I often mention Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby from the Water Babies, she seems to have a relevance that cuts across religious divides. Just as discussion of the environment has no religious side. If we're going to destroy the planet, it's all of our children's children that will not survive.

55 years after she was sunk in Scapa Flow, HMS Royal Oak is breaking up and leaking her oil into the sea, threatening another environmental disaster.

Here we go again - again.

Some say such an event can't be predicted - you never know the moment - while others say it can clearly be predicted - just not when it will happen. Meanwhile, insurance companies, steeling themselves for impending claims, survive by making calculations concerning the probability of the unexpected.

But the breakup of the Royal Oak was more predictable than most things. Eventually it had to happen - we knew the place, if not the time. Just as, when you send tankers through a narrow rocky strait in all weathers, you can surely guarantee that one day in fog or storm one ship or another will be driven on to the rocks. You may not be able to name the day, but the eventual effect of that initial decision is predictable with near certainty.

The comparative importance of short term gain and long term repercussions is a constant and ongoing argument between opposite sides in the environmental debate. We have to face the effects of our parents and grandparents actions just as our grandchildren will have to face up to the effects of ours. It's not just the sins of the fathers that come back to haunt us. Everything and anything we do sends its ripples into the future for our children to have to deal with, whether it be oil spills or nuclear dumping, which, let's face it, is rather more toxic and long lasting than oil pollution, if less visible.

You can't brush your dirt under the carpet forever and pretend it isn't there. After a while you can't help but trip over it.

In this life, actions may have effects that cause distress for others, which hardly seems fair, but in the afterlife we have the necessary balance to that apparent unfairness. On the Day of Reckoning worldly actions finally have their effect on their originators, but fortunately for us, on that day we face the All-Merciful, Who will judge us only on our intentions. So, remember Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby if you really want to take out some insurance for the future.