So it begins

... if people have ignored climate change because there was no tangible effect on their lifestyle, then now is the beginning of the end of their way of life. Today's Independent reports on the worldwide food shortages that are starting through spiralling costs of basic foodstuffs as more countries change their diets to unsustainable Western levels. The full story can be read here, but perhaps the most shocking sentence in the whole piece is this: "Worldwide, an area of fertile soil the size of Ukraine is lost every year because of drought, deforestation and climate instability." This at a time when the World Bank predicts demand for food will double from its present levels by 2030. The sums don't add up, and yet we still sit here merrily speeding towards a hasty exit. What price the stupidity of the human race? Our very existence?

In other news, bravo to this old lady in Liverpool for submitting planing permission to demolish the Tesco owner's house. Tesco can talk about jobs all it likes, but if we start ignoring the rights of individuals then we move one step closer to the police state it sometimes feels we're hurtling towards...