We make no apologies for devoting this space to the future of the planet for the second consecutive day or for producing a special edition to mark World Environment Day, organised by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and designed to raise awareness of the issues of global warming and climate change.

Many of our readers will no doubt feel that they are being swamped with messages in all forms of media urging them to play their part in helping to slow down the effects of our indulgent lifestyle.

There is a very simple reason: it has become a real and pressing problem, one which governments and society generally have been too slow to react to. It is very easy for us to shrug our shoulders and say "We can't do anything about it", or "It's up to the Government", or "It's up to business", or "It's up to the emerging industrial countries of China and India to take action to stop this happening."

But that route is an easy cop-out and shirks our responsibility. All of us have an impact on our environment every single day and in very simple ways, be it the fuel we use in our cars, the packaging on food products and other items we buy or the number of foreign holidays we are tempted to take via bargain airlines.

No-one is saying we have to give up all luxuries and pleasures and live the life of a monk. But if each one of us simply thought about our actions and exercised a degree of moderation, our combined contribution to the future of the planet would be huge.