The main problem with environmentally responsible living is that it’s so, well, responsible. (Read tedious. Dull. Fundamentally un-French.)
Try telling the average Frenchman he must convert to organically-produced wine and forever renounce foie-gras out of regard for ducks’ health, and you will no doubt be greeted with a great, gallic snort, followed by the inevitable question, which in itself sums up centuries of French fatalism : « mais à quoi bon tout ça ? »
What for indeed? What difference can a single individual make when hundreds of environment ministers and earnest NGO leaders gathered at Copenhaguen failed to reach even one significant decision to fight climate change?