Does Judaism care about the environment and why sources don't tell half the story

It was Tu Bishvat last Sunday. A late addition to the minor Jewish festivals and very associated with Modern day Israel (those of us who were in the Independent will remember the old classics such as 'Tu Bishvat Higiya....') and its agriculture but it got me thinking - if I was a rabbi or teacher giving a nice thought-provoking shiur linked to this day what would it be? Well, trees and fruit so.... Judaism and the Environment! Then I started thinking, well which sources would I use? Something about not cutting down fruit trees in war, the symbolism of a man as a tree of the field and something to do with not wasting resources. 

Then I realised the problem with this - I barely think about the environment. Yes, if asked I would say that I try to recycle, I don't litter etc. I definitely should care about things like global warming but does it bother me deeply? No. 

So is it reasonable for me to get up and talk to an audience of willing participants about how environmental concerns are fundamental to being Jewish and, after half an hour probably get to the stage where I had everyone convinced that everyone since Moses had aspired to prevent global warming? After an hour I would go home and, without a trace of guilt, not think about it again until I had to give the next talk. 

Indeed is it ok to talk confidently about what Judaism stands/ has always stood for? In this instance, a rabbi will often stand up, read off an impressive array of traditional sources on the environment but if we go out to the streets and see who is actually talking/campaigning /acting on these things it is rarely the people giving the shiurim.

 No, this isn't a rant about hypocrisy - we all fail to reach our ideals, better to have them in the first place - but it rather highlights the gap between talking about things and actually doing them.  This has always bothered me to some extent. Topics such as social action, human rights and universal world issues by and large are the property of the Left, and not particularly associated with Orthodox Judaism, however much sources will seem to tell us otherwise. (This may be culturally ingrained into Ashkenazic Orthodoxy as a reaction to the universalistic and liberal tendencies of the Reform movement, but that is for another time.)

Because it seems that we cannot properly answer the question of whether a religion or group cares about x or y by looking at sources. Of course we can look at our sources, but do we choose to or do we just turn to them every now and again when it is convenient to pay lip service? There are many many Gemarah passages out there, do we assume that every person who subscribes to its sanctity consciously absorbs every teaching? Actively cares about it, regardless of its theoretical truth?

I have always had the exact same problem with the University student culture. For a few years a lot of noise is made about Socialism and world poverty but then they leave and go and work in a bank like the rest of the world, as though they had gone through a teenage phase that had been outgrown. How do we know what people really stand for? 

I don't know exactly, but I suggest that the best of way of telling is by asking them to quieten down and see what they do when the fanfare has gone.