Perhaps if we put conservation at the top of the school curriculum the planet, with its beautiful natural and cultural heritage, would not be in the dire state that it is; without saving those things (or at least teaching our children their fragility and importance) there's little point in learning much else.

The debate here about a time capsule is far more than a debate about a time capsule: it is a debate about how we perceive and how we preserve our heritage. English Heritage's idea of a time capsule inside Silbury belongs to the Victorian era, not to an era increasingly aware that our natural and cultural heritage is poised on the edge of a precipice.