Environmental concern is a little like dieting or paying off credit-card debt - an episodically terrific idea that burns brightly and then seems to fade when we realize there's a reason we need to diet or pay down our debt. The reason is that it's really really hard and too many of us in too many spheres of life choose the easy over the hard.
But reason always cuts a poor figure beside sentiment the one being essentially restricted like everything that is positive while the other is infinite.