For a man who loves hunting, fishing and shooting, Prince Philip may sound like an unlikely host for a vegan lunch.

But with more than 200 religious leaders representing nearly a dozen of the world’s faiths coming for lunch at Windsor Castle, the Duke of Edinburgh had to be careful what he offered his guests.

Beef, pork and indeed meat of any sort would have been unacceptable for many of those attending the Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC) event.

And given that his visitors were there for a conference on religion and the environment, the chefs had to be careful that the food was local and sustainable.

The menu started with a salad of roasted English pear, celeriac and cobnuts (a type of hazelnut grown in Kent).

For the main course, guests had mushrooms stuffed with artichoke, red onion and thyme, served on pearl barley and butternut squash risotto.

Instead of fine French wines, there were non-alcoholic cranberry and orange cocktails.

Lunch was served after a morning of speeches introduced by Prince Philip, who founded ARC in 1995 to help religions to develop environmental programmes.

In a speech that cited Dante and T.S. Eliot, the Bishop of London Richard Chartres said humanity was living out a sort of “cosmic drama” in five acts, with the final scenes about to unfold.

“Act 5…is just beginning,” he said. “It will decide whether humanity is just a dead-end in the unfolding story of life.”

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message to delegates in the vast Waterloo Chamber, built to mark the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, was just as stark: Mankind has only one home, planet Earth, and action must be taken immediately to save it.

“We may have to have nine more planets if you continue to emit greenhouse gas emissions like you have been doing,” he said.

It is rare that religion and science find agreement, but that is what happened when Britain's Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks spoke at a meeting on saving the earth from climate change.

"The great Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson published a book in 2007 called "Creation", subtitled An Appeal to Save Life on Earth," Sacks told leaders of all the major faiths meeting at Lambeth Palace in London on Thursday.

(Photo: A partially dried reservoir in Yingtan, Jiangxi province, China, 29 Oct 2009/stringer)

"I thought that was a very good book. E.O. Wilson is known not to be religious, but what this book was was a call to religious people and scientists to call off the war between religion and science and work together for the sake of the future of life on earth.

"And I felt that was a very generous and appropriate call by a non-religious scientist."

He said "that science and religion despite their apparent friction actually converge on a profoundly scientific and at the same time religious idea that there is a kinship of life and hence a covenant of life".

Not only did such a high-profile religious figure agree with the scientific world, but faith leaders found harmony among themselves at the same meeting.

Sitting next to Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual head of the Anglican Church, was the Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols, who only days earlier had delivered the Pope's offer to disaffected Anglicans the chance to convert to Rome.

Also attending were faith and community organisation leaders including Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Baha'i, Jain and Zoroastrian.

(Photo: Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, 23 July 2006/Paul Hackett)

Organised by Williams, the leaders issued a joint statement in which they "recognised unequivocally that there is a moral imperative" to tackle the causes of global warming.

They agreed to work together to raise awareness about the effects of "catastrophic climate change", saying it was the poor and vulnerable who most suffered from the ensuing droughts, floods, water shortages and rising sea levels.

Quoting from the book of Genesis, Sacks said man was placed on earth to serve it and protect it. "Man was a guardian, not the owner using and abusing the good things on earth," he said.

"We are taken from the earth and therefore owe it a sense of kinship and responsibility. We believe our very existence as human beings come wrapped up in environmental imperatives and ecological responsibility."

Drawing on the story of Noah's Ark where all animals, including the lion and the lamb, had to survive side by side, he said we would all drown if we failed to work together.

Of course, if everybody kept the Sabbath, when nobody drove cars, flew by plane, or switched on any electrical appliances, the environmental problem would be solved, he said.

But more realistically, a new set of rituals would have to be devised that recognise the importance of the environment.

"What religion allows us to do is take the big ideas and translate them into daily rituals," he said.

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Seven leading supermarkets and their customers are finding it slow going to stop using plastic bags.

Over the last three years supermarkets have reduced the number of bags from 870 million to 452 million, just failing to meet a government target to cut the number by half.

