Plants show signs of responding to stimuli. That response is consistent with pain reactions, and passing that information on to other plants. It’s also consistent with several other explanations that I’m sure you are capable of working out for yourself.

I said nothing about veganism being more “natural”, and to suggest it’s better as a result of being more natural commits all kinds of logical fallacies.

If you think that research conclusively proves that plants feel pain, then you really need a more solid grounding in science.

So, it is okay to wear a leather belt - product of the suffering of an animal, by your own logic, because I’m not the one it was made for?

No, there are some studies that suggest plants might feel pain. That’s a long way from proof. It is fair to say that there is a case for acting on the possibility that plants might be able to suffer, but that’s a more complicated philosophical question. After all, it’s only relatively recently that humans have…

You also have the complication that many people, vegans included, will reclaim and repurpose items that would otherwise end in a landfill site. Does it cause less damage to use a leather belt that someone else is throwing out rather than buy a new plastic one that is a product of the petrochemical industry? It seems…

The key here is the differences between “living”, “sentient” and “able to suffer”. It’s in no way hypocritical to try to limit the suffering caused by our actions. If anything, to do otherwise is a marker of some very nasty attitudes.

It may be true that lumping you in with anti-vaxxers is lazy insult. It’s also lazy insult to describe something as an “evil beastie” (your words) when it might or might not be responsible for biting you in self defence.

There are wolf spiders that can, and will, bite under certain circumstances. There are those who will react to such bites worse than others - and your symptoms are consistent with the possibility that something (not necessarily a spider, but possibly, depending on where you live (in the UK, no; in Australia, I…

I really don’t see what your problem is. Humans are much more of a threat to spiders (and just about everything else, including each other) than spiders are to humans.

Most wolf spiders lack the anatomy to inject venom into human skin. Most bites attributed to wolf spiders are the responsibility of other genera. Indeed most spiders, like most other nonhuman species, will only bite if provoked. If you leave them alone, they will leave you alone.

The keys to that being “in the region” (you ignore other regions) and “annually” (it keeps going, and some research says it’s accelerating).

Let’s deal with the Dutch, first. They have dikes, dikes which will be under increasing pressure and which require a massive civil engineering budget (they spend the equivalent of about US$10 billion annually on water management, a figure which will only get bigger). Bangladesh doesn’t have this (but it does have a…

Migration levels in Bangladesh at 1m sea level rise are estimated at 14,800,000 people by inundating a 29,846 sq. km. area, by the Fourth Assessment Report.

Denial Phase 3, again (the one where you finally get round to accepting it’s happening, that we are the cause, but you try to prove it’s not a big deal). Interesting. Is this the latest set of instructions from the Heartland Institute? Look, we’re on to you, okay?

1) IPCC projections are inherently conservative, due to the agreement processes, since they don’t take into account factors for which we have a wide range of projections, which means the situation could well be a great deal worse. It’s unlikely to be better, because the factors in which the scientists have high…

This will contribute very little to sea-level rise. This plus all the other melting ice will contribute a great deal to sea-level rise, and that will be a disaster of epic proportions, and hundreds of millions are forced to move inland on to territory that is already use for something or other. Larsen B is a marker…

It looks like a normal evening on this Isle of Rum to me.

Bt is effective against bees, ants, wasps, sawflies, beetles, flies, moths, butterflies and nematodes.

Except that traditional farming is based on geographically limited landraces, adapted to local conditions (which you’ve just admitted knowing nothing about), with seed being saved from year to year - the precise opposite of the systems GMOs are predicated upon, with high-yield maize and soya to feed the growing demand…