I’ve no time for a serious and thoughtful post this evening, having spent most of the past few hours wrestling with Zonealarm. Why is it that anti-virus etc programmes always start out working well, then gradually get worse and worse?

I was going to uninstall and replace it, but it provide impossible to remove the programme without wrecking the machine – great way to keep people with you. So know I’ve bought the upgrade – and that won’t install. Grrrrrrrr!!!

Don’t get into Zonealarm is my advice.

Anyway, since I have no energy to do more than grumble, I’ll send you over to The Coffee House, for a not-too-serious quiz on climate change: what’s the best thing to do to tackle climate change. Nuking the US is offered as an option – undoubtedly effective, but no, I resisted the temptation to vote for it…

UPDATE: Link to quiz now added – sorry about that. I wasn’t in a good way last night!

If you force budget airlines to pay the real environmental cost of their flights, the poor will be disadvantaged – unable to make that one trip to the sun that makes the rest of the year bearable: so the story goes.

But new research puts lie to that one – because as we all know it costs plenty to travel, even if the flight costs nothing.

So says a definitive survey:

The CAA will announce that the social profile of air passengers has hardly changed in the past ten years, during which Ryanair and easyJet have grown from tiny operations to become two of the biggest airlines in Europe.
The survey will strengthen the case made by David Miliband, the Environment Secretary, for imposing green taxes on flights.
The CAA wants to dispel the belief that budget airlines have made air travel more inclusive and that raising taxes on flights would disproportionately affect people on low incomes.
Ryanair sells millions of return tickets costing less than £40, but the poor still cannot afford all the other costs of a foreign trip, such as hotels and meals, the survey says.

It just struck me that I’ve written about Saturday’s climate change rally in London everywhere but here, so for the record, the collection: I’ve got a straight news piece on OhMyNews, a comment piece on Guardian blogs, reflecting on how a tiny fraction of the human beings who have ever lived have consumed an enormous percentage of the earth’s resources, and here’s my favourite protester, who I haven’t managed to place elsewhere…

And here’s a more typical scene – which explains why, with 25,000 people there, I spent most of my time flitting around the edges taking photos. (I don’t deal well with being in the middle of large crowds – partly due to my Australian idea of personal space.)