I was very interested to read what you quote the Prime Minister as saying in today's Telegraph: "I am strongly convinced ", so Mr Blair, [that] we must encourage science to push forward the boundaries of knowledge if we are to address what in historical terms is the most momentous issue of our times - creating environmentally sustainable growth" (Blair finds 'extreme greens' beyond pale, 20 February, 2001).

"Environmentally sustainable growth". Perhaps someone can explain to me what he means, because to my way of thinking, any form of growth within a finite system can only be sustained for a limited period of time, unless it becomes part of a dynamic long-term equilibrium in which there is in fact no net growth - which is how life has succeeded in maintaining itself on our planet for so long.

Could it be that Mr Blair's "sustainable growth" is no more than nonsensical doublespeak unconsciously intended to obscure the incompatibility of current economic practice and theory - both of which demand continuous growth - with the physical reality of life on a large but finite planet, which for its part demands limits to growth?

In a sense other than he intends, and ominously indicated in two other reports in today's Telegraph, this really is "the most momentous issue of our times" (Global warming is melting the snows of Kilimanjaro, 20 February, 2001; Price we could pay for global warming, 20 February, 2001).