The reduction drew words of praise from Environment Secretary Hilary Benn.

“This is a great achievement by the seven supermarkets and their customers and it shows that by working together, we really can change our bag habits,” said Benn.

The British Retail Consortium has backed the government’s softly, softly stance.

“These figures send a clear message: the voluntary approach is very successful and can lead to better informed customers and lasting change,” said Stephen Robertson, the BRC Director General.

But with environmentalists saying plastic bags can take up to 1,000 years to disintegrate and pose threats to marine life, birds and other animals, the UN has recently called for governments to take a more punitive approach.

“Thin film single-use plastic bags which choke marine life, should be banned or phased-out rapidly everywhere — there is simply zero justification for manufacturing them anymore, anywhere,” said Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director in June.

Given that a number of countries throughout the world have already outlawed plastic shopping bags isn’t it time Britain took a more interventionist approach to curtailing their use?

The residents of Bundanoon in Australia, a picturesque tourist destination southwest of Sydney, have voted to rid their town of bottled water to reduce their carbon footprint. Tap’s good enough, they say.

Organizations like conservation group WWF have long campaigned against bottled water, saying resources are wasted in packaging and transporting a product which may be no safer or healthier than tap water while selling for up to a thousand times the price.

But the industry, not surprisingly, disagrees. A ban would reduce consumer choice and possibly tempt the thirsty masses to start drinking less healthy alternatives if all they could buy in the chilled cabinet of their local shop was sugary stuff like colas.   

“The environmental footprint of one bottle of locally produced water is much smaller than a tin of canned tomatoes imported from overseas, some imported cheese, or French champagne,” says a spokesman. “We need to keep it in perspective.”

Do you think a ban would work, or be desirable, in Britain?

A committee of MPs has warned police they must not impose restrictions on demonstrations “unless it is necessary and proportionate to do so.”

“The right to protest is a fundamental democratic right and one that the state and police have a duty to protect and facilitate,” said Andrew Dismore, chairman of the human rights committee.

The warning follows widespread protest at the way police handled a climate camp last year in Kent when demonstrators accused them of going in far too hard. 

They said police had used sleep deprivation and psychological tactics against environmentalists, including playing loud recordings of Richard Wagner’s “Flight of the Valkyries” and the Clash hit “I Fought the Law and the Law Won”.

With huge demonstrations expected in London next month for the G20 summit — probably the biggest since the anarchic Mayday protests of the 1990s – the issue is a topical one. 

Do you think the police here overstep the mark in their handling of public demos?

As a top-flight racing driver, Britain’s Science Minister Paul Drayson may seem an unlikely critic of the auto industry.

The self-confessed “car nut” owns a motor racing team and competes in a 200mph Aston Martin in competitions around the world.

 But at a news conference in London, he attacked the “significant minority” of auto industry executives who he claims still deny the evidence for climate change.

 ”It shocked me that those views were held by senior managers,” he said. “I have been actually quite surprised…(by) how many of them just do not accept the scientific evidence around climate change. It really shocked me.”

 Climate change is “the greatest challenge of our generation”, he added, and the problem is bigger than the global economic crisis.

 Pressed by reporters to name the doubting managers and their companies, Drayson declined and said the sceptical attitude was not confined to the car industry.

 He had met industrialists in all sectors who have yet to be convinced that human activities contribute to climate change.

 Car makers around the world say they are committed to reducing emissions blamed for contributing to global warming and are working hard to make their products more environmentally friendly. Battered by the economic downturn, they say they need more state aid to switch to electric and hybrid cars.

 While Drayson accepted that many in the car industry do accept the evidence for climate change, he said it was crucial to persuade the rest of the grave threats that lie ahead.

 ”What we need to do is present them with the evidence to say this can’t wait,” he told reporters at the Royal Institution, an independent charity devoted to scientific research.

 Part of that evidence will come, he hopes, from a new UK-based coalition that will use satellites to monitor the Earth’s climate, sea levels and atmosphere.

