It is important to re-state the truth: Our very survival as a species may now be under threat. A mass of other species have already been committed to extinction. That’s why we are in rebellion.

For those tens of millions of us who have been watching the extraordinary

‘Blue Planet II’, the final programme in the series (which looked at the human-caused threats facing the seas) may have come as both a wake-up call and a disappointment. Disappointment, at what we’ve done to this beautiful planet. And perhaps also, disappointment that the BBC didn’t look deeply enough into why these harms have happened.

What emerges when we reflect more profoundly in this way?

Why are those so opposed to migration so blind to something that will cause it to increase so dramatically?

I’m not talking about the sheer barkingness and loose-cannonness of so many of UKIP's Councillors and MEPs; I’m not talking about how their plans to move to an American-style healthcare system (i.e. to dismantle the NHS) will doom them electorally once voters get to know about them; I’m not even talking about their barely-suppressed racism and anti-Muslim prejudice which will surely come back to bite them as Britain keeps becoming a more tolerant society. I’m talking about their outright climate-denial, and the consequences thereof, consequences that I think we are only just starting to understand.

Over the past 12 months, there have been repeated calls for a 'UKIP of the left'. Including from prominent voices such as John Harris in the Guardian, from the New Statesman, and more. The latest is Simon Jenkins, writing in the Guardian. His article (Jan 24) supportive of the Brighton Green administration's referendum on increasing Council Tax (to preserve vital services that government cuts are endlessly squeezing) is welcome. His claim that the Greens are 'the UKIP of the left' however requires further examination.

Last week in Parliament the new ‘Green House’ thinktank launched with a report I’ve authored on how to restructure our democratic institutions to take account of those who are not here yet: future people. The 30 page report prepared with the assistance of the new ‘Alliance for future generations’ umbrella-group of NGOs is called Guardians of the Future.

The starting point of my thinking on all this is this question: ‘Democracy’ means ‘government by the people’, but who are ‘the people’?

Green Party leader and MP Caroline Lucas this morning welcomed the formation of a new green think tank, to be called Green House. I chaired the launch meeting this morning, in my capacity as Chair of Green House.

The most crucial argument in favour of a no-fly-zone is that it is what the free Libyans, at least as manifested in the Transitional National Council in Benghazi (the fledgling caretaker-government-in-waiting), have themselves called for. Just as we supported sanctions against South Africa because it was what the black South Africans themselves called for, so we should do what the free Libyans are calling for.

I’ve made the case for AV in detail here and here. I thought I had worked out all the pro-AV arguments. But sometimes a question comes along that makes one realise that there is still more to learn.

Example… I was recently asked this question: "Will there be an option, in AV, to just vote for one party when not wanting any of the others in at all?"

The Green Party in England could be on the verge of another breakthrough, after the election of their first MP to Westminster this May.