In her article calling into question the practicality of the Green Party’s platform, Margaret Wente references the writer George Monbiot, who suggests that environmentalists should “abandon magical thinking”. Sure. More pragmatism and fewer delusions are better for any political party. However, it is those who choose to ignore the facts of ecology, I would argue, that are in greater need of abandoning magical thinking – the magical thinking that the Universe somehow owes a particular mammalian species an endless march towards “progress” unimpeded by the limits of the natural world.

 At least there are a few in political power who have made an effort to understand the science of sustainability and have it reflected in their policies. The laws of physics won’t simply go away just because “the vast majority of people on the planet prefer progress and economic growth to no growth”.