This time two years ago all anyone cared about was whether you were switching off your standby, or riding your bicycle, or changing your lightbulbs. These days that all seems very 2006: many people now seem to have signed up for the idea that actually change will need to come from above - from shops, corporations, governmental organisations.

Which leaves us, actually, with a giant headache. While we're happily shrugging off our responsibilities, who is assuming them? Can we really believe that the government is going to deal with all this? The fact that campaigners now have the climate bill they wanted, the fact that many businesses are running high-profile campaigns about how green they are, do these things mean that you can stop wearing jumpers and turn all your radiators up high?

Well, obviously not. A chunky 40% of the UK's emissions come as a result of decisions taken by individuals - travel, heating, food purchases. We do not have the faintest chance of making an 80% reduction in our carbon emissions by 2050 without dealing with the choices that individuals make. And yet what, exactly, is the government doing about this crucial area?

In our decaying civilization, the adult generation – first prototype of an ironically socialistic educational system – has learned to delegate its share of personal responsibility to the nanny state. The leaders, in turn, too busy fetching a light for lobbyists, conveniently sweep this faithfully entrusted duty under the rug of bureaucracy. That our society shrugs off problems as if they didn't exist, balling them back and forth between consumers and ultra-centralized empire institutions, is a sign that we're headed rapidly downhill. Populist greenism exemplifies this common form of modern scapegoating, in which we promote a well-meaning symbolic token but, finding our consciences already relieved, fail to follow through with effectual action.

One of the nutty ideas invented by the greenist crowd is that consuming green-approved products can make a difference. Sold on their own propaganda, they forget to mention that consumption and growth are the main problems in the first place, and that their research is often insufficient to determine which technologies will in fact be sustainable in the long-term:

When industry began using NF3 in high-tech manufacturing, it was hailed as a way to fight global warming. But new research shows that this gas has 17,000 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide and is rapidly increasing in the atmosphere – and that's turning an environmental success story into a public relations disaster.

Hypothetical question: You're heartsick about global warming, so you've just paid $25,000 to put a solar system on the roof of your home. How do you respond to news that it was manufactured with a chemical that is 17,000 times stronger than carbon dioxide as a cause of global warming?

It may sound like somebody's idea of a bad joke. But last month, a study from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography reported that nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), with a global warming potential of 17,000, is now present in the atmosphere at four times the expected level and rapidly rising. Use of NF3 is currently booming, for products from computer chips and flats-screen LCDs to thin-film solar photovoltaics, an economical and increasingly popular solar power format.

Oops? Instead of taking the advice of true environmentalists, who argued that we need to simplify and reduce our technology, these nitwits promoted a boom in "green" technology. This lead to a parade of new products, a great deal of which now turn out to be environmentally unsustainable, or even outright corporate hoaxes. Some people though, like this columnist, get the point:

Of all the natural resources we use every day, paper is one that hardly provokes a second thought. The thin films of tree fibres touch nearly every facet of our lives. From the napkins around paper coffee cups to our morning newspaper, the junk mail and the bedtime book, paper is everywhere. We use more and more of it, and its impact on the environment is huge.

Paper manufacture consumes vast quantities of water. Chemicals are used to boost fast-growing monoculture plantations, and pulp mills discharge huge quantities of chemicals. In terms of energy consumption in its production, paper equals steel.

The more global paper demand grows, the more land is needed to grow it. This sits alongside other demands for land, for urbanisation, agriculture and nature protection.

His solution is simple: Reduce consumption and slow consumer growth. This common-sense wisdom represents a void in today's environmental discourse, not because we're innocently confused or ignorant, but because we want to have our cake and eat it, too. We figured that if we just made a few small token changes in our lifestyle, we could continue to prop up our economies with empty incentives and foreign labor, overpopulate the planet, industrialize and urbanize more land, and still continue to enjoy all the fruits of technology that we currently take for granted.

And it seemed to be working until just recently, when we finally got a taste – a mere sampling – of true economic responsibility. Who do we think we’re trying to con? China, who we’ll proudly accuse of excessive CO2 emissions after investing in more Chinese labor to reduce our own? It doesn’t take an economist to see that it’s all a game of ”musical chairs”. Common sense, folks – that's what's needed. This is why I embrace the cold, rational logic of people like Prince Charles:

"[W]e are with nature, not against it. We have gone working against nature for too long."

“Food prices are going up, everyone thinks it’s to do with not enough food, but it’s really that demand is too great – too many people.”

“Conservation is not a romantic business. It’s a very practical business, trying to ensure as many different species of wildlife can exist, and which means in some cases controlling some so the others can have a better chance.”

This man is sheer brilliance. If he were put in charge of the British government's environmental department, we might finally see some real action taking place. But since we prefer token action instead of actual change, we bully him down as an ”old monarch” trying to oppress our freedom:

With breathtaking arrogance, it seems officials in Buckingham Palace and Clarence House are seeking to rework the British constitution to allow Prince Charles to become an activist king – reneging on an age-old convention that the monarchy may survive so long as the monarch maintains a discreet silence.

Reports over the weekend reveal Charles's true intentions. Not content with meddling in political debates and haranguing ministers as heir to the throne, he craves power and influence at the highest level, but wants to be spared the inconvenience of an election.

As James Gray said on Republic's blog this morning, this is hardly surprising: "Monarchy means indulgence, and Charles has been indulged more than most members of the royal family. The Windsors have been raised and conditioned to believe they stand above the political process and with that comes a barely concealed contempt for democracy."

Prince Charles is pro-common sense and anti-stupidity. He's been a member of the aristocracy long enough to know that democracy tends to promote gullible puppets to power – would-be leaders who ”talk the talk” but fail to ”walk the walk” (yet rarely fail to heed the call of their true masters). Now he recognizes the need to push his influence further before he passes away, in hopes that the nation will come to realize the trouble it's in, and eventually get back on its feet. Let's hope he succeeds, as a proponent of directed change and of common sense. We are in need of a renaissance of common sense, because we are not just risking high food and oil prices – our entire planet is at stake. I don't trust the planet in the hands of greedy corporate profiteers and confused consumers--do you?