I have to admit to paying scant attention to the proceedings at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) which draws to a close this weekend. At the time of writing, it appears that negotiators from around the globe remain locked in discussions on how to keep the world from burning or drowning without doing anything too specific, too drastic or too soon.
A common theme hitting a nerve on social media was the apparent hypocrisy of the attendees whose bon vivant lifestyles are seemingly at odds with their sanctimonious sermonising. As the celebrities and dignitaries and their considerable retinues swept into Glasgow in a whirlwind of private jets and other carboniferous luxuries, their message to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees by achieving net zero was bound to be laced with a tinge of irony.
What I really wanted to see was a little more authenticity, not just hollow words from those in bondage to the pleasures of the flesh, unable to give up their corporeal comforts while priggishly preaching to the public. Frankly, I would have preferred to hear from a meek family of ascetics joining us by video link from their yurt in the forest, the picture flickering as they frantically pedal to keep the equipment powered.
It therefore strikes me that us misers have a humble role to play here. Admittedly, my environmental credentials are in no way driven by a dewy-eyed vision of a green utopia, but rather a happy concomitant of a desire to spend as little as humanly possible, a self-abnegatory desire to renounce all consumption, and in the process happening to create an almost imperceptible carbon footprint. But if serendipity has a walk-on part in the act of saving the planet then who am I to complain.
So here I come, an unlikely eco-hero galloping to the rescue, accompanied by the sound of trumpets while riding on the back of a green zeitgeist. I shall briefly dispense my miserly counsel by covering the principal ways in which we can all go a little greener, but hopefully not biliously so.
First, travel. All travel should be restricted to essential journeys only, and by essential I mean any journeys which are wholly necessary to make more money. Anything other than this is likely to be undesirable, such as travelling to meet other people, or betaking oneself to a destination which exists only to part one from one's hard-earned lucre. Walking and cycling are encouraged for the health benefits, mainly due to the additional period of compounding one achieves through increased longevity.
Second, waste. This one is easy. If you don't buy anything you don't have anything to throw away.
Third, energy consumption, particularly in the context of heating one's home. This is always a popular topic on Twitter where it seems to me there is a good deal of room for improvement for the lily-livered heating capitulators who lamentably reach for their thermostat even before the first leaf of autumn falls. The solution is a very simple one: put on a jumper.
As we head through autumn we sadly see further waves of capitulation when again the solution is simple: put on a second jumper. And then a third if necessary. The trick here is to have at hand a set of cascading woollies which fit neatly inside one another like a set of fleecy Russian dolls. Heating one's home should be reserved for the very bleakest of mid-winter days and all thoughts of it should be put out of one's mind until it is cold enough to emasculate a brass monkey.
The heating at Miserly Towers is chiefly for architectural effect, and only when the inner walls are rimed with frost and rheumy icicles hang like stalactites from Mrs M’s nose is the padlock removed from the heating controls. When it gets to this stage, my opening gambit with Mrs M is to insist that it should be enough for her to bask in the warm glow of my bonhomie. Typically, this is met with a flinty glare which turns the air even colder and tells me I am about to step over a line marked 'danger'. The sort of glare which bores straight through one's forehead and lobotomises the offending part of one's brain before cleanly exiting the rear of the skull. I then know that any further attempt by me to penny-pinch will likely result in the tenderest parts of my anatomy being forcefully removed and chopped up more theatrically than in a Salt Bae restaurant1. It is at this point my limbic system activates self-defence mode and flicks on the heating well before my prefrontal lobe gets the chance to object. Regrettably, even an archmiser is forced to capitulate at some stage.
So while the politicians kick the green can down the roads of Glasgow and the bon vivants exit in a smog of carbon dioxide, it is clear there are simple measures we can all take, chiefly with the aim of increasing our hoard of lucre, but in the process accidentally saving the planet.
For the uninitiated, here is a short YouTube clip of said Salt Bae at work.
For the life of me I cannot understand the desire of our leaders to limit global temperatures by just 1.5 degrees by 2050. What is not to like about a couple of degrees warmer sooner, especially in winter ?
Think yourself lucky that Mrs Miserly wasn't born in warmer climes. Had this been the case she would demand a thermostat setting high enough to brown toast!