonne.This is well over 1000% increase in 18 yrs with an average inflation rate of 3.5%pa.In real terms it should be just $22.00 per tonne.Nothing has changed.They still just push it into a big hole and no processing is involved.

Our electricity in NSW is rising expodentially but the price of coal has not.The Iemma Govt build the most expensive,unfriendly environmental water solution,ie the desalination plant.Both our Govts and Big business are using environmental excuse to screw us and the Greens just stand ideologically by,while ordinary Aussies suffer.

Do you really believe that for an individual to try to reduce the chance of climate change is a narcissistic thing to do? And people who try to improve efficiency or reduce emissions have found a 'new religion?'

In other words is what you're saying:

1) Don't turn off the lights and appliances when not needed.
2) Don't recycle.
3) Don't plant trees.
4) When buying a car choose one that doesn't get good mileage.
5) Don't insulate and weatherize your home or apartment.
6) Don't carpool, drive more.
7) Don't replace old, worn out appliances such as refrigerators, heat pumps, with the most efficient new models.
8) Don't become informed, don't help family and friends learn about climate change.
9) Don't actively support government policies that may be appropriate.

None of us need to be provided with information about the need to make better choices.

Let's just enjoy life.

Interesting.

Usual Suspect: “I think to myself, maybe it exists, maybe it doesn’t, maybe it’s caused by humans, maybe it isn’t, but it’s probably a good thing to try to avoid polluting our environment.”

I’m about as sophisticated in my thinking as you on this, but I would have thought that “carbon footprint narcissism” conveyed precisely the opposite of what you are trying to say. Seems more altruistic to me, misguided as it may be. Not likely to lead to a breakdown of civilisation as we know it, is it?

"The sad thing is the effect of all this preaching and ‘noise’ ....."

Usual Suspect. Are you suggesting that all this "preaching" is a conspiracy when you also preach: "it’s probably a good thing to try to avoid polluting our environment."

"Probably." Do you actually have an interest in the environment?

My interest in the environment commenced way back in the 60's when, soon after the spraying of my home and surrounds for funnel web spiders, my cat died and so did my infant daughter.

So which pollutant subject would you prefer to have a "sensible" discussion on?

What about the 60,000 barrels (16,000 tonnes) of hexachlorobenzene which has languished in a shed at Botany for 20 years? Or the 45 cubic metres buried and leaking from an adjacent car park where the underground toxic plume, described as the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, is heading towards the bay at 100 metres per year? This is industrial negligence on a grand scale. HCB is one of the most dangerous chemicals man has ever manufactured.

And yet you sneer?

Perhaps you are interested in the 500,000 litres of assorted, toxic chemicals which exploded into the atmosphere from a hazardous waste site at Bellevue in WA, where again, regulators had performed the ostrich dance.

Now we have Esperance contaminated with industrial lead which invaded the bodies of small children and adults and killed over 4,000 native birds - a result of regulators' neglecting their duties. Now these very hypocritical regulators have commenced a law suit against the Port of Esperance for breach of the "Act."

Have you heard about Alcoa at Wagerup in WA where the citizens have had to resort to employing Erin Brockovich to commence a law suit against one of the largest polluters in the world because Australian regulators share their beds with the polluters? Very funny eh?

These hazardous chemicals, destroying human health and vital eco-systems, are mostly carbon based.

So which part of the conspiracy do you not understand? And why would you describe the more enlightened, who have minimised their carbon footprints for decades, as narcissistic?