Environmental Hysteria

In the Dark Ages
You'll think I'm picking on a few, atypical examples to criticise a well-meaning new faith -- a faith actually preached hardest by mega-rich popstars and tycoons roaring in in private jets.

But only yesterday, I read of Prince Charles launching his own "green revolution" and warning we are living on borrowed time if we don't stop eating up the world's resources.

How bracing to hear the Prince tell the peasants not to get too rich -- and to see him say so from the grand rooms of St James's Palace.

And it seems the Prince is a fan of the Big Switch Off, too. He has ordered his staff to make trips around the capital on bicycle instead of taking cars or cabs.

How inspiring is that -- watching the Prince's peons sweat for his faith?

Naturally, we can't expect the Prince himself to get out of his royal Bentley and pedal on his royal Malvern Star instead. This is the age of seeming, not doing, after all, when even the most pointless sacrifices we make won't last beyond a weekend, and the hardest we demand are of others.

But let's hope the pointless sacrifice of this Big Switch Off turns out to be not quite that pointless after all.

Let's hope that by Monday a few heat-stricken folk with fridges gone rancid will at least have learned how hard their green dream would really be on those we so mindlessly insist must live it.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20889770-25717,00.html