Bees do it

As far as the health of the planet is concerned the human race is less significant than bees and plankton according to a recent Earthwatch debate in London.

Earthwatch has been running these balloon-style debates for a few years now where academics take the platform at the Royal Geographical Society and argue in favour of a particular environmental cause or species.

This time the voting audience had to rank bees, bats, primates (including us), fungi and plankton in order of their importance to the environment. Prof David Thomas almost won the day with plankton but George McGavin swung it for bees with an argument that highlighted the plight of declining bee numbers, globally.

A quarter of a million species of flowering plants depend on bees. Many of these plant species are crucial to world agriculture. Forget your apples and oranges without bees. Some bee populations are in trouble yet a world without them would be "totally catastrophic," said McGavin.

It's good to know where we come in Earth's pecking order. I can't say I was surprised to discover that humans came behind plankton. In my experience it's not always easy to tell them apart.

If, like me, you missed the debate, there's a chance to catch it on BBC Radio Four at 8pm, New Year's Eve.

The picture here shows bees winning a previous debate.

George Mallory's boot

In all the recent financial chaos I have forgotten to write about a more pleasant experience involving an Earthwatch meeting and a visit to the Royal Geographical Society.

I have been a trustee of Earthwatch Europe for many years and welcomed a recent suggestion to pool many of the resources of European and US, Japanese and Australian affiliates.

Because of charity law we cannot pool financial resources and must remain distinct charities but that has not prevented us from creating a joint body which shares many of the same employees, thus preventing duplication of expensive staff.

The respective charity trustees and senior staff met, therefore, over two days in London to agree the ground rules and structure of the organisation in future (or "going forward") as we were reminded constantly.

Have you noticed how much that needless phrase is used by executives? We're not standing still or going backwards, so why do some feel the need to be using the words "going forward" all the time? The answer is that the phrase is used unconsciously like much other management jargon as a kind of "filler".

Anyway after spending most of the day going forward at the RGS it was exciting to go back in time as we were led down to the research rooms where a table had been laid out with some of the prize exhibits from the society's collection of two million items (including a million maps).

There was George Mallory's boot recovered from the slopes of Everest, an oxygen pack from the 1953 successful Everest expedition led by Sir John Hunt, a Burberry's hood worn by Sir Ernest Shackleton, and, best of all the hats worn by David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley at their historic meeting in Africa. It made the hair stand up on the back of your neck.

It felt very special to be viewing these treasures but - and this is the great thing about the society's collection - these items are there for any of us to see on request if we pay the modest fee for a research day.

Earthwatch has moved on some, since I became a trustee and today it plays an ever strengthening role in partnering with companies, helping to enlighten employees on some of the most pressing environmental issues of our times. One of its strongest partnerships has been established with HSBC Bank. At a time that the banking sector is struggling it is good to see that this programme is demonstrating the positive measures that can be undertaken by enlightened employers.

Workworld begins to bite

With 200 blogs under my belt I'm beginning to suffer from blog fatigue. There have a been a few days recently when I have started a blog and thought: what the hell? Like that day back in the 1950s when a radio newsreader on the Light programme announced "There is no news today." Those were the days.

Things that gripped me in the train carriage on a morning have faded by the time I get to my screen on an evening and just lately I have been travelling up and down to London a little bit more than I had planned.

Last week, for instance, I had marked out every day in my diary to got to the British Library and do some book research. Then other things intervened - a lunch here, a meeting there and before I knew it the precious library week was lost.

If I'm not careful this free agent lifestyle is going to begin looking a little too much like a job again.

Two of the days last week, however, were spent doing voluntary work, one judging the annual Work Foundation Workworld awards for journalists and the other attending a trustee board meeting at Earthwatch Europe.

The media awards were as revealing as ever. It's a shame that the deliberations must be kept in confidence.

Earthwatch has been experiencing quite a few changes as it begins to tackle a big new delivery programme funded by HSBC bank. The US-side of the charity has been struggling to fill places in the programme as travelling becomes less attractive for Americans because of the weak dollar and continuing fears over international terrorism.

But the charity I'm sure is robust enough to overcome these problems. In the meantime its work with companies and the learning modules it is developing for employees are taking it in to some exciting areas in employee learning and development. Companies that are trying to come to terms with the growing environmental issues of our time can and do find a well of inspiration and expertise in the Earthwatch family.

Earthwatch programmes are open to everyone. I have been on two in the past, in Poland and in Madagascar. I'd like Gill to go on another one but haven't persuaded her yet. The last one she attended involved catching crocodiles in the Okavango delta and I'm wondering if she thought I was trying to get rid of her.

Winning the lottery - a chance to dream

Well what would you do if you won £35m on the lottery? In my case its academic since I don’t do it, never have done. But that doesn’t prevent me from playing the game of “what if?” I’m sure I’m not alone.

I suppose the first question to ask is, who to tell? It must be difficult suppressing that kind of news. After all, you may say, what’s the point of being filthy rich if no-one knows? The point is that this will be your only opportunity to stay as you are relative to others after the event. It’s no good telling everyone and then saying that it won’t change you. It already has in the eyes of others.

The eyes of others matter. To what extent are you your own man or woman? And to what extent is your identity shaped by the perceptions of others? After all, you will not be delivering the eulogy at your funeral. Someone else will. The famous are shaped by events. For history they are shaped by their obituaries and their biographies.

I wouldn’t tell a soul beyond my wife, at least for the first 24-hours. The news would be treated with the same kind of secrecy expected of those who are informed of a pending knighthood. I wouldn’t even tell the children.

