I’ve just heard about a chap who has invented shoes that recharge your mobile phone battery while you’re walking.^* Brilliant. I want a pair but they all look like rugged walking boots – designed for areas where recharging equipment isn’t available, such as jungles and deserts. I’ll have a pair when they make them in Oxford brogues. Not everything can be green. Not everyone can be as organic and as green as we would have them be.

OK, we’ve gone through the rant about the state of the world and what we’re doing to it. Now I’m going to give you a tiny get-out clause. Not everything can be green. There have to be by-products. There has to be some pollution. There has to be some damage. We are vast in number – billions of humans living on the planet have to have an effect – and we have to live. There will always be some damage. Our job is to limit it, but it is unrealistic to attempt to eliminate it altogether. It’s all a question of balance, of priorities.

It is unrealistic to demand the immediate elimination of all motor vehicles in the world; it’s not going to happen. But we can do our bit by buying cars that use less fuel, emit cleaner exhaust fumes, use recyclable materials in their construction. But they won’t be totally green, they can’t be.

We might all rush off to disaster zones to lend a hand but we’ll fly there and aircraft emit huge quantities of exhaust fumes. You see, we are making choices all the time. Driving to work, heating our homes, what we wear, what we eat. We can’t expect everyone to be as green as we want to be. We can’t expect everything to be as green as we would have it.

If we all manage to achieve a reduction it helps. If we all do our bit it helps. If we are all conscious about what we are doing it helps. But we can’t expect perfection. We can’t turn things around overnight. If you’re trying so hard to be green that it’s causing you a great deal of stress and your life is suffering as a result (just try to go food/household shopping and buy nothing at all in plastic and you’ll quickly see what I mean), then stop. Make an effort but accept that it’s never going to be totally perfect. Just so long as we are trying to do something, it helps.