Michael Palin's being fired as president of a major environmental group because he sets a bad example by travelling too much (curtsy: Ninme). On the one hand this article spotlights the essential silliness of environmentalist groups. On the other hand, it does seem as if he went out of his way to mock them. Could he be a petrol-addict mole, infiltrating the upper-echelons of greenery for the benefit of mankind? Or researching a mockumentary? Because while addressing an environmental conference, he justified spending the past 17 years “busy polluting this environment on almost every conceivable form of carbon-emitting vehicle” thus:
I shall continue to make travel programmes, secure in the knowledge that the food I’m seen eating, the sanitary arrangements I’m seen experiencing and the coughing attacks that strike me halfway up high mountains are doing more than any government could to persuade people to stay at home.
Even speaking facetiously, it doesn't sound as if he takes their concerns too seriously, does it? On a more serious note, here's VDH on how being green makes it not that easy for us to cut our petrol addiction. His thesis: drill in Alaska, go nuclear and increase fuel efficiency, and we can bring the tyrants of the Mid-East & Venezuela to their knees without firing a shot. Sounds good to me.
