Among the imperishable Parkinson's Laws is the Law of Inverse Proportion. He applied it particularly to high finance, pointing out that proportionately more time is spent considering a small item of spending than a large one.

His invented example was of a council virtually nodding through £10m for an Atomic Reactor (this was 1958), then having a protracted debate about £350 to be spent on a bicycle shed at the council offices.

But the law of inverse proportion operate in other fields too. A plan to build houses on a playing field might have a whole district up in arms. But a threat to the planet? Forget it.

On March 31, a report of the largest-ever study of the health of the Earth was published by the UN. The four-year £13m project found our world on the brink of disaster - perhaps even over it. Forests, farmland, grassland, rivers, lakes, seas, the atmosphere - all are in crisis. A third of the world's plants and animals face extinction.

Crucially, most of the damage has been done over the last 50 years. Could there be a starker signal at red? Scarcely. The director of the study said: "The changes have resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible loss to the biological diversity of the planet."

But what happened? The study was neither widely nor prominently reported. It vanished from radio news bulletins by mid morning. The 1,600 scientists from 95 nations involved in the study might just as well not have bothered.

Wordsworth said that "getting and spending we lay waste our powers". Well, we are now laying waste our planet. But are we willing to give up cheap holiday flights to curb a major cause of pollution? No. Are we prepared to drive smaller cars? No. More of us are buying bigger ones.

On a higher level this week has come an astonishing example of a gung-ho attitude to our planet - and beyond. The agency investigating how to dispose of Britain's mounting stockpile of nuclear waste ruled out as "impractical" the idea of blasting it into space. Presumably when it becomes practical it will be firmly on the agenda. And might well seal our fate, which will be no worse than we deserve.

I ran out of space last week for the little clutch of "you-couldn't-make-it-up" stories I had gathered in only about three weeks to pre-empt daft April Fool stories.

A couple I omitted included this serious one: A teenager who injured himself when he fell through a roof while trespassing in a container depot was awarded £567,000 compensation. His lawyer argued successfully that the company was at fault because a gap in the perimeter fence allowed the teenager access. (So if a burglar who enters your home through an unlocked door injures himself by tripping up on a loose carpet, he might legitimately collect your life's savings.)

Since April 1, I have spotted at least two more "April Fool" stories. Under a project called "Windy Schools", wind turbines are to be erected at schools across Somerset, and to tempt tourists who visit the Grand Canyon to stay longer, a 1,000-acre amusement park, with two rollercoasters, a castle and a jousting pit, is planned on the doorstep of this wonder of the world. Did I say something earlier about respecting our planet?