Christmas 2: presents

I wanted to be really good about this. I had visions of trawling the antique and charity shops, picking up old cups and saucers and assembling them into shabby-chic mismatching tea sets, or of learning to make candles. In the event - with a few 'vintagey' exceptions - I did the usual last-minute consumerist splurge, replacing thought and time with excess generosity. It'll be different next year.

However, there were a couple of good ones: for young children, The Lorax by Dr Seuss, first published 50 years ago, and about as perfect a metaphor for what's happening now, to our environment, as it's possible to find. Everyone should read it. It should be put on school syllabuses and turned into a film or puppet show.
For grown-ups: fruit trees from the gluttonous gardener.

The gifts we received, on the whole, did not reflect our green bent - with the exception of Jonathan's uncharacteristic 'Save the Children baby kit'. It was a relief to get two pairs of Agent Provocateur knickers from one sister, and the most beautiful (Daylesford) breadboard from the other. I suspect I will appreciate the finer things in life even more next year, if I plunge - as I plan to - into a year without shopping.

I've been thinking about it for a while, and though I'm not sure quite how to make it work - are kids' birthdays exempt.? And how about their friends' birthdays? (It might not be so bad in practice; in anticipation of this monumental - for me - move, I have assembled a hefty present stockpile under the kitchen window seat, to the extent that it no longer closes!) I'm not sure if I'll make it, but I think I should try. It can't be worse than giving up chocolate - which, for that matter, I've never managed to do successfully for more than about four days. We shall see...

Christmas 1: wrapping paper

It's Christmas night and the kids are in bed. Mark is reading about Darwin, and I've just finished trimming the torn edges from the used wrapping paper, which I then folded neatly and put in the wrapping paper place. What has happened to me? Firstly that I have a dedicated storage facility for gift wrap, and secondly that I keep the old stuff. Mark says he remembers our first Christmas together, way back in the mid-90s, when he had to stifle his natural instinct to save used paper, for fear that I would think it ... I don't know exactly, nerdy? Unnecessarily parsimonious? Now here I am trimming already reused and - if it's ours - recycled paper. How the profligate have learned austerity.

The thing is, I keep thinking that the world is changing in line with me, and suffer continual pricks of surprise when I find it's not so. Just a few weeks ago, I went to a movie with a friend and her sister on her birthday (Atonement, again: hell, I even reuse films). We went back to her house for the present-giving ceremony. I was I was pleased with my effort, which I thought prettily combined decorousness with ethics: a lovely old cup and saucer that some clever person had found in a charity shop and turned into a tea-scented candle, so reused and, in a sense, recycled. I had wrapped it in a piece of pre-used - though not overly crumpled - tissue paper. Purple, I think. Anyway, my friend's sister looked at my wrapping and creased her - rather perfect, Oxford-educated - brow. 'I'm afraid that I couldn't use paper again,' she said. 'It would take half the fun out of unwrapping a present.'

I think I used to feel like that. Before I got smug.

The Social Whirl

So the last few weeks have been an endless Brands Hatch of drinks parties, weddings, dinners, talk, talk, talk. It's our first Christmas 'out' as Greens, and I've noticed a subtle change in the way we've acted/been treated. We haven't seen a drop off in invitations - the reverse, if anything, as if we've achieved some kind of social cache by being green, or, at least, the kind of greens who dress well. I went to one of the parties alone - while Mark stayed at home for a scheduled Green Party meeting to which no one turned up - and found myself being whisked around from movie producer to Tory MP, and back to famous writer, being introduced as the wife of a GP candidate. The room was full of glamorous, rich Notting Hillites, successful, stimulating people. I felt the thrill of being among them, only heightened by a slight sense of being the 'only Green in the village'.
It's the conversational content that has changed more noticeably. Even some of our closest friends are obviously embarrassed by our perceived hair shirts. They no longer talk openly about planned holidays to Barbuda or the Maldives (last chance to see???), and if they mention air travel at all, it is with embarrassment or defensiveness. I can see where they're coming from: I'd make myself feel ashamed of hopping on pleasure flights. The awful thing is that I know I don't always go out of my way to put them at ease. I feel sick enough about our stance not to want to pass on some of the misery to others. So much for the season of generosity (of which, more anon).
I don't mean to talk about the environment endlessly, but I still find myself giving the odd lecture. It must be numbingly dull, and I really wouldn't blame anyone for crossing us off their dinner party list. I also worry about Mark: at a local drinks party the other night, I caught sight of him in a huddle of men, and I could almost see green bile pouring out of his mouth into their ears. I dived across in an attempt at intervention, only to find general laughter at some Jeremy Clarkson anecdote. I am beginning to think Mark is not quite as obsessed as I am - though I did have to kick him under the table a couple of weeks ago as he started to harangue our friend Jo about ordering fish, straight after she had generously taken us to Sadlers' Wells.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, both Mark and I respond better to direct attacks on our greenness than polite pussy-footing around it. It might not make us like the environmental Luddite any better, but it's sure as hell more amusing. So, if anyone wants their party to go with a bang, we're available...

