Further to our discussion last week on reducing carbon levels in the environment, I'd like to discuss the unintended consequences of trying to address some of these issues. Let's take the UK, for example, which is planning to reduce greenhouse emissions by turning significant amounts of its agricultural land back into forest and peat bog, over the next thirty-five years. It proposes surrendering around 12 per cent of its food-producing area towards this goal. This would provide support for declining wildlife across the country and increase the amount of land given over to conservation and recreation. Increased woodland would also create carbon sinks that would soak up some of the already-dangerous levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. So far, so good. However, the land dedicated to agriculture in the UK is already insufficient to meet the needs of its population. Since the 1980s, around 50 per cent of the nation's food has had to be imported, and converting more farmland would only put more pressure on the situation. Higher rates of food imports would displace the ecological burden from the UK onto the producer nations. With the food consumption of the country expected to rise almost 40 per cent by 2050, the question must be asked whether decreasing the amount of land put aside for home-grown food is, realistically, going to make a difference globally. Could it be that by increasing food imports, and the transportation costs implicit in that, the project could well increase greenhouse emissions?