 More than 100 scientists from 26 British universities will work for the National Centre for Earth Observation, studying some of the biggest environmental questions.

 Its director Alan O’Neill said it will be a “vital tool in measuring and managing the health of the planet”. It could help see where earthquakes or volcanoes are likely to occur next, he added.

 ”This research is of vital importance,” Drayson said. “It is very hard to look at this data and still maintain the position that climate change isn’t happening.”

The government has approved the third Heathrow runway, in the interests of jobs and British competitiveness.

The third runway — something airport operator BAA pledged it would not seek if it was granted permission to build Terminal 5 — will open up a sharp political divide, with several Labour MPs, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats opposed to the idea.

A cross-party parliamentary group is expected to be formed this week to press for the construction of an airport in the Thames estuary, an idea that has the backing of London mayor Boris Johnson, and protest groups like Plane Stupid and Climate Rush say they will hold protests.

Which side are you on in the Heathrow debate?

Environmental protest group Plane Stupid manage to prevent at least 21 flights taking off when  they  invaded a runway at Stansted airport for five hours on Monday morning.

The group are protesting over the government’s decision to allow the expansion of Stansted Airport with a second runway. The protest also follows the decision last week by Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon to delay the decision on whether to build a third  runway at Heathrow until January.

Plane Stupid is the group that draped banners from the roof of the House of Commons and from a plane on the runway at Heathrow in February.

They say such direct action is vital to get the message across about the danger to the environment of aviation emissions. Do you agree?

Leaders of the G8 and the world’s developing nations have agreed a “shared vision” on fighting climate change — but long-standing differences have prevented them agreeing on any specific targets.

The G8 on its own favours a halving of harmful emissions by 2050 but industrialising nations like China and India will not sign up to that goal, arguing that their primary commitment is to improve the living standards of their people.

Without them on board, the U.S. will not ratify any agreement to cut its own emissions.

The “vision” declaration has been hailed by G8 leaders as a useful step ahead of 2009 when they will return to the issue and when America will have a new president with a greater mandate to take action.

But green groups are scornful. The WWF’s Global Climate Initiative calls it “pretty pathetic.”

Should world leaders be trying harder, or have fears of climate change have been overstated?

What’s your view?

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One of Gordon Brown’s favourite speech writers is leaving Number 10 to return to the Treasury. That gives Brown the perfect opportunity to draft in someone who has the ability to coin the kind of phrases that chime with the electorate and stick in people’s minds.

To date, that is something Brown, whose dismal year in office was underlined on Friday with a humiliating fifth place by-election finish for Labour, has signally failed to do. Sure, Brown wanted to move away from the accusations of endless spin that soured the public mood towards his slick predecessor Tony Blair.

But the mantras Brown has chosen to repeat ad nauseum since he took up the mantle of Prime Minister have failed to stick. Stressing how many people Labour has taken out of poverty in the past decade, or the need to take “long-term decisions” just isn’t working.

People need reassurance over fuel and food prices, over crime and security, but perhaps more than anything they need to be convinced Brown understands — and cares.

Brown — nicknamed the Iron Chancellor during his decade at the Treasury — is right to focus on the long-term. He wants to ensure people can afford to buy homes, that the country slashes its reliance on non-environmentally friendly energy, and that taxpayers have access to good healthcare, education and welfare support.

But with voters feeling the pinch, it’s the short term that’s key, and if Brown wants his messages about the kind of place Britain needs to become longer-term to stick, he might need to think about the kind of sound-bite approach that Blair used so well.

Brown’s tried a more “man of the people” approach but that hasn’t convinced. Voters are not warming to the serious, unsmiling Prime Minister. And if Brown can’t change his manner, then he needs to change the kinds of words he uses.

Of course, he will also need some luck. No amount of “in tune” rhetoric is going to help if people continue to feel he’s not the man to lead them through the economic bad times. But at the moment, his language and demeanour seem to compound voters’ unease. The Iron Chancellor risks becoming the leaden Prime Minister of British history: dull, inert and potentially poisonous.