• Bookstore

As people flocked into Wembley Stadium, they were being interviewed and were asked about their motives for coming. The vast majority answered that they were there to see the bands and have a good time.

The bands were being told what to say by experts from the Met Office, but did they practice what they preached? We don't really know, none got up in front of that worldwide audience to say what they were doing to reduce their footprint.

Of course, there were a number of bands that have been seeking to reduce their carbon footprint by offsetting, most notably the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, but they were too few and far between.

Why, when the message was clear enough, did it fail to make an impact? Because we don't believe the messenger. This is the fundamental flaw.

It is these very people we see on ?The Fabulous life of ...? living lives in excess. Driving nothing less than sports cars and SUVs. Flying hundreds of thousands of miles a year. We just don't believe that THEY believe what they are saying.

Quite simply, this was the wrong event with the wrong people. Now, if, as part of their participation, each band were to declare before the assembled audience what their carbon footprint for 2006 was, and what actions they were undertaking to reduce, recycle and reuse, they may well have had a greater impact.

The difficulty for the rich and famous is that reduce, recycle and reuse is completely counter to everything they aspire to. It has always been the case that if you gain wealth and power you show off by living a life of excess.

We live in an age when the rich out-excess each other, and everyone else aspires to out-excess everyone else. It was the same in the eighties when the rich would boast that they paid more for a bottle of Champagne than their friend.

The Edwardians lived a life of lavish excess; in one day, eating and drinking their way through what the ordinary folk could barely imagine.

To demonstrate your wealth you buy things, you eat things in such quantities and frequency that mere mortals might only dream of.

In Britain today, the availability of this lavish diet is normal place. You can pop down to your supermarket and buy a sirloin and fine wine any day of the week, and many do.

But the message of environmentalism is that excess is wrong. But what room is left to show off wealth, if you can't live life to excess? Can it ever be uncool to show your wealth by consumption and its waste? What's the point of acquiring wealth if you can't show it off?

Is the answer to look in the opposite direction for extreme? What if you could show your status by being creatively frugal. At the event in London, the designer Wayne Hemingway showed that it was possible to dress well by using old clothes ? he was wearing shoes from the 60s, trousers from the 70s and a shirt from the 80s.

For the wealthy it is vital to be extremely different from the rest of us, so could frugal be the new excess?

Be frugal. Be really, really frugal. Show that you are more frugal than anyone else. That your carbon footprint is less than the P Diddy's.

You can imagine the conversation ...

?I've just come back from holiday.?

?I bet that wasn't very good for your carbon footprint!?

?Oh, actually it was carbon neutral. We went to Butlins by train ? which ran on biodiesel, and Butlins now has solar panels on all their chalets so they require no dirty energy for cooking or heating.?

?Very good! We went on a walking holiday, and camped out. We cooked our food using twigs we found lying in the woods nearby, and we only ate local food. Also, we took some samplings with us which we planted while we were out walking. So I think our holiday was in fact carbon positive.?

?How did you get there??

?We went in our Prius, and managed to get 55mpg out of it using hypermiling techniques.?

?Well, next year we're going to give up our holiday to work for a charity, and I'm going to give them my holiday pay!?

?Really? Well....?

Comments (0)

Add your Comment