Feature in Standpoint magazine

I don't believe the world would be a better place if everyone lived a little more like me but, curiously, all Western governments and most of the media disagree. I live on a narrow boat on the Grand Union Canal in London, and my dwelling produces, according to the Government's own online calculator, around 7% of the average carbon emission for a UK property. But if I'm expecting an eco-medal from the man from the ministry, I could face a long wait. In fact, the public sector would like to see me and thousands like me off the water for good.
Living on the canal is not illegal but neither is it strictly legal, and DEFRA is stepping up its efforts to make it impossible. It recently held a consultation, for example, without consulting most live-aboard boaters. It seems to be the lack of a fixed address that disturbs the mindset of modern government, and this trumps the fact that my carbon footprint is that of Tinkerbell compared with that of the sasquatch of most land-dwellers. To give just one example, I use around 20 litres of water a day, for everything, as against the 80 litres or so that an average visit to a power-shower will use. You may be cleaner than me, but I'm greener than you.
But while governments across the world nag their citizens to go green, those of us who are actually taking them at their word seem not far from being criminalised. Personally, the crowning irony of being an unsung role model for green politics is that I am that modern heretic, the climate change sceptic. Yes, I believe man is a pollutant animal, but I don't think he has a gun to Mother Earth's head. I'm more convinced by skeptical environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg's belief that achievable, affordable aims - potable water for Africa, for example - are preferable to flying Al Gore around the world to spout self-righteous platitudes.
As a resource, the UK's canals are woefully underused. There was much trumpeting by Able Seaman John Prescott in 2000 about returning freight to the waterways; it never happened. But as a residential option, marinas and cut-away moorings on the canal would be cheap and effortless to run. Boaters are naturally communitarian, can-do people.
But, until the fear of the moveable citizen of no fixed abode is banished, while it will still be permissible to talk the green talk, it will be increasingly difficult to walk the walk.