Let Them Drink Beer

Diversity, as usual, is proving a bit of a problem. Such is Britain's geological confusion, resulting from millions of years of influx by alien minerals, that the Government's chums in the shale-fracking industry have been warned of likely difficulties. Many of these difficulties will be easily soluble, because they will only arise if the frackers should choose to bother themselves about such minor issues as the potability of local water supplies. The British Geological Survey, working in cahoots with the Government's religious adversaries in the Environment Agency, has also detected concentrations of methane, which is a far more powerful driver of climate change than carbon dioxide and may cause a certain credibility deficit in priestly claims that shale-fracking reduces greenhouse emissions. However, the major methane concentrations are nowhere near London, so that solves that. Still, it does seem a pity that Britain's geography is so uncongenial towards more sustainable sources of energy. If only we lived on some smallish islands in the North Atlantic, for example, the potential for exploiting wind and wave power might well be worth looking into.