Do we really require so many gardening programmes, makeover programmes or celebrity chefs?

Until humanity manages to sort itself out and get a co-ordinated view about the planet, it's going to get worse and worse.

The notion of ever more old people needing ever more young people, who will in turn grow old and need even more young people, and so on ad infinitum, is an obvious ecological Ponzi scheme.

I like animals. I like natural history. The travel bit is not the important bit. The travel bit is what you have to do in order to go and look at animals.

Its about cherishing the woodland at the bottom of your garden or the stream that runs through it. It affects every aspect of life.

The question is, are we happy to suppose that our grandchildren may never be able to see an elephant except in a picture book?

The whole of science, and one is tempted to think the whole of the life of any thinking man, is trying to come to terms with the relationship between yourself and the natural world. Why are you here, and how do you fit in, and what's it all about.