Would You Sell £25,000 Solar Panels To An 82 Year Old ?

Even the noblest of causes offers cynics an opportunity for gain. And its supporters aren't always as noble as the cause. Green issues are a case in point. There's a whole green industry anxious to exploit our desire to help the planet and save on energy costs.
Solar panels seem like a great way to avoid wasting the earth's natural resources. So far so good, but if you've got solar panels to sell, you'll want to appeal to more than altruism. So what about good old fashioned greed?  Suggest the customer can save money as well as the planet and the sale is assured. Even if they'll never save enough to pay for the huge cost of the panels.
One sales rep recently tried to sell top of the range panels to an 82 year old I know. The kind of panels that generate electricity, enough to cover your own use and leave some over to sell to an electricity company. Only £25,000 (which is already £9000 more than the highest price I could find on the web). Even on the salesman's own figures, it would take 20 years to pay back the cost, let alone the lost interest on savings. Remember he's talking to an 82 year old.
Then there's scientists so desperate to prove their case that they massage the figures and eco warriors who fly on private jets to campaign the cause. Yet the fact is, just because there will always be unscrupulous or stupid people who attach themselves to a cause, it doesn't make the cause unworthy. Just as a few fanatics are being used to discredit a whole religion, so we should be aware that climate change sceptics will use any bad behaviour by 'greens' to create doubt about the need to take action on damage to the environment.
Having been in marketing for much of my life, I'm aware that, because of some unethical types, there's an assumption on many people's parts that marketing is about lying, saying anything to sell your product. My own experience is that marketing is about finding a truth within the product that will connect it to the potential purchaser.Add to which, you can't build a longterm reputation on lies. The problem with environmentalists being discredited by a few bad apples is that it doesn't just affect a few sales, it could damage all our futures.