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They argue that the habitats are so important that they should be protected anyway.During the election campaign, Labour put forward its environmental credentials in a document called “In Trust for Tomorrow”, in which it said it would make green challenges easier with the establishment of an environment division of the High Court. “Citizens’ action is needed to strengthen the enforcement of environmental policy. Among the 21 companies that will benefit if the environmentalists’ challenge fails is BP, the company of which Lord Simon – an unpaid and unelected minister – used to be chairman. A row erupted last week when it was revealed that Lord Simon, minister for trade and competitiveness in Europe, still had pounds 2m worth of shares in the company.
Greenpeace’s legal challenge centres on exploration licences to search for oil far off the north-west coast of Scotland which were granted by the outgoing Conservatives to companies including Shell, Texaco, Mobil and Elf.The environmentalists are seeking a High Court judicial review of that decision on the grounds that it breaches European Union directives on assessing the impact of drilling on habitats. The cold-water coral (or lophelia pertusa) that experts argue constitutes a reef is teeming with life but Greenpeace says that the Government and the oil companies have not made adequate assessments of the damage drilling and seismic explosions would cause. Shots of models smoking at parties were found to be “very influential” for young people, validating smoking as a normal part of everyday life.Both types of imagery are more likely to be featured in prestigious broadsheet newspapers and style publications, favoured by graduates, than in tabloid newspapers..

New Labour were branded environmental hypocrites by Greenpeace yesterday after it emerged that the Government was fighting a legal challenge aimed at stopping oil exploration on an Atlantic reef. Between them, the two magazines carried 43 images of smoking over a three-month period.The HEA survey set out to find out how young people – the only age group for which levels of smoking appear to be increasing – are affected by smoking imagery. It found that no amount of editorialising about the dangers of smoking could counter the damage done by seductive pictures of models with cigarettes, which are “read” on an emotional level.The unpublished HEA Adult Tracking Survey 1996 shows that smoking in young women has increased by more than 5 per cent between 1994 and 1996.Young women, in particular, acknowledged in the survey that they are influenced by glossy fashion photography featuring cigarettes which they linked with positive characteristics such as individuality, self-assertion and power. Forty-two per cent feel that, all things being equal, an employer would choose to recruit a non-smoker rather than a smoker.Another survey, by the Health and Education Authority (HEA), also published today, blames editors of men’s magazines and style titles for the prevalence of smoking in young people Loaded and The Face were singled out as the worst offenders. “Starting a new job can be stressful, and if some of your new fellow employees are smokers, `group cigarette breaks’ can seem an all too easy way of gaining acceptance.”The findings counter previous assumptions that smoking is associated with unskilled manual workers, low self-esteem, poor education and low awareness of the habit’s harmful effects. Ninety-six per cent of graduates said they were well aware that smoking has a great deal or fair amount of effect on health and almost all of those who smoke accept the right of colleagues to work in a smoke-free environment.Furthermore, they believe smoking could damage not only their health but their career prospects.

You only have to wander into a pub in a busy working area to see that smoking is a widely accepted social prop amongst this group.”Stress, he added, could be the key factor. Once graduates have started work in their first job, the figure rises to 23 per cent. Arts graduates are more likely than maths and science graduates to carry on smoking after they have finished studying.Almost half of the graduates smoking in their first job have no intention of quitting. While the percentage of those who smoke but wish to give up is exactly in line with the national average among final year students and graduates who have not yet found work (68 per cent), only 54 per cent of those graduate smokers who have started work are considering giving up.Tom Lovell, manager of Reed Graduates, commenting on the results of the survey of 961 final year undergraduates and recent graduates, said: “There seems to be some backlash against healthy living amongst recent graduates. His funeral took place at Paisley Abbey in Renfrewshire last Friday.. A combination of stress and the use by the media of glamorous imagery prompts young, well-educated people to take up smoking, according to researchers.