Oh bliss! Groundhog Day is just around the corner, again. Far be it from me to add fossil fuels to the fire of the upcoming May Day madness, but the sight of gaudy banners just gets me going. In a wholly constructive way, needless to say. In my humble opinion, far too much importance is given to politics already without me wasting valuable column inches on the vapid verbiage that will undoubtedly be spouted on May 1. But there?s a wager I?d like to make pertaining to the substance of the speeches that will be spat out by the nation?s great white hopes.

I bet that these self-aggrandizing firebrands will try to convince all and sundry that they can ?save the country? without uttering a single meaningful word about the environment. Unbeknown to them, our fate is inextricably linked to that of our natural surroundings. Let us use this opportunity to solemnly reflect on how the different ?segments? of society relate to two of life?s most important gifts: love and nature.

Politicians: They just want to be loved on Election Day. Once your vote has been cast, they really couldn?t care less what you think of them. They get to whir around in quality German automobiles, doze off in Parliament and occasionally snip a ribbon. The stuff of dreams, no doubt. Their concern for the living conditions of the average citizen seems to be inversely proportional to the importance of the post they occupy. Competence and motivation are optional for the job.

A lack of scruples is not. Politicians are prone to jumping ship shortly before elections. The clumsier ones jump onto sinking ships. Nature provides both a wonderful excuse for attending conferences in exotic places and a peerless scapegoat for when anything remotely untoward happens to government.

Businessmen: They don?t want to be loved at all. Shifting goods, comparing bonuses and generally raking it in is what really makes them tick. Hard currency has an allure far superior to anything sporting a central nervous system (although they can be quite partial to a little tender loving care if dished out by shareholders). Although they love the colour green, they tend to trust nature even less than they trust themselves around their twenty-something secretaries. They consider it to be insufferably fickle and thus an irksome testament to the fallibility of financial forecasts. They would love to control nature solely to make sure it acts like an asset rather than a liability. In every financial centre, there?s an investment banker who harbours the secret delusion of being the Master of the Universe.

Us: How can we seriously expect anyone to love us? We pollute the planet, cut each other off in traffic, and generally contribute to making the place as unliveable as possible. Despite all the newfangled gizmos that we somehow get lured into spending our hard-earned cash on, we have precious little time to enjoy the important things in life, namely family, friends and the great outdoors. Predictable creatures that we are, the ancient Roman poets had us figured out centuries ago when they noted that we would always choose food and fun over freedom (now that?s a winning formula!). Admittedly, we have evolved since the days when they devised their famous ?panem et circenses? (bread and circuses) metaphor. People now commit suicide by overdosing on designer drugs rather than by asp-bite; prefer gluten-free ciabatta to plain old bread; and circuses have given way to Champions League football. For us, nature is like a younger sibling. We can?t imagine life without it but it can be spectacularly annoying at times.

Alright, I admit it. I went a bit heavy on the sarcasm and perhaps even pushed things to the point of caricature. But I believe there?s a bit of truth in every one of the depictions. More importantly though, I hope with all my heart that I lose that wager.