One of the curiosities of our arguments over the environment is how often those who deny the damage manage to portray themselves as victims: big corporations inhibited from making an honest profit, caring politicians prevented from helping the hungry (see Katharine Ainger, page 22), lonely academics who suffer character assassination when they express scepticism about global warming (see our piece on Bj0rn Lomborg, page 28). The green lobby is all-powerful, and even acts as a conspiracy, we are led to believe. Public opinion is in thrall to it; scientists can get research funding only if they subscribe to what Professor Lomborg calls the Litany of environmentalism; the media lap up scare stories.

All this is more or less the opposite of the truth. Green issues increasingly struggle for political or media attention (in this month's UK cabinet reshuffle, the end of the antiquated position of Lord Chancellor commanded far more attention than the sacking of an expert environment minister who had served for six years), while a moment's reflection will tell you that, if they need funds, scientists are better off getting money from big business and telling the corporate suits what they want to hear. Only GM crops get serious attention in the tabloid press, and then only because they arouse the traditional British suspicion of "mucked-about" food. Governments still expect to win elections on their success in delivering economic growth and individual prosperity, not on their contribution to planetary health.

There are, to be sure, many uncertainties in the forecasts made by environmental scientists, whether of species extinction, the health effects of pesticides or global warming. The US administration deliberately exploits these, implying that, since scientists are divided over the environment, it is wrong to take any steps that might reduce corporate profits or curtail consumer freedom. Republican Party strategists forbid the use of the term "global warming", preferring the more neutral "climate change". Much is made of how some scientists in the 1970s worried about a new Ice Age (a worry that never amounted to more than brief minority speculation), and about oil and other natural resources running out (an argument made by the Club of Rome in 1972, only to be modified two years later and abandoned by the early 1980s). The scientific consensus on the broad facts, if not the detailed effects, of global warming is now overwhelming, however. In sharp contrast to the 1970s, scientists have strengthened their warnings, not weakened them, and the reputable dissenters have become fewer. It is as hard now to deny that carbon dioxide emissions and other results of human activity cause global warming as it is to deny that smoking causes lung cancer or that HIV leads to Aids - both denied, for some years, by a few, highly publicised maverick scientists.

To some extent, the critics recognise this point. Having first denied that global warming existed at all, then denied any human agency, they have now shifted their ground to argue, in a Micawberish way, that humanity will somehow cope. This may be true, but our grandchildren, if they had any say in the matter, would surely prefer that we didn't take the risk. As Professor Michael Benton, Bristol University's head of earth sciences, points out in a new book, the last time the earth experienced a sharp rise in temperature (though over centuries, rather than decades) was at the end of the Permian period, 251 million years ago. The geological record suggests that 18 out of 20 species then existing were wiped out.

In other words, the risks to humanity of scaling down the pressures we put on the environment - and thus possibly disrupting the world economy - are far lower than the risks of continuing as we are. Fear that the consequences of the latter course could be ruinous is no longer confined to a lunatic fringe of fanatical environmentalists. While still in office, the recently sacked environment minister Michael Meacher warned that mean temperatures in some parts of the world could rise by 8.1 C by 2100. Insurance companies - the professional judges of risk - charge soaring premiums against floods and hurricanes. Sir Philip Watts, the chairman of Shell, has said: "We can't wait to answer all the questions."

So far, nearly all the scientists' short-term predictions have come true: increased concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, warmer seas, more frequent storms, changes in the behaviour of plants and animals. They have a better forecasting record than the economists whose analyses drive most of the behaviour of British and American governments. There is doubt, but the pessimists should have the benefit of it. Politicians should now find the right response.

But where's the beef?

If you think there is no more to be said about Alastair Campbell and dossiers on Iraq, you are wrong. We need the Sunday papers to tell us, in portentous narratives, what the PM's press chief ate before he faced the foreign affairs select committee. There are secrets about how ministers and their aides make decisions, but none about their eating, drinking and toilet habits. As the taxation row broke, Mr Campbell "was polishing off his bacon sandwich" (Observer). During Valery Giscard d'Estaing's visit at the height of the European constitution row, he and Tony Blair consumed "French wine and British lamb" (Sunday Times). During the EU summit in Greece, Mr Blair was "forced [by a broken water heater] to take a cold shower" (Sunday Times). For a Chequers meeting on the euro, Gordon Brown took "a bottle of Laphroaig single malt" (Observer). We humble folk must be grateful for such insights into momentous events.

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