Jamie, just out of interest, which if any of the following policies would you support:

- the inclusion of vegetable gardening in the national curriculum;
- public funding for social housing to be limited to houses with gardens and flats/maisonettes with dedicated allotments;
- the eviction of social housing tenants who do not cultivate their gardens/allotments;
- planning permission for flats/maisonettes to be dependent on the provision of dedicated allotments.

Also, what do you consider to the maximum sustainable population for the Earth, and if this figure is below the current one of 6.6 million how do you see it being reduced? Why do you believe this lower number can be achieved without recourse to wars and/or famines?

My general point is that even those of us who accept that climate change is both a reality and that there is a strong probability that this is at least in part due to human agency (basically James Lovelock’s position) are confronted with an absolute lack of consensus as to how much of current Western lifestyles (and indeed population numbers) are consistent with ecological sustainability.

Of course, as you know, the UK already imports 40% of its food, using oil, and moreover, oil is required simply to produce the food that we do produce. Using oil contributes to carbon emissions. Therefore, it would be beneficial to the planet, as well as for us, if we endeavoured to prevent unnecessary population increase, and if possible, endeavoured to reduce the population of this island. This would also be good for our future food security, as well as benefiting the numerous other species which share our island, many of which are diminishing in number. But hang on – that would be a wicked right wing idea!

I can’t take seriously socialists pretending to be green. How can they manage to deal with the numerous contradictions which arise in the conflict between their anthropocentric ideology and the green ethos. For green purposes they have to pay lip service to living a simpler less materialist lifestyle, while at the same advocating economic growth. Their “green-ness” is nothing to do with a real recognition that humans are one among many species, all of which have intrinsic value in themselves, but simply a faux anthropocentric green-ness which regards everything else on the planet as nothing more than a resource for the use of humans. In essence this faux green ethos says “We’ve got to save this planet so human beings can use it”. It’s pure tokenism, which they utilise as another ideological tool with which to beat their opponents. If the “right” were implacable advocates of AGW theory, you can bet your bottom dollar the left would be implacable opponents of it.
Most human beings seem to have a virtual sense of entitlement, and believe that the earth actually has an obligation to feed species homo sapiens. Planet earth, to my knowledge, doesn’t do obligations for any species, including this one. Why should it?

In essence this faux green ethos says “We’ve got to save this planet so human beings can use it”.

I fail to see how this is a “faux green ethos”. We have to preserve the environment which makes our lives possible and live sustainably within a finite framework of resources, some of which at least we require to continue existing.

There may well be interesting ethical questions about the intrinsic worth of both sentient and non-sentient non-human entities but to maintain that any concern for the environment that is not grounded solely in some ethereal appreciation for the majesty of the earth independent of the fact that we really would rather like our species to survive for a while longer is somehow not authentic, well, it smacks of a kind of fanatical eco-puritanism.

It’s pure tokenism, which they utilise as another ideological tool with which to beat their opponents. If the “right” were implacable advocates of AGW theory, you can bet your bottom dollar the left would be implacable opponents of it.

I really do not see a shred of evidence for this. I think it is an interesting question as to why environmental concerns are (very generally) more associated with the political left and “denialism” and similar are is (very generally) more associated with the political right. However, your reduction is simplistic and feeble.

Most human beings seem to have a virtual sense of entitlement, and believe that the earth actually has an obligation to feed species homo sapiens. Planet earth, to my knowledge, doesn’t do obligations for any species, including this one. Why should it?

I don’t think “most human beings” attribute the kind of sentience to the earth as a whole which would be required to make an attribution of obligation even vaguely intelligible. I think people generally want our species to go on existing in the future. Are you going to tell them they are wrong to want such a thing? I am not even sure one could even establish an intelligible sense of the word “wrong” which could even ground such an assertion.

In conclusion, I found your post ill thought out and based mainly on platitudes of dubious merit.

fanatical eco-puritanism? what’s that?

I don’t have any religious belief that humans are somehow top of the heap, intrinsically more valuable than other species. I do recognise that humans are far more powerful than all other species in their capacity to change the world. Although nature has doubtless endowed me with a feeling of greater affinity to members of my own species, in the same way that I care for members of my own family more than I care about the Jones’s over the road, I do not believe the human species is so important that the rest of the biosphere should be channeled into feeding, housing entertaining an open-ended number of individuals of this species. Being green is essentially about doing something about the depradations already caused by human beings to all other species on this planet. To that end, I feel that the earth already has plenty of this species already, and the same applies to this island too. If a population of organisms rises to an unsustainable level, sufficient numbers die to reduce the population to that which is sustainable. This reality applies to all living species. The same applies to human beings. Why shouldn’t it? As creatures supposedly having awareness, the individuals of my species have a moral obligation to limit their numbers. Otherwise, they shouldn’t complain when some of their numbers die. I am not claiming a logical basis for my conviction. It’s intuitive, a gut feeling. If you can give me a logical reason why my species is important to the extent that its “needs” trump the needs of all other living organisms, let me know.

A sense of entitlement certainly appears to be present when people write, as they commonly do “We need to/have to feed the earth/planet/6,7,8 billion human beings”.

For instance:

http://www.design4effect.com/soc11/pop.htm

“Thus in the year 2040 the earth will have to feed, cloth [sic] and house 12 billion people, in the year 2080, 24 billion and so on.”

Has nobody told them that there is no “have to”?

Yeah, but it’s not hard for Stoke to be green – after all, piglets, twigs and pitchforks don’t give out much C02

P.s. I’m from stoke, so I know…

Calderdale did it 6 weeks back