Tristram Stuart

It feels like an easy sum to gauge the balance between forests and, say, the proliferating free newspapers that litter our public transport. This noxious combination of words and paper represents a clear-cut crime against the biosphere.

What happens when we're willing to feel bad is that, sure enough, we often feel bad - but without the stress of futile avoidance. Emotional discomfort, when accepted, rises, crests, and falls in a series of waves. Each wave washes parts of us away and deposits treasures we never imagined.

I want to tell mayors, county chiefs and heads of big companies: don't just chase GDP growth; don't chase the biggest profits at the expense of our children and grandchildren and at the cost of sacrificing our ecological environment.

Well, there's no question that the law passed in 1996 was flawed. It deregulated the wholesale market, meaning the price that the utilities had to pay energy companies for power, but not the retail market.