Jet-Setting Greens - TierneyLab Blog - NYTimes.com

So are the green habits at home doing such a good job of mitigating guilt that they’re interfering with more realistic strategies to cut greenhouse emissions? If so, to me that’s one more argument against recycling.

I’ve already criticized recycling because it’s usually so expensive (when compared with landfilling the trash). Even some devout greens will concede that many recycling programs, particularly for things like plastic, don’t do much to reduce greenhouse emissions. (I welcome any good data on the overall greenhouse impact of recycling.) If it turns out that recycling gives people an excuse to take more plane flights, what’s the reason to keep these programs alive? Would the time and moral energy spent exhorting people to sort garbage be better spent teaching more effective ways to reduce greenhouse emissions?

The EU: A climate leader headed in the wrong direction (PDF by Indur Goklany)