To E or not to E that is the question
Turn your nose up at eco-snobs - Telegraph
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.
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.
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".
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....
Being harangued by a newspaper comes a close second. The Independent has been banging the environmental drum for a few years now...More disturbing is the come-lately arrival on the eco-worthy scene of the Daily Mail....
Being lectured by a posh person comes third. I wonder how much longer the green revolution took to filter into the mainstream because the Prince of Wales was leading it. Don't get me wrong, I think he is a visionary, a true philosopher prince. But given that the other two leading figures in the green movement, the Eton-educated Jonathon Porritt and the Stowe-educated George Monbiot, are also pretty posh, there may have been some inverted snobbery in the slowness of the eco uptake.
On the other hand, perhaps in some subliminal way this association of greenness with poshness explains the current vogue for going green among the aspiring middle classes. David Cameron (Eton-educated, of course, and for once this seems relevant to the discussion) has been canny in the way he has exploited this fashion.
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When councils start preaching at us, that really winds us up.....If there is one thing the British hate more than having their environment needlessly destroyed, overheated or squandered, it is being preached at by busybodies, puritans and snobs.
The eco-snobs are the worst. It is not enough they get to feel better about themselves for doing the right thing environmentally; they have to make someone else feel worse. Make them feel small, vulgar, immoral.
Put me down for U non-E please.