Are you green enough?

You are approached by a spotty teenager asking you take a 'green test' - how do you respond?  

The direct “No”; the obtuse “Is Clearasil green?”; the passive-aggressive “Thanks but we're late for Top Gear”?

At the time I look shifty and mumble “Er ok then”.  Not that I'm worried - as an edgy-veggie tree-hugger, I'll ace her questions, right?

Well, I do score well on many counts.

Travel is a key polluter, so I proudly boast of cycling most places, and taking busses or trains for longer journeys – no nasty gas-guzzling car!

Home is a modest terrace, crammed with long-life lightbulbs and rechargeable batteries – and enjoying cavity wall and loft insulation plus a new-ish boiler.  What’s more, we've just changed electricity and gas supplier to Ecotricity (it’s them or Good Energy, it’s easy to do - and it costs the same!). 

Everyone recycles, but we do it despite Oxford council’s bizarre colour-coded bins (the green one? – well that’s obviously for… landfill; idiots).  Plus we just installed a home composter and water butt, so we’re two-up on the neighbours in green garden bingo. 

 “But what about money?” she asks, hopefully.  Well our bank and insurance are both with the Co-operative, the only highstreet bank with an ethical policy.  And I donate every month to Friends of the Earth, by subscription and affinity credit card. 

“Sure, giving is powerful” she concedes, “but are you an activist?”

I'm tempted to list my contribution to local cycling and pedestrian societies, recent help at Oxgrow community gardens, even my impending take-over of the Green party (maybe).

Instead I let her off with a gentle lecture on how activism begins at home - you have to role-model green behavior yourself.  Look at us:  we take take clothes to Oxfam, give away our old bed on Freecycle, purchase 'pre-loved' books from greenmetropolis.com – we even buy expensive eco-cleaning products and scrub twice as hard for the privilege!

To complete her green feast we talk food:  agriculture is a huge polluter, so our veggie lifestyle gets gold stars (if you still eat farty cows you’re on naughty step!).  What’s more, we subscribe to Abel and Cole, home delivered and locally produced – the only flies on us are organic!

Taking a triumphant swig of my banana smoothie, I wink at the poor outclassed youth, and make to leave.

Not so fast!

“Um, at what temperature do you heat your home?”.  Ok, it’s a small chink – having recently returned from warmer climes it’s on a lot, even in ‘summer’.  At least she doesn’t know we’re ripping out a perfectly good bathroom for purely aesthetic reasons.

“And you make a good point about money – are your mortgage and pension also green?”  Er, well, I don’t control those, my pensions is through work and mortgage through a broker so, um, dunno.

"Hmm, and you don't grow your own?   But don’t worry, at least that nice organic food you get is local” she adds kindly.  True - apart from the Chilean wine,  Caribbean bananas, Andean choccies…  Our cheesy grins also hide an uncomfortable truth:  we're innocent at the butchers, but pretty guilty at the dairy counter…

“It’s great that you cycle though”.  

And then the killer blow: “So can I just check - have you flown anywhere in the last couple of years?”

Only to Kenya and a couple of times to bloody Cambodia, the other side of the overheating world.  And that’s before a possible skiing holiday, let alone persuading several dozen loved-ones to trek to Germany next year for our impending nuptials – how can that be green?

My environmental credentials are unraveling quicker than the student’s badly-knitted Afghan ethno-hat.  I really do make to leave.

“Do you want to hear your score?”