As the days begin to lengthen, and we look forward to spring, we hope once more that the coming year will bring new hope for suffering humankind.

Last year brought us grievous events. Innocent people in the richest and the poorest nations were suffering. Sectarian violence in Northern Ireland and elsewhere continues. The economic future is uncertain. Whilst the rich get richer, there is little done to alleviate the suffering of the poor. Most people around the world, it seems, cannot see beyond a narrow view of self-interest. They will not examine their own lifestyles to see whether their habitual, individual actions may not be the cause of the large scale problems affecting the world. When confronted with facts that may lead them to change their habits, they find excuses to justify continuing as they are and as they have always done.

Although willing and eager to change with fashion in clothes and gadgets, exotic holidays, etc, they find it impossible to change those ways of thinking that would achieve most good for themselves and the planet.

Those of us who find the vegan argument compelling, and who present logical arguments to convince others, feel sure that the whole world will see the sense of what we are saying. Yet we still find the majority of otherwise sensible people refuse to follow our reasoning and look on us as sentimentalists living in an unreal world. It is their refusal to think things through that results in the human suffering and destruction of the planet that has become so evident.

Slowly we see the days getting longer and the earth warmer. So the century that has started so cold and bleak can year by year become lighter and brighter. This earth is too wonderful for it to end in disaster. So take heart with the new year!