This week, readers responded strongly to the call by John Sauven, of Greenpeace, for broader grassroots action on climate change. His comment, a response to the Guardian's Ian Katz writing that "anyone who cares about this issue must fight to keep it alive", argued that the distant dream of a more global conscience is essential. However, reader antipodean1 accused Sauven of failing to mention how to make a difference.
Debate of the week
Global collective action is the key to solving climate change
Bluecloud: Interesting that others are also presenting solutions. This YouTube clip by Peter Sinclair shows the potential of electric vehicles for transport and energy storage, coupled with smart grids and smart meters.
antipodean1: Making polluters pay for the real costs of their activities would help right across the board. There's a lot to be done. There are young entrepreneurs jumping up and down for seed funding to commercialise creative solutions, and there are billionaires being embarrassingly profligate. We need more of that old joined up thinking malarky.
petethegreek: All this is fine, but it must be done worldwide – otherwise we will have the standard problem of everything polluting being moved to the (even if they are few) countries that do allow pollution.
Agent3244: If the process of regulation were up to speed, all would be well, but the track record is ... Regulators show a disastrous inability to see undesirable traits of human activity emerging in innovative practice.
If you only read one thread
Canada looks to China to exploit oil sands rejected by US
Canada courts Chinese investment in Alberta oil projects as US firms boycott tar sands fuel.
Best comment
Two wheels good, four wheels bad
spaceyjase: What a great post! There are a lot of truths there, and I feel guilty the couple of times I've had to use my car to get to work. It takes longer, it burns petrol and it isn't even that comfortable a ride; I even see the same folk I spy every day using their regular mode of transport, be it walking, running or cycling. I duck down and hide if I'm in the wheeled can!
Made me smile
Hockey stick graph took pride of place in IPCC report, despite doubts
petewibble: "The long straight shaft of the hockey stick was a surprise." Best sentence in the whole thing.
Elsewhere on the web
@guardianeco's followers on Twitter liked the story that the endangered cirl bunting's numbers have risen by 25%. DartingtonHall was delighted about the threatened songbird's progress, tweeting "Hurrah, a small good news story!"