To consume or not to consume

Mark and I were having a slightly wine-befuddled debate as we piled on the clothes to go to bed last night. Some time ago, we switched our electricity provider to Good Energy, which runs 100% on renewables.

My argument was that we should still try to conserve as much energy as possible, since there is only a finite - and presumably inadequate - supply of truly 'green' electricity out there, and if demand far outstrips supply that will push the price up, driving potential future consumers out of the market.

Mark countered that the more we use, the greater the profit for Good Energy to invest in new projects.

Green is so sexy!

So this is what it is like to be a man...

However many times an hour men are supposed to think about sex, it can't be as often as I think about matters green. It's as though I've got emerald lenses glued to my eyeballs. Each decision comes with its green dilemma, like a Pullmanian demon:
yoghurt pot - chuck or recycle?
Buy a paper or read it on-line?
Cashmere or wool?
Is it better to use our old car until it dies or swap it in for a low-emission model?
Ditto for the light bulbs.
Does dried mango come by plane?
Is Turkey in Europe (we don't eat fresh food that comes from further afield)?
Can I have a hot bath alone after shivering in an unheated house all day?
What should we do about our methane-belching pets?
Should I unplug the laptop when I'm using it?
Whither our pre-green patio heater?
Should we put money in the charity box outside a house festooned with extravagant Christmas lights?

And that's only the little stuff. What about moving house? We'd love to build our own, on a bigger slice of land with all the eco-trimmings; heat pumps, super-insulation, maybe a PV cell or two. But can we ever justify the cement, the new bricks, wires, glass, energy burned by the diggers and drills? If it were, say, to pay off its carbon expenditure in 25 years would it be worth it? 30? 50? 17? How would we calculate it?

Should we choose our kids' next school on eco-grounds, as well as educational?

Can I get on a plane to South Africa to see my 90 year-old grandmother?

What if Mark were to steal enough votes from the Lib Dem candidate to enable Tory Ancram to waltz in without even raising his heartbeat? (Academic, since Ancram's as good as glued to his seat).

I sometimes think back to those innocent, pre-green days, with the nostalgia of the ignorant. I can only cling on to the idea that this incessant mental activity must be burning an extra calorie or two.

London hell

So I went up to London last night. Firstly, the train was half an hour late - and I had to catch it from Swindon, because of engineering works at Chippenham. Then it was overheated. Then, at the station, I went into a shop to buy some drinks for Notty's end-of-term party, which I'd forgotten to get earlier, and the cashier immediately put them in a plastic bag without a 'do you want one?' I almost yelped at her to put it away, and she looked at me as if I was a mad woman.

They were giving away free umbrellas with the Evening Standard. I dithered for a minute, wondering about the ethics of taking what was clearly a bit of mass-produced tat, before convincing myself that we really needed an umbrella (which, of course we don't). I took it onto the tube (four stops = £4), and as I was getting off at Gloucester Road, the handle came off, leaving the bulk of the umbrella on the tube.

It was a family dinner at Blakes. I weathered the usual teasing from Jonathan about whether I had cycled to London, and then explained to Sascha what a blog was, and to Maria why we had given up flying. Still, it was fun, and for an hour or so, I enjoyed the champagne and forgot all about being a Green Wife. Then came the Black Cod.

Oh God. We practically gave up eating fish about five years ago - out of concern for dwindling fish stocks. Most of the time I don't miss it. but black cod with miso sauce, meltingly delicious. I'm afraid, at that point I stepped over my own personal boundary of greenness. And boy was it worth it.

