There's probably no god...

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It always makes for a refreshing change when an advertising campaign agrees with you, especially when it has a positive point to make, rather than an intolerant one.

But whether or not you believe in a god, Ariane Sherine and the Atheist Bus Campaign have a point to make that is well worth listening to.

So, here's to redressing the balance and sanity of free speech and realising that religious intolerance works both ways.

Read the following two articles in order, to see what I mean:

Why should we put up with religious ads on the sides of buses?

All aboard the atheist bus campaign
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Humans in the driving-seat [Cheltenham Festival]

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The climatological and geological processes of the planet are being driven primarily by human beings for the first time in the Earth’s history, according to the Director of the Earth Institute.

Jeffrey Sachs, Special Adviser to the UN, said that he believes the Earth has entered a new age, the Anthropocene Epoch, where human activity is dominating many of the major processes on the planet.

Speaking at the Times Cheltenham Literature Festival, he said: “We are in the human driven phase of the earth, where core earth processes are actually dominated by human activity right now. That's a shocking concept for me, but I think it's right. It absolutely has not penetrated our understanding, and certainly not our political institutions and definitely not our policies and our behaviours.”

The term ‘anthropocene’ was coined by noble laureate Paul Crutzen, who discovered the ozone depletion effect, and the epoch is said to have begun in 1784, to coincide with James Watt’s invention of the steam engine.

Crutzen coined the term to replace the geological term Holocene, which refers to the current period as simply a “post ice age” or “interglacial” era in the Earth’s geology.

Mr Sachs said of climate change that: “Scientifically, it is being proven every day now to be far more dangerous and far more worrisome and close to the edge than we believed.

“We're destroying rainforests massively, altering habitats, acidifying the oceans, destroying coral, driving multiple species to profound declines of abundance and it's believed, although not proved, millions of species to outright extinction.

“Populations have taken over every ecological niche so extensively that our problems are not merely the climate change problem…but involve every part of the earth's systems. Humans have taken over the carbon cycle, that's the greenhouse effect. We're learning just how dramatic the climate change is likely to be, how it's being masked by pollutants that will be unmasked over time showing us that the warming is actually much larger than has already been observed.”

Mr Sachs explained that human beings have also taken over the Earth’s hydrogen cycle, and also the nitrogen cycle, by using tens of billions of tons of nitrogen-based fertilisers every year, which seep into groundwater and rivers and cumulate in the estuaries of the planet’s great river systems.

“We're having such profound effects in so many ways. This is not under control.

“George Bush has not lost a lot of sleep over this in the last eight years, and we don't have effective mechanisms right now for dealing with these factors.”

He also explained that climate change was having a more far-reaching effect than was realised, and could be the root cause of extremism and fundamentalism in parts of the world affected by changing environment.

Talking of extremist terror campaigns, he said: “These are not driven by ideology and by conflict with the West. They are driven by hunger, lack of water, lack of contraception and lack of livelihood.”

Mr Sachs said that the “fantasists” in the White House need to address the problem, but he expressed fears that the current financial crisis would completely divert attention away from the need to tackle climate change before it is too late.

“We have to stop short-term fire-fighting and focus on the long-term. Ok, we are having a financial crisis, but we must not stop working on climate change. These are the defining challenges of our generation.”

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Say No To Age Banding [Cheltenham Festival]

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The new practice of displaying age ratings on children’s books has been branded “ridiculous” by leading erotic novelist Jilly Cooper.

A number of publishing houses have this autumn begun putting “age bands” on their children’s books, to indicate whether they are suitable for readers aged 5+, 7+, 9+, 11+ or 13+/teen.

Erotic writer Jilly Cooper and crime novelist Ian Rankin, speaking at the Times Cheltenham Literature Festival this weekend, added their voices to the protest from writers against the practice of “age banding”.

Ms Cooper, famous for her racy ‘bonk buster’ novels such as Riders and Wicked, said: “It’s ridiculous. I can’t see how it would work. How do you put an age on that?”

Ian Rankin, who was a Guest Director of the Cheltenham Literature Festival this weekend, said: “We've been here so many times in the past with books that are meant to be dangerous and shocking. We've been there a few times with books meant for the teenage market that deal with homosexuality or drug abuse or whatever is deemed to be ‘dangerous’, in inverted commas.

“It's extraordinary, these amateurs who say what we can and can't read.”

The controversy came to light earlier this year when the novel Cookie by celebrated children’s author Jacqueline Wilson was given a 9+ rating, even though the novelist had signed the Say No To Age Banding petition, spearheaded by Philip Pulman, which has received over 750 signatures from leading children’s writers including JK Rowling and Terry Pratchett.

Besides the ideological concerns over prescribing what children can and cannot read, many authors and independent booksellers have expressed fears that age banding will put unfair pressure on children who are not strong readers.

Ms Cooper said: “If there's one child who's not very bright how do you say what age he reads at?”

One young reader, 13-year-old Hannah from Northumberland, said: “I think it's an awful idea because older children might be embarrassed about reading books for a younger age.”

Mr Rankin, author of the Rebus novels, agreed. “It's especially aggrieving to children's writers who could be starting to not be read by under 12s or under 8s, for example.

“It's the publishers. I don't know who's putting pressure on publishers to do this. So put your name to the petition - there's a petition to stop it.”

Mr Rankin explained that being able to read any book, regardless of its “suggested age”, was an important part of a child’s experience with reading and literature.

“At a young age, I started going to my local library and borrowing books because I discovered that no-one would stop me borrowing books from the library of films that I wasn't old enough to go and see at the cinema. I couldn't go and see Straw Dogs, I couldn't go and see One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, I couldn't go and see the Godfather, these were all 18 certificate or X certificate, but I could walk into a library as a 12-year-old and nobody could stop me taking those books out.

“Books were for me illicit information. It was a fantastic sort of rite of passage.”

Publishing houses have claimed that parents would welcome the guidance on age ratings for books, and have said that they will press ahead with the scheme unless individual authors object.

A statement from the Publishers' Association Children's Book Group said: "There always has been, and still is, no question of age guidance being added to a book without full consultation with the author."

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