Franklin D Roosevelt famously said: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”, while Vitalstatistix, the village chief in Asterix the Gaul, believed that the main threat was that “the sky may fall on his head tomorrow”. A close reading of great thinkers over the centuries suggests that Vitalstatistix may have been closer to the mark. Although, to be precise, it’s not so much the sky falling on our heads, but what might come out of the sky to wreak destruction upon the human race that has so exercised philosophers over the ages.

Of course, it’s understandable that extinction has long been a preoccupation for humanity. From volcanic eruptions blotting out the sun, to the prospect of other more advanced civilisations coming down to gobble us up, great minds from Epicurus to Copernicus to Halley and Leibniz, have all expressed fears that humanity is doomed. The fact that many of these people saw humanity as God’s finest creation is beside the point, all that notion did was to make people worried that if He made us, he must have made others like us – and had they developed more sophisticated weapons systems?

We still worry about the end of the world, but now it’s not others we fear, but our own destructive tendencies and what we are doing to our planet that is foremost in people’s thinking. And, worryingly, there’s a far greater scientific basis for that.

Cheery thought, isn’t it? So here’s another thing. If you think you are doing your thing for the planet by drinking from a reusable coffee cup, the science suggests they are no better than the old-style single-use cups.

This week we’ve also been reading about the history of smell, Boris Johnson’s boosterism and why it’s wrong to call almond milk juice. From our global network, a lovely read about the traditional Australian milk bar making a come back and, from our colleagues in Africa, the discovery of a new dinosaur.

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