If you are coming to Hay this year then leave the Hummer in the garage and plug in the Prius. The festival has gone greener than the surrounding hillsides. Jostling for position with the lecture theatres are the usual organic and locally-sourced burgers, strawberries and ice creams and a number of exhibitions urging us to squeeze our carbon feet into a smaller pair of wellies. It's no surprise that Hay is at the vanguard of the environmental movement, but this year the number of solar panels, wormeries, sustainable-this and ethical-that has sky-rocketed. Even AA Gill put joking aside for a time to bang the drum for the planet. Much of this is, of course, ironic when you look up at the huge new gas pipeline which is being built a stone's throw from the festival site.
George Monbiot clearly casts a pretty long shadow around here. But his is not the only green voice in town and green voices don't come much more jovial and positive than that of Dick Strawbridge, bushy-moustached Gerard Depardieu lookalike and star of BBC2's It's Not Easy Being Green. I watched the show religiously, following Dick and his family's progress towards a carbon-neutral lifestyle. Strawbridge admitted that he was wearing hemp underwear but he is not, however, insufferably greener-than-thou (even though he is, much). In fact, one of the premises of the show was that his family would not be going without in order to cut their energy use - hot showers (powered by solar panel or HEP) and cars (bio-diesel) were in, but mains electricity and petrol were out.
He gave his talk in the Sky Lower Carbon Lifestyle Home (Sky is, apparently, the only carbon-neutral media company in the world and is one of only two FTSE 100 companies to be able to make such a claim) and I left feeling positive, excited and empowered. Ten minutes in the company of Dick and his infectious enthusiasm and passion for lowering our energy consumption is enough to make even the most jaded and cynical nip out for a low-energy lightbulb. He spoke of his mantra of "reduce, re-use, recycle" and talked everyone through a few simple ways to cut our energy consumption and our utility bills.
Money was at the heart of the message. Strawbridge repeated constantly that energy wasted was money down the drain. Literally in the case of water which we treat, process, pump for miles and then "pee into". This probably didn't come as a great surprise to any of us, but as Dick said, once you install a few solar panels and get yourself a water butt it makes you sit up and take notice of what you use.
He knew some people who had become obsessive watchers of the voltage counters which they attach to their appliances. Dick clearly also takes a great amount of joy in his lifestyle and encouraged others to "just have a go" at any project they could think of, big or small. Other members of the audience were keen to share (maybe a tad smugly, but who cares?) their own eco-solutions and there was a strong sense that living in a green way could be fun rather than a hair shirt.
Having listened to Strawbridge talk it seems to me that the strong economic arguments for combating climate change would be a lot more palatable if they were delivered with a sense of enthusiasm for the task in hand. I know I'd put in sheep's wool loft insulation if Dick Strawbridge told me it would be a laugh. I'd do it too if someone thwacked a clunking great tax on me for not doing so, but where's the fun in that?
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