Is something better than nothing while society adjusts to the impact of pollution and climate change? Or is a "band-aid" approach just making people feel better and wasting time? It depends on which environmental group you ask.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds issued a withering attack on the British government, calling its policy on tackling climate change too myopic to be effective after the publication of another Westminster report detailing additional restrictions that should be in place.

The report, by the Joint Scrutiny Committee, said aviation must be included in climate change planning. Airlines and shipping have escaped restraints so far.

Martin Harper, the RSPB’s Head of Sustainable Development, said: “Climate change legislation must target 80 percent,not 60 percent, cuts to help stop temperatures rising too high too quickly."

The Climate Change Bill is due to be introduced in the next parliament. The RSPB says more drastic action needs to be taken now because warmer seas are thought to be reducing food for seabirds, garden birds such as blue tits are breeding earlier to try to keep pace with the earlier availability of insect food and higher summer temperatures are thought to be causing the ring ouzel, a bird that breeds in the uplands, to die out in the UK.

“The uncontrolled expansion of airports is a product of the government’s myopic policy and has to stop," said Harper. "Ministers must include aviation emissions in legally binding greenhouse gas targets. And BAA and the rest of the air travel industry must stop trying to bulldoze the camp at Heathrow and other public outcries about climate change and instead come to the table and talk about how they can cut their emissions.”

In this case, activists are using science data and not psychology. Legislators are people too. Imagine a scenario where someone tells you that you have to race an organ to a hospital for transplantation. It normally takes one hour to walk but you can reduce it to 24 minutes if you drive fast. They tell you that you must do it in 12 minutes or the patient will die but you know that you are taking a lot of risks and could cause a large accident and still not make it in 12 minutes. Is there any point in risking an accident to even make it in 24 minutes if the patient will die anyway? Not really.

This is the scenario legislators face. If they are presented with attacks for mandating 60 percent cuts in emissions rather than the 80 percent a group wants, is there any point in paying attention?

There is a reliable meter we can use to estimate the environmental impact of runaway pollution and increased greenhouse gases but there is no reliable standard for which environmental groups can be relied on as partners in climate change and which ones are more fundamentalist in their approach.

Environmental groups like RSPB have an impact but if they're going to be part of the solution and guide positive changes, they need to be able to do it from the inside as trusted allies that care about all people and not just their pet cause.

Attacks on legislators stating that there is never enough restriction on greenhouse gases is appealling to the hard-core environmental donor base but losing society at large. If 'green' is going to be mainstream and not just a passing fad, environmental activists need to make sure people don't give up on curbing greenhouse gases because they think they can't do enough to prevent the doom that some on the fringes say is already here.