I can't recall if there was a significant event that set me on my renewable journey. Perhaps it was the realisation that my carbon footprint, which had, I reckon, been trudging along at a complacent 5.5, really needed some attention. and although I would never have considered myself to be a climate-denier, I was always sceptical of the Hallelujah chorus proclaiming the environment to be the new global religion. Like Chicken-licken and Hen-len, I took to venturing out each morning wondering if today was the day when the sky would fall in. all I can say is that, having been washed in the renewable waters of sustainability, I'm having a jolly good time.  an early test of just how profound has been my conversion was when I came recently to buy a car. Previously, I had deployed a regrettably jejeune attitude to carbon emissions. Does anyone really gives a tinker's toerag about fuel emissions as long as the Chinese are singlehandedly wrecking the planet? This time, I bought myself an unfussy and low-emission wee jalopy that is as carbon-friendly as a soya bean supper.  It seems that the motor had qualified for a low-emission badge on account of the engine automatically cutting out when it becomes stationary at traffic lights. Unfortunately, I was trying to look for the cigarette lighter when the chap from the dealership was telling me about this. On the first few occasions it happened, I was taken by surprise and thus accosted by impatient motorists with that unseemly highway semaphore that all male drivers use to convey impatience on the road. But I overcame these early jitters and am now quite smug and supercilious when the engine cuts out. That's another couple of arctic terns I've saved, I tell myself.  In the last few weeks, many of my light bulbs have chosen to expire. One by one, they have popped their last and thus began my usual pitiful struggle to identify them and try forlornly to match them at Tesco. Now I've just decided not to replace them and am using aromatic candles instead. How green is that? If everyone followed suit, that hole in the ozone layer would be patched up in no time.  I've also been injecting wee shots of vodka into my lunchtime oranges and at this rate will have reached the recommended five a week target in no time. It gives you a small, sustainable glow, knowing that you're eating healthily and avoiding all those pre-packaged comestibles. One of my chums even suggested a very biodegradable exercise to do with recycling cigarette butts. Instead of chucking them away, you can use them to construct a sort of soft decking for the veranda.  I've even started to record Frozen Planet and am assiduously following the adventures of Sir David attenborough's arctic beasties in their diurnal struggle for survival in the world's most bleak and beautiful region. Last week, it was the turn of the caribou to take centre stage. These boys knock the bejesus out of each other to win the right of becoming a lady caribou's swain during the breeding season. and happily there was no sight last week of the cognitive killer whales which all do the Rubik's Cube before jumping a stray seal.  So I feel very happy and comfortable being the renewable and sustainable me. But being Scottish, and living in the most paternalistic state in Europe, I know it can't last. It occurred to me as I watched, transfixed, a two dozen strong herd of male caribou chasing the female and fighting to become the grand fromage that in an independent Scotland such scenes would probably fall foul of the censor's scissors. They would be deemed to be reinforcing sexual stereotypes and promoting a Dickensian approach to equality.  For last week we had another new example of the SNP's drive to make us the most miserable country in the world. They've already targeted cheap alcohol in supermarkets, and have banned glass tumblers in pubs. On their watch, Scotland led the world in banning happy hou