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Loads of chemicals and hazardous wastes have been introduced into the atmosphere that didn't even exist in 1948. The environmental condition of the planet is far worse than it was 42 years ago.

The latter 1940s and early '50s were a time of tense, explosive conflict, in the world at large and in the politics of our nation.

After World War II society had to settle back for a moment before it picked up the 20th century.

Until I was 16 or 17, I had heard practically nothing about the history that preceded 1945. Only when we were 17 were we confronted with a documentary film of the opening of the Belsen camp.

Let me give you an idea of Fifties Britain. The war had ended ten years before, and most people had returned to their gardens and allotments hoping life would revert to how it was before the hostilities.

In 1961, the United States began chemical warfare in Vietnam, South Vietnam, chemical warfare to destroy crops and livestock. That went on for seven years. The level of poison - they used the most extreme carcinogen known: dioxin. And this went on for years.

What I have found most surprising is the amount of damage we have done to environment in the course of my lifetime - not even five and a half decades.

I am especially grateful, however, to have known the fifties, before we began to poison our own civilization - or at least before the effects of the poison began to be felt.

In 1945, there were more people killed, more buildings destroyed, more high explosives set off, more fires burning than before or since.