Eco Snobbery

Via The Englishman, this little gem:

It is apparent everywhere. In a restaurant the other night our companions asked us if we wanted sparkling water or whether we were happy with a jug of tap. The clue to the correct answer was in the word “happy”. We went with the tap. It wasn’t that we were being cheap – but we probably were being a little smug. My wife and I are paid-up members of the enlightened middle classes, you see. Our consciousnesses have been raised. We are E, the modern equivalent of U.

I’d thankfully forgotten the “U” and “non-U” of a couple of decades ago. I’m just not vacuous enough to be taken in by such snobbish twaddle. But, a reminder:

Just as Nancy Mitford divided society into the upper classes and the aspiring middle classes – that is, into U and Non-U – so society is being divided into the environmentally aware and environmentally unaware, or E and Non-E. It satisfies a need we seem to have to judge one another.

Oh, for fuck’s sake! Another day another piece of enviroloony, holier than though, self-righteous, puritanical, priggish, sanctimonious horse-feathers.

The modern equivalent of saying “toilet”, “serviette” or “pardon” is leaving your television on stand-by, driving a Chelsea tractor, arriving at Waitrose without your own heavy-duty carrier bags, popping into Starbucks without your own reusable mug, walking past the shelves selling organic, Fairtrade and free-range, or flying long-haul when you don’t really need to (and without offsetting your carbon footprint). I tell you, it’s a social minefield out there.

I don’t have a carbon footprint; that would be playing their game, giving legitimacy to their behaviour and I refuse absolutely to play along. I will damn well leave my television on standby if I want to. I don’t particularly want a 4×4 – but would not let these puritans tell me not to – or, worse, worry that they might turn their sanctimonious noses up at me for my choice. And I do not buy “fair trade” because, fair trade is not fair – the only fair trade is free trade; the removal of all trade barriers, allowing farmers to sell their goods at the going rate. I do not enable these people by buyng Fair Trade.

For me, it is not a social minefield at all. I simply refuse to play the game. If the eco-loony element don’t like the way I live my life, then they can just lump it.

Even going to Glastonbury has become Non-E. I know – that surprises me, too. I thought Glastonbury was the ultimate in environmental chic, a demonstration that you suckle at the teat of Mother Earth, that you are in touch with your inner solstice. But no – for the bien pensants, Glastonbury is ruled out this year. And this comes straight from the top: Thom Yorke, the lead singer of Radiohead. Why? Because it doesn’t have “an adequate public transport infrastructure in place”. Radiohead, he added in an article in the Sun on Thursday, “are doing everything we can to minimise our impact on the environment”.

What is it with pop stars thinking that they can lecture us? Has Thom Yorke not heard of railways? In particular, the one that stops at Castle Carey, barely a couple of miles from the Glastonbury site? What an utter wanker and an ill-informed wanker at that; what a sanctimonious preachy tit. Remind me not to buy any Radiohead albums – although, they are tediously and instantly forgettable, so I’m not likely to be drawn into buying one anyway.

Hmm. Could this be the moment when the backlash starts? It is, after all, a scientifically verifiable fact there is nothing in this world more annoying than being lectured by a pop star.

Yup. Doesn’t stop the bastards, though.

Being harangued by a newspaper comes a close second.

Doesn’t stop them, either.

Being lectured by a posh person comes third.

No, actually, being lectured at all, by anyone, is what pisses me off royally. How I live my life is up to me. I don’t lecture others about how they live their lives, so I expect the same courtesy in return. So, to the green lobby; all of you with your precocious, self-righteous, hair shirt wearing, self-loathing and puritanical masochism; go fuck yourselves. I’m non-E and proud of it. Up yours!