I sat on the late train home, warm in the glow of good food, and wasn't quite sure whether I should be feeling guilty. On the whole, I have decided not. Just as working makes me a better mother when I'm with my kids, so eating the occasional endangered species keeps me on the green and narrow. I won't order it, but if it's presented to me, I'm sure as hell going to enjoy it.

Green needs to get glamour

We hauled the kids and dog up to London in the driving
rain on Saturday, and marched them from Millbank to Grosvenor Square, alongside
12,000 assorted protesters. It was very jolly; people dressed as polar
bears and riding electricity-generating bicycles.

But, as we sat over our - expensive - lunch later, we felt a little
depressed. The protesters were great, and committed, but they were the
same hippies, shouting the same message. Why is no one listening? Why
is caring about the climate still a fringe activity?

The fact is that climate change is a reality, and a pressing one. It's
going to affect us all, whether in our lifestyle or our pockets. At
this very moment, ministers from every country in the world are in
Bali debating how we deal with it. But 2/3 of the British population
doesn't trust the politicians to deal with it. And they're right, of
course. Radical action to cut carbon emissions is politically
unpalatable.

But what we doing then? Recycling makes bugger all difference.
Stopping using plastic bags isn't going to do much other than con our
consciences into believing we're making a contribution. And as for off-setting...

It's all a little bit better than nothing, I guess, but when is Middle England
going to stand up and shout about it?

I'm afraid that all the good intentions and work being done by the
'Green Movement' is, if anything, a hindrance. All the dreadlocks
and piercings keep it a fringe movement. It needs to become
both cool and posh. It needs to be adopted by Sloanes and celebrities.
The Duke of Beaufort and Daniel Craig have to get on their bikes. Tara
Palmer-Tomkinson needs to picket the Porche garage. We need a wind
farm at Cliveden!

Somehow, sometime soon, green needs to become the new black. But how?

On bogus ideas of climatic cycles

I can't count the number of times that people - and I'm talking about well-educated, intelligent, on the whole thoughtful people - counter any carbon rant with the old 'climate cycles' argument. This being the 'world has always experienced periods of hot and cold climates, and we're now in a hot cycle' mouldy chestnut, as propounded by Channel 4's 'The Great Climate Change Swindle', which, frankly, was as full of baloney as, well, a sausage shop in Bologna. Mark thinks Channel 4 should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity - or maybe even genocide - for airing it.

The science of that argument has been roundly disproved, but what is more interesting is the psychology. For years, scientists and politicians alike have played down the threat posed by climate change, on the grounds that it would frighten the populace as a whole into inaction. Now that they're heating up their rhetoric, most people are turning a blind eye. They don't want to believe. They don't want to give up the things they perceive to be luxuries. They are unwilling to swallow a small pill now in order to avoid a massive suppository later. And each time they find a way to deny what's happening, more people are dying.

I had dinner the other night with a man I much respect who, until fairly recently, was the editor of a quality British broadsheet newspaper. He has for some time taken the 'natural cycle' path. This time, when I asked whether he still didn't believe in man's contribution to climate change, he appeared to have softened a little.
'I'm not sure,' he said. "There might be some contribution, but not nearly as much as the scientists suggest.'
'So why,' I asked, 'do they all agree about what's happening?'
'Ha. That is what I find so suspicious; the fact that all the scientists agree. It smells of conspiracy.'
'So if there were some dissenters, you might be persuaded?'
'Possibly. It would certainly be more plausible. I mean, when do all scientists agree about anything?'
'When it's incontrovertible?'
'When they need funding. Look, what's going to happen, when they discover that it's not nearly as bad as we're being led to believe? People like you are going to look pretty stupid then.'

I was so dumbfounded that I didn't have the wit to point out how idiotic people like him are going to look when we discover that it's so very much worse...

An Addendum about plastic bags...

When I wrote above that stopping using plastic bags makes little difference, I meant to climate change as a whole. It does, however, have a significant impact on the ecosystem. Plastic bags drift into the oceans where they are consumed by sea and bird life. We eat them, they decompose, plastic particles move into the food chain, and that's a big problem.

What I was moaning about was that, while this is a worthwhile movement, I'd love it if these same people also poured their energy into cutting carbon emissions, stopping flying, turning down heating, lobbying businesses to switch off their heating and lights and computers at night. Not instead of banning plastic bags, but IN ADDITION TO...

And if anyone wants to help, next year, I hope to start a campaign to ban the bags from Devizes...

Right now, I'm off shopping....