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The Guardian reports that Sir David King, Chief Scientific Advisor to HMG, previewed the report due any time now from Sir Nicholas Stern on the economic costs of climate change:

Tackle climate change or face deep recession, world's leaders warned

Sir David King, the government's chief scientific adviser, yesterday gave the Guardian a preview of its main findings. Speaking at a climate change conference in Birmingham, he said: "All of [Stern's] detailed modelling out to the year 2100 is going to indicate first of all that if we don't take global action we are going to see a massive downturn in global economies." He added: "If no action is taken we will be faced with the kind of downturn that has not been seen since the great depression and the two world wars." Sir David called the review "the most detailed economic analysis that I think has yet been conducted".

Head, meet brick wall. Surely if we have learned anything from the twentieth century it is that economics cannot beat nature (or human nature). All the economic theories in the world might sound lovely, but they are just that - human constructs. If those human constructs mean, in the worst' analyses, the virtual annihilation of a third of the world's flora and fauna species and terrible deprivation for the human species on an unprecedented scale, then the models have to change.

There is a time for Keynesian spending to stave off utter disaster surely? If we simply don't act because we don't "have the money" to act, and in the process render human life an utter misery, what the hell will the economists have proved? Only that pig-headedness can kill more than all the fascist dictators the planet has seen.

All the talk of a few measures here and there just don't stack up. If we want super efficient homes, nearing self-sufficiency in energy and water supplies, if we want the human capital to keep economies running, we need to spend now for the future. You can have all the accumulated wealth in the world, but what is it worth if there's nobody left to produce things for you to spend it on? For that's the reality of what they are saying.

Look at the sort of things we need to do to reduce our emissions. Transport is a biggie. We always hear that we can't afford to build this rapid rail link or another. Create the money to do so and take it back again out of the land value rises those new links create. How is it inflationary if you remove from the system the same money you created to build the links?

The problems in the seventies in particular that we are always worried about returning to were not about capital expenditure so much as revenue expenditure - inflation busting wage rises and so on fuelling inflation in themselves, with no way of removing the money from the system when it was no longer needed. We have the ability to manufacture goods which will help us out of these hot, rising, water levels, but won't do so because the money isn't there right now to do it.

It's bonkers.

I got a surprising message on Facebook tonight. It said that since I was in the short list for Lib Dem Blog of the Year at LDV would I like to have an opportunity, as they did last year, to interview the dear leader for my blog. It was the first I knew about it, such has been my head buried in Debian linux code trying to get the new version working some time soon state for the past couple of weeks. But I had a root around on LDV and there it is - I am indeed in the short list. So thank you to anyone who suggested me. I always think my readership stats alone preclude me from inclusion amongst the "big boys" - and my paltry Technorati scores testify as much.

Whilst it would be a wonderful experience I am sure to be there in person to see someone collect the award, as in previous years I cannot attend autumn Federal conference. This coming weekend is our arrivals weekend in halls and the main business of conference is in the hectic Freshers' week. And I'm still fighting with my New Big Server late into the night, almost ignoring the world going on around me. Even once I have the software up and running there will be further delay as I want to redesign the blog. Last year's went too far and it is confusing far too many so watch out for a bit more simplicity I hope!

So, just so you know, I had no idea that I might be in any shortlist, or I would have kept up blogging a bit more - there has been a lot to think about in the past few days and even some exciting stuff going on with Community Land Trusts that I would like to comment on, but for now it's back to trying to get Apache and co working properly.

I don't believe that it is the place of the state to encourage or discourage any particular family arrangement . I declare an interest as a long time (and in all likelihood now permanently) single person, but I utterly resent the suggestion that the state should somehow reward those who are fortunate enough to have found their significant other by discriminating against singles.

I do accept, however, that the theoretical permanency of a marriage or civil partnership commitment may provide some benefits of stability in the lives of children of the union at important stages of their development. And I also recognize that virtually any interdependent personal relationship has the potential to take some of the onus off the state for support services and the like. So, how to reconcile these positions?

The answer seems obvious - Citizens' Income. Quite apart from such a system's ability to address the problems of benefits withdrawal creating excessive marginal rates of taxation for those trying to get off benefits and into work, if every individual were entitled to an unconditional and non-withdrawable basic income as of right as a citizen, those who choose, or are lucky enough, to live with another (or others), would be able to pool such incomes and no doubt make savings on the costs of procuring essential goods and services.

Food is generally cheaper when you are buying for more than one person. Family health insurance seems cheaper than the sum of the same number of individuals' insurance. In a Land Value Tax regime it is likely that multiple member households would be paying less tax per person anyway than singles simply by virtue of sharing space - making more efficient use of land by and large. Housing costs per person are likely to be lower.

So, give more of our money back to us for us to decide how to spend ourselves, and these family relationships will prove themselves by dint of domestic economic efficiencies. No need for more central tinkering.

Such is the difference, in my mind, between a moralising, authoritarian and protectionist view of human relationships and a liberal view.