"OK, I admit it. I am unlikely ever to win an award for my contribution to the green cause. Like many mothers, I drive a fuel-guzzling people carrier along already congested back streets several times a day on school and club runs, and park outside shops I could easily walk to because I'm too lazy to carry heavy loads large distances.
I'm not the worst offender: our family only has one car, I don't double park, I don't stop on zigzags and I rarely have fewer than five passengers in my vehicle. But having tried, during last year's short-lived petrol crisis, to spend less time behind the wheel, I came to the conclusion that if God wanted me to walk all the time, he would have created a 35-hour day and given me a housekeeper.
For this - for doing the best I can to juggle the demands of modern life and three young children, do I, and others like me, deserve to be penalised by those whose motives are even more questionable than my own? Should I have to fish around for the correct combination of small change every time I want to step out of my car? Or face hefty fines and a possible ban for straying a few miles over the speed limit? Or have to pay tolls for using roads my taxes helped to build?"
Yes, yes and yes. Because you chose (and were able to choose) to have your lifestyle, your three children and your "fuel guzzling people carrier". Because your demands on society exceed the capacity of society to respond without damaging consequences to the environment. Because you can afford to meet the extra costs of those damaging consequences. But, most of all, because you are a selfish whingeing middle class journalist using your privileged access to the media to complain about your personal circumstances.
Buy a bike or a shopping trolley.
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