It seems that family disputes over green issues are getting more and more heated. People will defend their views on water-guzzling baths or imported T shirts to the last, leaving the rest of the family seething and bemused.It can get doubly acrimonious when there's no clear right or wrong position. Cloth nappies or disposables? Dishwashers or washing up by hand? Each person is adamant they're the eco-purist and the other is ruining the planet.
Having your first child can make things worse as parents want to pass shared values to their offspring but then find their values are more clashing than shared. Then when the children go to school, they pick up the latest planet-saving tips and embarrass careless parents who're still squandering energy in all directions.
Couples can get incandescent over simple things like lighting. "Anita turns every light and computer on as soon as she gets home" says Mike. "I go around after her, turning everything off and quoting the Energy Saving Trust."
It appears that where once green views were just a casual matter of opinion, now they're part of a person's basic identity and an opposing view becomes personally threatening, as controversial as religion or party politics.
Jenny and I clearly haven't reached that stage yet, as we're not too concerned about our differing planet-saving attitudes. Whatever our particular passions, we just end up compromising haphazardly like most other people, cutting down on tea bags but turning up the central heating. Or not wasting food but leaving all the appliances on standby.
We'd be the despair of environmental hotshots with our totally unstructured approach to keeping the earth in good shape. But we're certainly not going to fall out over our footling domestic contribution to global pollution, when big business is laying waste to the planet on such a breathtaking scale.
Now excuse me while I finish off this delicious bottle of (Australian) Sauvignon....
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Core Issues, a local evangelical Christian group, is holding a weekend conference at Ballynahinch in Northern Ireland, where they're promoting the idea of curing and saving homosexuals. Several gay groups are picketing the conference. They hope to convince gay attendees that they're just fine the way they are....
