in the Green vision, "frugality" must always temper "efficiency"

Green-minded readers will no doubt recall the unexpected (and unacceptable) consequences thrown up when mainstream parties (and too many newbie Green candidates as well, unfortunately) embraced efficiency alone as sufficient to arrest global warming and environmental destruction.

When car fuel efficiency improved, most consumers spent the same percentage of their income on gasoline as before ----  but now simply drove smaller cars more miles, or drove bigger cars (SUVs).

Efficiences in furances and in insulation meant heating cost per cubic foot of home decreased - so people began to cut the number of people per household in half while also doubling the size of the average house !

Green Hope says, en contaire, that we can hope to live happier lives only if we seek ever greater efficiences over a vast range of human activities but then temper that success by living within our global means.

Being frugal in the global sense means recognizing humanity as but one species among many, living in a common commensality on a more rare and more fragile planet that most of us can ever begin to imagine...