The Independent shits on your soy burger

The Independent today has come out with what it says is a list of some of the inconsistencies, misrepresentations, wrong ideas, and hard choices one has to make within the 'green' movement and the move towards greener living. Among the things discussed are the relatively lower yield of growing organic and higher carbon footprints of farming, genetically modified fruits and vegetables holding the key to dropping that footprint, the fact that when the building of a Prius and the materials used is taken into account it isn't very green, or that a diesel can out-mileage a Prius in real world conditions, the need for nuclear power, that it might be better to cut down older trees to replace them with newer trees with a higher C02 absorption, and the need to kill cute animals.

You may not have come across the Bewick's swan. The smallest swan found in Britain, it reaches our shores from its Siberian breeding grounds in October and, along with 65,000 other water birds, it splashes down in the wetlands of the Severn Estuary. It is, without doubt, very cute.

But soon, it will have to find somewhere else to feed. In a few years' time, hundreds of lorries and cranes are set to sling 10 miles of steel and concrete across the most beautiful and ecologically diverse of estuaries, flooding the swans' habitat. Could anything be more of an affront to the eco-minded? The call would seem to be as clear as they come: save the swans, say no to construction.

But it isn't that simple. All that steel and concrete will become the Severn Barrage which, by harnessing the tides, would provide 5 per cent of Britain's electricity, with no nasty carbon emissions. So, which to choose: clean electricity, or the protection of birds and beasts?

Fuck the swan, it's just a more radicalized version of it's Islamofowlist, plane crashing brethren: the goose. But the Independent does correctly identify some of the juxtapositions and choice that have to be made. Of course they also lean on bullshit like clean coal, which still involves pumping CO2 down into the ground and hoping for the best or compressing it into containers and burying them, and the paper doesn't see the benefit of carbon offsets funding green research and technology. They also say that when the Nazi's come for us at the train station we're going to have to choose whether to let them take Al Gore or Bono.......and I don't think I'm ready to make that choice.

But all in all a fine way to make you feel bad about trying to do good.