Queen Elizabeth II was a matriarch, and I find it remarkable how many nations sent their leaders to her funeral. That includes the US, despite the inanity of the Tories, and the woman they've picked for us this time - someone so stupid she still believes in trickle-down economics. I think a lot of people like the idea of a faraway older woman, dressed in ceremony and pomp, notionally, magically looking after all of us.

I was in tears many times during the funeral, despite the fact that I'd never met the Queen, or wanted to. I'm a monarchist but I don't own a single item of crockery with Royal branding on it. I think I was crying for the same reasons you felt emotional, Umair - that her death is very much an ending. But it's not the Age of Democracy that has been aborted.

In fact this is the Age of Addiction. We're addicted to oil, gas and coal. We're addicted to sugar, to opioids, to caffeine. We're addicted to our smart phones and the crap they constantly emit.

Our many addictions drown out the drumbeat of the Earth: we have to stop abusing her and start controlling ourselves or she will wipe us out.

We have to kick the fossil fuel companies, banks and trust funds until they stop pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Then we have to sequester as much CO2 as a we can.

We're frightened of doing it because we don't want to go cold turkey with fossil fuels - but the alternative is much worse, which is most of us, possibly all of us, dying. Mostly of starvation and disease, sometimes of war.

I'm sort of 50% optimistic about this. 50% of the time I think we'll manage it and then have the fun problems of getting into space and living there and exploring while the Earth recovers from her nasty primate infection.

50% of the time I'm pessimistic and think we'll be extinct before 2100 AD and hope I die of war rather than starvation or disease, since that's generally quicker.