Political column – October 28

FOR: (tick here). AGAINST: (tick here).

You may think it is a stupid question, and if you do you will have ticked the second box, or thought it too silly even to bother.

But in the interests of impartiality, we should examine both sides of the (so far) non-existent debate.

There are arguments which in some circumstances could make you want to back the prospect of the End of the World. Some are based in faith and religion, i.e. if it is God's will, then so be it, perhaps as a just punishment for all our sins.

There are secular arguments as well. The world is a not a good model for worlds, and if it were to be rebuilt from scratch, it could be made far better and certainly far kinder.

As configured it is a cruel place of pain and suffering, with the survival of living things depending on the killing and eating of other living things to give them sustenance.

It is an anomaly in the universe, an infinitesimal speck containing life amid trillions of light years of barren planets, stars, bits of space rock, and so on. So far as we know there is nobody else in the universe, so by definition nobody would miss it. What would it matter if the blue planet disappeared?

It is a concept which does not seem to have had much serious intellectual or philosophical discussion. It has, however, been explored in comedy, fantasy and sci-fi. Fans of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy will point out that the Earth was destroyed to make way for a hyperspace bypass.

Now for the other side of the argument. Saving the planet would ensure that rarest of thing, life, is preserved in the only place we know for sure it exists. Culpably presiding over the End of the World would be a criminal act of self harm and destruction which would go against all the survival instincts not only of humanity but virtually all forms of life.

We all have a responsibility to cherish and sustain the unique thing we have for the benefit of generations to come, although if you think about it even humans live only for a minuscule span of universal time, and the average lifespan for all life on Earth, including microbes and so on, must be less than a week.

That's a guess, but the way. Bacteria lives for somewhere between 12 minutes and 24 hours, so that must massively bring down the average.

The point of the above is not to advocate the End of the World, but to look at a different issue, which is one related to the workings of democracy. It is this: Is the End of the World something voters should be allowed to vote on?

There have been a number of by-election shocks in recent weeks, but the potentially most consequential was the one when the Conservatives actually held their seat. That was in Uxbridge where the electorate voted for little children in London to be poisoned by noxious fumes.

It seems that there was no excuse along the lines that they did not understand the issues, or maybe the issues that they understood were different issues to those they were supposed to have understood.

The voters behind Labour's failure to win the seat saw that the Ulez scheme to save the planet and spare the lives of little children would cost them £12.50 a day if they had non-compliant cars.

Ulez is just one of a number of good-for-the-environment measures which will be needed if Britain is to have a leadership role in acting to save the planet in the coming decades. Politicians, scientists, academics, and the cleverest of the cleverest are more or less united in acting as standard bearers for the noble cause.

But here's the thing. However clever they are, they only have one vote each. The masses have masses of votes.

That's why, if Britain is to make net zero progress, Uxbridge gives much food for thought.

In Uxbridge, Ulez has now come in. The vote there was simply ignored.

If voters cannot be trusted, don't trust them – is that the way forward?