Most amusing. George picks up on an old blogging trick (seriously, you’ve seen this so many times) by contrasting the number of articles in the newspapers about how we’re all going to drown/boil/fry with the ads for carbon emitting products.

Good fun is had by all.

He then suggests that perhaps said newspapers should refuse to carry ads for polluting products. Even then he notes that this would make it difficult for the same manufacturers to introduce newer, less polluting ones.

Almost all advertising – by promoting excessive consumption – threatens the biosphere.

Hmmm.

A ban on all car ads would prevent manufacturers from promoting the efficient models they might one day produce.

Ah, so at least some advertising is in fact informative, rather than desire creating? Toughie really, isn’t it? George’s solution is at least free market: the newspapers themselves should decide which ads they should carry. The only thing that worries me is that this might shift to someone else deciding which ads should be carried or not….