“Biologist E.O. Wilson once pondered whether many of our fellow living things were doomed once evolution gave rise to an intelligent, technological creature that also happened to be a rapacious carnivore, fiercely territorial and prone to short-term thinking.”

Enter the human race...

I must admit to being a liberal. I feel the pain of the world rather acutely, and feel the need to help those less fortunate. When I leave uni, I want to spend a few years giving back to the world through education, teaching people things that I know that will help their lives - for example, going to Amazonia and teaching ecology, so that the people there will be able to earn a living off the forest without damaging its future. However, I was having a discussion with my Dad the other day. He used to work as an aid agent - an economist who helps direct aid from agencies like the World Bank and UN to organisations that need it - and is now very disillusioned. He saw most of the aid money going to pay expat aid workers' salaries, rather than to helping the people, and has come to the conclusion that giving aid does nothing but teach people to put their hands out when the going gets tough.