Will The Real Environmentalist Please Stand Up!

It seems that everywhere you turn these days, someone is boasting about their ‘environmental credentials’ or professing that they really do care for the environment. It has got to the point where the rhetoric from these pseudo environmentalists is drowning out those who have a legitimate environmental message.

We have seen these pseudo environmentalist talk up the Carbon Tax/ETS as being great for the environment whilst they are happily enjoying their BBQ’d sausages or digging into their prime piece of Wagyu steak, despite the impact that animal agriculture has on the environment.

They have jumped up and down, creating such a ruckus that they have scared Australia’s minority government into banning the Margiris/Abel Tasman. The Greens cried foul on behalf of the local fishing industry and environment claiming that this vessel would do irreparable damage.

This is despite the ship not having ‘the biggest net’ in Australia’s fishing fleet, and that it would be operating under stringent by-catch conditions.

Whether the 18,000 Tonnes quota is taken by this ship, or a fleet of smaller ones there will still be 18,000 Tonnes of fish taken out of the ocean by this operator, and who knows how much by its competitors.

The total tonnage of marine life taken out of this planet’s dying oceans is what should be of concern to those who profess to care about the environment. Not the size of the vessel that is going to do it.

Don’t be fooled into thinking for a minute that it is only the ‘big issues’ that attract those who are out to mislead us.

Locally there is an ‘environmental awareness’ group preaching about how destructive this modern society is for the planet. And that we should be more aware of the environmental consequences of our actions. This group even goes as far as showing independently produced films to further increase our awareness.

Yet, the founder/president/voice/decision maker of this group is currently swanning around overseas somewhere and blogging about their adventures. One such blog post showed the bottles that this individual is using to make the water potable where they are, even including a photo.

Would you believe that taking pride of place in the photo were two plastic water bottles, from Australia. This is despite this group screening the movie ‘Bag it’, about the evils of plastic. And that’s without even mentioning the health concerns of reusing a single use bottle.

In a later blog post, this individual whilst writing about their activities for the day, tell us that they lost the lid to one of the water bottles, so it was discarded in the rubbish bin. No mention was made of taking it back to the hotel or somewhere else to be recycled. It was thrown into the bin, which I’m guessing its probably landfill by now…

If this person, who is supposed to be more environmentally aware than the average person doesn’t care enough about our environment to follow the 4 R’s (Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) then what hope do the rest of us have. After all, shouldn’t they be leading by example?

As I have written in a separate blog, it’s high time that these pseudo environmentalists are ignored, and no longer given any sort of attention. If they aren’t able to lead by example, what right have they got to try and tell us to do things differently,

“Do as I say, not as I do”, is no longer adequate when it comes to the environment.

Are you doing all that you can to reduce the impact you have on the environment, or are you only paying it lip service like those who are telling us to do otherwise?

What are your thoughts?