As the world panics about swine flu there is surprisingly little talk of the cause of this latest livestock endemic, writes Julia Stephenson.

The infamous Smithfield Foods, a billion pound US food conglomerate, has made its fortune by buying farms in the US, Mexico and around the world, turning them into vast pig factories.

With so many climate scientists predicting global meltdown within our life-time, some individuals are taking radical steps to ensure they have the necessary survival skills to cope in the event of a major crisis, writes Julia Stephenson

Neil Strauss, author of best-selling men’s dating manual, The Game, was so shocked by the Lord of the Flies type anarchy that sprung up in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans that he has since reinvented himself as a survivalist and written a timely new book, Emergency - one man’s story of a dangerous world and how to stay alive in it.

'All it would take,' he says, 'is one war, one riot, one dirty bomb, one natural disaster, one economic catastrophe, one vial containing one virus to bring it all smashing down.'

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With iconic 70’s BBC series, The Good Life (pictured) as my inspiration, I am progressing slowly but surely with my ambitious plans to become the first carbon-neutral dwelling in Sloane Square writes Julia Stephenson.

The wood-burning stove is eating up the neighbourhood's left-over wood (skips are full of the stuff), the solar panels are producing about 30% of our energy needs on cloudy days and a stonking 80% on sunny days. The walls are now super-insulated with a warm fleecy substance made from recycled plastic bottles. So. Now it’s time to think about installing a couple of chickens on the roof and growing some fruit and veg - perhaps even making our own honey. But is this trend towards self-sufficiency more trouble than it’s worth, or will the satisfaction and savings make it worth the effort?

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I recently went to a beautifully organised funeral of an elderly acquaintance and it got me ruminating about my own. I’d like it to be natural affair, which is why I shall follow the example of popular actress, Wendy Richard, who was recently buried in a simple bamboo coffin.

Demand for natural funerals is rocketing, but permission to set up green burial grounds can be tricky. Rosie Inman-Cook from the Natural Death Centre explains that `neighbours can oppose such a move by insisting they don’t want a load of dead people in a field next to them. Of course, the advantage is they are very quiet neighbours’.

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I recently went to a beautifully organised funeral of an elderly acquaintance and it got me ruminating about my own writes Julia Stephenson

I’d like it to be natural affair, which is why I shall follow the example of popular actress, Wendy Richard, who was recently buried in a simple bamboo coffin.

Demand for natural funerals is rocketing, but permission to set up green burial grounds can be tricky. Rosie Inman-Cook from the Natural Death Centre explains that`neighbours can oppose such a move by insisting they don’t want a load of dead people in a field next to them. Of course, the advantage is they are very quiet neighbours’.

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James Lovelock, environmentalist and award winning NASA scientist, insists that unless we drastically reduce our carbon emissions and control population we will end up with a hot world, where billions will starve and whole ecosystems collapse.