Suppose the lottery owners - and I don’t know whether they do this or not – offered various services or incentives in return for publicity? The front page “advertisements” like those enjoyed by Camelot this week are worth hundreds of thousands of pounds as revenue generators in the way that they inject renewed interest into this business of hope.

It would need to be a big incentive to win my co-operation. No, I would go for privacy first and the “do nothing” option until the implications began to sink in. Then I would start to worry. I’d worry about how to ensure my boys retained a work ethic when they did not need to work. I might even worry about the work ethic itself: what’s the point of it? But I do that already almost all the time. That’s why I spent a year writing this book.

I don’t need to worry about helping immediate members of the family since they are all pretty well off. We don’t need any new material things. We could do with a new oven although we manage pretty well with the one we have (that’s what we say of just about everything we think we need).

Would I give up writing my column in the FT? Not sure. I certainly wouldn’t give up writing this blog. In terms of spending I would probably look at the possibility of buying a salmon fishing beat in Scotland, somewhere on the Dee, both banks. That would eat up a few million. Either that or I would try to increase the number of beat rentals I had.

Yes, the fishing beat sounds a good idea. I would live nearby and maintain a good hut by the water. I’d offer the ghillie’s job to a friend. I have one in mind. But would he accept? Not everything about ghillieing is glamorous.

Beyond the tweeds and the river lore there’s the need to clean out the chemical toilets every week. I’d offer to split that job with him. I reckon that if you’re £35m to the better it’s probably a good idea to retain a few lavatory cleaning duties, just to keep your feet on the ground.

I would write a book about fishing, in the spirit of Charles Ritz who wrote A Fly Fisher’s Life. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that devoting the rest of one’s life to fishing is not a bad way to deal with a big lottery win. I’m sort of heading that way anyway, without a lottery win behind me. As my mother used to say, there’s more than one way of skinning a cat.

Should I give anything away to charity? Probably; although it would have to be one that’s well run. I think that the rich do pretty well with charities so I would be interested in supporting maybe something like the Prince’s Trust. I was also attracted recently to Sir Tom Hunter’s foundation. It’s significant, perhaps, that Warren Buffet has given many of his millions to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Buffet is only interested in investing in well-run organisations.

Would I give anything to Earthwatch, the charity I support chiefly with my time as a trustee? I’d give them something to fund a pet project that’s been up my sleeve for a while, possibly asking them to partner with the Royal Society for the Arts, another of my favourite organisations.

I suppose media recognition is not such a bad thing if you use it sensibly to highlight a cause. I want to do more than I’m doing just now to highlight the plight of the oceans and to curb exploitation and waste through by-catches in commercial fishing. But I can do that by writing about it. I have the wherewithal at my fingertips, literally, to influence this stuff, so why waste time pondering over lottery wins when it’s not going to happen to me? No point dreaming, there’s work to be done.

Achieving affluence the Kalahari way

A taxi driver told me this week that global warming was "all a con by the government to tax the motorist". But listening to Chris Rapley, director of the British Antarctic Survey, at an Earthwatch lecture in Oxford on Wednesday I was wondering if the taxi driver might be mistaken.

Prof. Rapley is as certain as anyone can be that global warming is happening. Moreover, he doesn't hedge his bets by talking only about climate change that could be explained as a cyclical thing. He says that we're to blame. Us. People. That's you, me, the taxi driver and Prof Rapley. It's our mums and dads, neighbours and relatives and Karl Benz.

I wouldn't include the Kalahari bushmen, the aborigines or the pygmies in this list. Little children, too, might escape blame, although they will not escape the legacy of a 20th century that will probably be remembered - if the human race lives long enough to enjoy a memory - as the age of the internal combustion engine or maybe the oil age.

Prof Rapley showed us graphs where the line over time is a gentle, almost imperceptible upward slope - population, atmospheric carbon levels and mean global temperature. Then suddenly when the historic clock reaches the late 19th century the graph curves steeply as if it's met a big wall.

He showed us pictures of breaking ice sheets, the melting arctic and polar bears swimming (although there was a story this week of polar bear populations rising. How come?). "This stuff isn't rocket science," he said, "And I should know. I am a rocket scientist."

Saying something like that on a platform must be every rocket scientist's dream. You'd make sure you practiced that line in front of the mirror. Anyway it got a laugh.

But global warming itself is no longer a laughing matter. Neither is it a matter only for Al Gore or the next Earth summit. We all have to do our bit. I'm doing bugger all whenever I can since doing bugger all is very helpful at combating global warming.

Original affluent society

Anthropologists have noted the way that the Hadza bush tribes spend much of their time sitting around throwing dice because they don't need to hunt much to survive. "Hadza men seem more concerned with games of chance rather than chances of game," wrote Marshall Sahlins who described them as the "original affluent society".

The Kalahari bush people have life taped. They walk around as hunter gathers have always done, living off the land. They can carry all they use for the hunt and for living. Yes, they need everything they have, but they have everything they need. Now their life is endangered since diamond mining interests are shifting them off the land they have walked for thousands of years.

An ancient and successful way of life is being destroyed because diamonds are a girl's best friend. It's the price of bling.

While the rest of us are busy measuring our carbon footprints, its worth recalling that the Hadza leave scarcely a footprint. Not even Ray Mears could manage that.

If you're dubious about my doing-bugger-all approach and want to get serious about carbon offsetting, visit this site and read all about it