I'm confused.

As I was driving home yesterday I heard a snippet of an interview with (the) Erin Brokovich who is in Oz to promote the launch of some piss-poor excuse for a political party, Climate Change Coalition. The bit I heard featured a comment that coal companies should be made to pay for the environmental mess they have made/make.

Now here's my problem. Coal companies are becoming the new cigarette comanies and fast food companies. They are being punished for our "sins".

I find this so bizzare. While I hate cigarettes I don't hate cigarette companies. As far as I can tell they are not rounding people up in the street at gunpoint and forcing them to smoke with threats of harming their family members. While I agree that too much junk food can make you fat and unhealthy I don't see the fast food companies playing out the above scenario either.

These are businesses who make a product and advertise a product in a free economy to (allegedly) free thinking people. These people are then free to smoke or not to smoke, to eat a Big Mac or not to eat a Big Mac. Easy.

Coal companies are the same, though arguably more useful. They provide energy for our consumption. A consumption I personally enjoy very very much. I marvel constantly that I can come home and switch a light on, get a cold drink out of my fridge, watch tv, write my pointless thoughts down on this blog via my laptop pc. It makes me wonder whether the peolple who belong to/support the Climate Change Coalition live without life's comforts provided by the evil coal industry. Do they live without electricity? I seriously doubt it.

Which brings me to the point that if they were to choose to do so, they could. I mean we do live in a truly free society in that respect. They could choose to not have their electricity (or gas or phone) connected to their homes. In theory they could live like primative man. They could grow their own food in their back yard, keep a sheep or a few chickens, cook their meals over an open fire (environmentally naughty but I suppose there's always the raw food diet). This option truly exists yet I don't see any of these so called greenies taking it up. My, it's easy to criticise when you do so from the comfort of a fully equipped middle class home and office.

As mentioned previously coal companies do not round up people and force them to use electricity at gunpoint. They provide a product which turns into a utility which all of use constantly and I, for one, enjoy immensely.

I wonder why we need to demonise the providers of our (unfathomably) "guilty" pleasures. They are a choice, one of many we have in our lives and I don't subscribe to the idea that we are forced in any way into choosing that which we don't ethically believe in.

And while we're on the subject, I'm the one, yes I'm IT. I'd be happy to have a nuclear power reactor in my backyard (but we'd have to move the swings and trampoline over a bit first).