There's a deep reality in that article. As soon as I heard on the radio some woman at the airport saying that her weekend had been ruined and therefore "I have no sympathy for them", I knew that there is a limit to people's support for this kind of nonsense. Perhaps there is some hope there.

If only people could be honest and say, you know what, I don't give a crap about the environment as long as I get to go on holiday somewhere nice. Instead, everyone wants to appear nice and unselfish and righteous, and the greens have cleverly convinced them they have to pretend to care about the environment to do this. Meanwhile, politicians know exactly how to exploit this situation.

I was accosted the other day by one such wide-eyed campaigner whilst going about my business on my sleepy town's high street. I say campaigner when what I really mean is charity sales rep. I think it may have been for Amnesty or WaterAid but that's not really important.
I attempted to walk past with the response I usually give; an upheld hand and a "sorry, not interested" whilst not slowing my pace by any degree. The reply I got : "To be interested, you need to be informed." stunned me to such a degree that I turned on the poor sap and gave him a run down on what I knew he was selling and why I wasn't buying it. I swear he was on the verge of tears as I tore down his preconception that he was a superior being who truly cared about the world and the people that lived in it, whilst I was one the ignorant masses who can't see past the end of their own nose.
A monthly direct debit to one of the many international charities who interrupt the daily business of innocent passers by: £2
The look on his face when I painted him and his self-righteousness into a corner: Priceless.

Re, 'the sort of world we will bequeath to our children'. I read recently that Greenlanders are seceding because they thnk that they will have a warmer climate to enjoy. If this is true, and Britain, and Northern Europe, are having a cold winter, maybe the gulf stream has moved, and greenland gets the warm air you used to get!!
Any ideas on that?

Absolutely, Guy.

I volunteer for the Edinburgh NO2ID group on their street stall. We make it an absolute unbreakable rule that we will only speak to people who approach us and only give out flyers to those who ask.

Often new volunteers (who perhaps have been involved with other campaigns) struggle with this - they try to get us to be more 'pro-active'. After a while they understand that hectoring people is counterproductive - the only people you attract are those who already agree with you or those who violently disagree with you.

Our approach seems to work better - we get a lot of people coming over to ask "What's all this about then?" rather than cross the road to avoid the ranting nutcases.