To suggest that God specifically created a worm to torture small African children is blasphemy as far as I can see. The Archbishop of Canterbury doesn't believe that.

What humans do over the next 50 years will determine the fate of all life on the planet.

If we and the rest of the back-boned animals were to disappear overnight, the rest of the world would get on pretty well. But if the invertebrates were to disappear, the world's ecosystems would collapse

Steve Irwin did wonderful conservation work but I was uncomfortable about some of his stunts. Even if animals aren't aware that you are not treating them with respect, the viewers are.

Sentimentalising is anathema, as far as I am concerned. It leads you into ethical problems about violence and killing and eating meat. The whole world becomes topsy-survy if you impose moralities that were evolved within human society on what a blowfly or what a parasite does... there are lots of emotions you can deduce from an animal's behaviour that are correct, but when you start saying it's feeling guilty or thinking or a loved one or mourning, you must be very careful of those feelings.

If we were all to reduce our demands for energy, it would make an enormous amount of difference.

The nature of human beings is that they'd far rather face the disaster that is happening tonight than the one that is happening tomorrow.