is at sea, somewhere west of Shetland

Pandora - who continues to drive a car - has been wondering about what might be needed to persuade him, and 2.5 million other owners (2018 figures), to alter their habits. He drives three quarters of a mile to Tesco and three quarters of a mile back because he can't carry four shopping bags that far. When he is too decrepit to drive he will use a local taxi (probably more polluting because it will use diesel, and idle for ages while he laboriously climbs aboard with his shopping). He lives 3 minutes from the station, and using the train to go to Inverness means that he has almost 4 hours free from the tyranny of the rest of the world seeking to email him. Wifi connection isn't as good as ScotRail would have you think. The 4 hours back are equally restful, and cost-wise it beats driving hands down. But if Pandora is accompanied on his peregrinations the train soon loses its appeal on cost grounds. Add in a grandchild or two and - despite their strong eco-credentials they are not keen to pay their rail fare - the car is, in their parlance, a no-brainer.

Four wheels bad, two (or 16 if it's a 2-car 158) wheels good then. Until it's time to pay.

These grandchildren are pleased that the waters west of Shetland are not to see drilling for oil in the Cambo field. Pandora asks them what fuel they intend to put in their cars while they are still permitted to have them, or to put into their beloved 158. Pandora is looked at in a pitying way. And where will this petrol or diesel fuel come from? Far away across the seas, it would seem. Nearby oil bad, far-flung oil good then. Pandora is shocked to find nimbyism among the grandchildren.

Grandchildren, confident that the terminally old have been seen off, relax. Pandora, whose O-level chemistry is a long way back, but not wholly forgotten, asks them what oil is used for. It turns out that they are ill-informed, for they don't know that, as well as nasty nasty petrol and even nastier diesel (boo!) the refining process produces all kinds of stuff they didn't know they were going to have to do without.

Plastics (boo! - but don't they use a credit card, or wrap unused food till tomorrow?), toothpaste, contact lenses, skis, golf balls, crayons (there will be great-grandchildren one day), glasses, chewing gum (those great-grandchildren again), all kinds of pharmaceutical things (doubtless including devices to limit the number of great-grandchildren), boring stuff like tar and bitumen - for if we are to cycle everywhere or drive nice electric cars we shall still require the potholes to be filled in ... but the grandchildren have fallen asleep. Pandora had forgotten to tell them the most important thing of all.

Without the petrochemical industry there are no mobile phones. Pandora remembered that every cloud has a silver lining.