A browner shade of green

American environmentalist Jay Westerveldt, writing in 1986,coined the term 'greenwash' to describe the act of playing-up something'senvironmental benefits in order to justify its existence - and yet, twentyyears later, ecological sophistry of this kind is still thriving.

In July 2007, the Department for Communities and LocalGovernment published its 'Eco-towns Prospectus', outlining plans for ten newtowns, each with 5-10,000 homes, to be built by 2020.

The development, according to the document, "should reach zero carbon standards," and "each townshould be an exemplar in at least one area of environmental sustainability."

Furthermore, the towns are intended to combat both therising price of houses ('affordable housing' will make up between 30 and 50 percent of the homes) and the simple lack of space for a growing population.

However, both these issues are leaving most commentatorspuzzled - many analysts have even categorised the scheme as a piece ofOrwellian 'Doublethink', defined by the author as "The power of holding twocontradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both ofthem".

And they have a point. Saving the environment by buildingten new towns hardly makes perfect sense on first hearing. [-[quote]-]

This may sound rather glib - new homes, after all, have tobe built, and if they do achievecarbon neutrality it would certainly be an improvement on most housingdevelopments to date - but what the government aren't so keen to point out isthe negligible dent these eco-towns would make in the massive number of newhomes needed.

This time last year, Gordon Brown announced plans to build3,000,000 new homes by 2020, also the intended date of completion for theeco-towns project; so, as Richard Girling (SundayTimes, June 15) points out, eco-towns would in fact account for about 3% ofthese - not what one would call "a radical programme to increase housing"!(Yvette Cooper MP, introducing the Eco-towns Prospectus).

The whole project is covered in a thin coat of greenwash,one which, unfortunately and embarrassingly for the government, is flaking offdaily.

Who knows how they will attempt to dress up the other 97%?Perhaps we will have ten new 'Festivilles' - small towns with huge areascreated specifically for Glastonbury-style music festivals.

Or maybe a darker, more scaremongering scheme of anti-terrortowns - far from inconceivable, as in the case of Paris's wide, straight nineteenth-centuryboulevards, designed to impede the building of rebellious blockades and tofacilitate the operation of artillery by the army in such circumstances.

Before the next half-baked scheme is announced, however, thegovernment must put some serious work into convincing us of the efficacy of theeco-towns, as another, similarly derisive 'Must try harder' verdict is onething Gordon Brown cannot afford.