No one really cares enough

No one really cares enough to do anything about the environment. We know what we should do, but we just don't. The things we care about are (in the UK) schools, crime, money, flower competitions in little villages, and hospitals, with a sideline in charity (and charities that help little kittens abandonned by their nasty owners are just as important, if not more so, than those that help victims of genocide in Congo).

You could argue that actually people do care, but we need the politicians to pass laws that will make a difference. But we live in a democracy, and we're free to vote for the Green party, or write to our MP (what would happen if everyone in the country wrote a personal letter to the Prime Minister? Downing Street filled from end to end with 60 million letters? For the cost of a stamp, we could do something never before done ever, anywhere in the world, in the entire history of mankind. But 99% of the population just can't be bothered, so simple as it sounds, it could never, ever, happen).

So even though sorting out the environment is the biggest and most important challenge that humans have ever had to face, society has relegated it to just another special interest group, like campagning against a phone mast next to a school.

Luckily, it doesn't really make a lot of difference anyway. Whatever we do to the environment, however much the sea level rises, no matter how many species we destroy, the world will still be here. Even if we wipe out every animal on the planet including ourselves and life has to start again from the bacteria up (or not, if you don't believe in evolution), the world itself couldn't care less.

Whaling

I'm loving the irony that whaling in Faroe has been abandoned, not because the greenies have won the argument, but because the oceans are now so full of pollution from mercury, PCBs and DDT that the whalemeat is too poisonous to eat!

People who are lovely

Sometimes I meet people who are lovely. People with a wonderful heart, kind, generous, friendly, helpful. And sometimes I'm a little surprised that they're single. Sadly, there's usually some little thing, something that I can see would affect how a member of the opposite sex would see them at a first meeting. But you only have to dig a little deeper, or meet them under the right circumstances, to see their true personality shine through.

How do we get these wonderful people matched up with each other, so they all have someone to love? Answers, and flowers from San Francisco, on a postcard (or email)...

Creationism vs Evolution

How do you include creationism and evolution in science lessons? Nothing could be simpler. Here's my step-by-step guide.

1. Start by explaining what a theory is. A theory is an idea that a) explains the observed facts, b) is testable and c) makes predictions. THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT! THIS WHAT A THEORY IS! IF A THEORY DOESN'T DO THESE THREE THINGS, IT'S NOT A THEORY!

2. Take a few facts, like these:

• There a bones buried in the ground and when we date them, they appear to be 10 million years old. And they don't look like any living animal.
• Humans share some chunks of DNA with other animals and use them for the same function. We even share a few chunks with slugs and bacteria.

3. Explain that evolution can explain these facts in incredible detail, right down to the atomic level (you can look this up yourself; I'm currently reading "Vital Dust" by Christian De Duve, which explains part of the story in a dull but fascinating way). Explain that evolution is testable (you can test it in a few days with bacteria and antibiotics). Explain that evolution makes predictions (how about "organisms must be able to pass on their characteristics to their offspring, nearly identically but with occasional mutations? This is what we now call DNA).

4. Explain that creationism does not explain the observed facts (it tells us the earth is 6000 years old, not 10 million); it is not testable (how would you test the "made in 6 days" bit?); it does not make predictions (the story ends on day 7 - there is no more to tell).

5. Conclude that evolution is a theory, whereas creationism is just, well, a "story", no more likely to be true than "the moon is made from cheese".

As an aside, you can point out a couple of bonus points:

a) You can NEVER prove a theory true and a theory is NEVER guaranteed to be right. THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT! Every theory ever is just waiting for the fact it can't explain. If a theory doesn't work, it gets ditched. This is absolutely fine and dandy. If someone found, for example, God's phone number, and phoned her up and got her just to confirm the creation story, that would be just fine. Good by evolution.

b) "evolution by natural selection" is actually just a few logical ideas that anyone can see is right if they stop and think for a few minutes. You can make it happen in a computer simulation. Cities evolve by natural selection (that's why they're usually build next to large rivers, for example). The controversy only comes when you use it to explain the origin of life. If you can't accept the principle of "evolution by natural selection" as being sound, irrespective of whether it explains life, then you cannot follow a logical argument and there is no hope for you!

Whether you're a creationist or a evolutionist, you can still use the above steps, and everyone can live in harmony.

Single finger Twix

Hang on a minute... you can't have a single-finger snack-size-pack Twix. The whole point in a Twix is that it has TWO fingers, hence the name: it sounds like "twin" because it traditionally has twin fingers.

The world has gone completely mad!

Hydrogen commons

People get all worked up about what sort of energy to use. Current reserves are about 40 years of oil, 150 years of coal, 85 years of urnaium (that's what powers nuclear power stations) and 60 years of natural gas. These aren't anti-fossil-fuel scaremongering figures, they're just a random selection of sources from within the industry.

That's based on current usage levels. Global usage is going up, so we're going to run out faster. Also, long before we run out, demand will outstrip supply which will mean we won't be able to afford much fuel, even though there's "lots" left.

But opponents of renewables go on about how they don't generate as much energy as claimed, and point out fatal flaws, like solar doesn't work at night and wind farms don't work if it's not windy.

The answer is actually really simple - we need ALL these sources of energy, and more besides. We also need some common way of storing, transporting and using energy. Currently, that appears to be hydrogen.

Elecricity can be used to drive almost any machine or process, but it's very hard to store lots of it. That's why we don't (generally) have electric cars or aeroplanes. We can't take the spare electricity that wind farms produce on windy days and store it in barrels or gasometers, to use on still days.

But hydrogen can be stored and piped around (it's a bit tricky, because hydrogen is explosive and needs to be heavily compressed or super-cold, but we can do it). Hydrogen can easily be burnt, like petrol (gasoline), to turn engines and power aircraft. And it's really easy to make hydrogen. You just need to pass electricity through salty water, and hydrogen gas bubbles out. Try it at home - just run a couple of wires from a 9 Volt battery into a glass of salty water.

This leads to an interesting, renewable, ever-lasting source of carbon-neutral power: build off-shore windfarms that pass the electricity they generate straight through the sea water to generate electricity, then pump it to shore. Start building them just beyond sight of the shore, and keep going, year after year, until you've got enough. In the mean time, you can generate hydrogen from any form of electricity, e.g. nuclear or fossil-powered power stations.

Because you can store hydrogen, you no longer have to worry about how generate power when the sun goes behind a cloud at your solar farm. You can also power cars and aeroplanes directly from it.

So there's the idea: we need a common fuel that can be generated anywhere from any other source of energy, that we can transport and store, and use to power anything. As soon as we've got that, all our energy problems disappear. And hydrogen would be just ticket.

Cold-housing

Hot-housing is when pushy parents give their kids all kinds of extra tuition and experiences in the hope of turning them into superhumans. As we all know, you don't have to be super-skilled or extra-talented to do well in life, so it's all a bit pointless. However it does create irritating, arrogant little brats who, like their parents have a shallow and meaningless set of moral values.

The opposite of hot-housing is cold-housing. This is where parents can't be even be bothered to do the basics, like reading their children bedtime stories or taking them to the park. Maybe the parents are just don't realise that it's important to do these things with their kids. Maybe their parents never read stories to them. The result is irritating, arrogant little brats who, like their parents have a shallow and meaningless set of moral values.