A good and kind friend recently flew to Italy for 3 days with a dozen or more fellows from his choir to compete in a contest in Tuscany. He's quite aware of environmental issues and is so kind and generous that I have no idea how to put to him that this sort of activity isn't at all climate-friendly. I don't imagine he's even thought about it. I don't want to lose a friend but I do wish there was some way to gently say, "Your behaviour is unacceptable if you care about your family and their future." He has 2 children.

That's just one fairly typical example. I could list many more. People who

  • have large cars or SUVs

  • giant motorhomes

  • fly to take their holidays

  • who have the house heating turned up so they can walk about in shirt sleeves and feel warm enough

  • who drive short distances when they could walk

  • who have coal fires because they 'do like a nice open fire'

And so on. All these activities are perfectly normal in our rich Northern socieities... at the moment. But sometime soon, the light has to dawn and it would help if those of us who do try to live sustainably had some sort of code of conduct for kindly and unagressively waking up those who don't. Any ideas please?