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Our house is a veritable temple to recycling: newspapers neatly bundled, tin cans with their labels removed and washed out, card packaging all folded flat, not to mention the stuff to go on the compost heap.

So far so good. So it came as a shock to find that more often than not our carefully sorted recycled waste ended up in landfill because the waste firm could not be bothered to sort it out. If we took the same approach the council would fine us!

The second incident to test my patience was a discussion with someone who had become a rabid zero-carbonite about the issues of aviation and the steps the industry was taking to reduce its emissions. We agreed that airlines were responsible for about 2% of CO2 emissions: a figure that is growing. My zero-carbonite friend was for stopping people flying and only permit air travel to really important things. (Presumably climate change conferences in exotic places).

Even if the volume of air travel doubled in the next 20 years, it would take the aviation industry’s contribution up to 4%. The fact is that the aviation industry is looking to reduce its carbon footprint through use of more efficient engines, better air traffic control and filling the aircraft so that the CO2 per passenger is minimised. With fuel being the biggest single cost, it makes good business sense to reduce fuel consumption so for me flying is not as important an issue as others.

The third incident to make me question whether the zero-carbonites are beginning to lose the plot and the support of ordinary folk was when I heard one eminent engineer suggest that we cover the country in wind turbines and forget about nuclear energy. But with climate change can we guarantee enough wind?

The zero-carbonites are in danger of being seen as snake oil sellers with their own, often single, solution to coping with climate change. And coping with climate change is the challenge because we cannot stop it.

My zero-carbonite by now ex-friend slunk off complaining that if they cannot ground the airliners then they should ground the light aircraft because they must be having just as bad an impact

on the environment. So blinkered. Light aircraft fuel consumption in a whole year is less than an hour of London rush hour consumption.

To cap it all, we hear that China is commissioning two coal-fired power stations a week. My energy-saving efforts seem a bit of a waste of time...