On an evolutionary level you could say the species had a fabulously successful year. It increased by more than 80million people and most of its 6,5billion members lived longer than they could have expected just 30 years ago. People moved around and traded with one another more than ever and mostly survived whatever the natural world chucked at them.

Empty shelves in Caracas. Food riots in West Bengal and Mexico. Warnings of hunger in Jamaica, Nepal, the Philippines and sub-Saharan Africa. Soaring prices for basic foods are beginning to lead to political instability, with governments being forced to step in to artificially control the cost of bread, maize, rice and dairy products.

Challenged by President George Bush to produce 133-billion litres of non-fossil transport fuels by 2017 to reduce United States dependency on imported oil, thousands of farmers are patriotically turning the US corn belt from the bread basket of the world into an enormous fuel tank.

The global rush to switch from oil to energy derived from plants will drive deforestation, push small farmers off the land and lead to serious food shortages and increased poverty unless carefully managed, says the most comprehensive survey yet completed of energy crops.

Just more than a year ago several million people headed to a park in the centre of Seoul, the capital of South Korea and seventh-largest city in the world. They didn’t go for a rock festival, a football match or a political gathering, but mostly just to marvel at the surroundings, to get some fresh air and to paddle in the river.

Australia’s blistering summer has only just begun, but reservoir levels are dropping fast, crop forecasts have been slashed, and great swathes of the continent are entering what scientists this week called a "one-in-1 000-years drought”. With many regions now in their fifth year of drought, the government called an emergency water summit in Canberra.