It's always struck me that the green movement as a whole made a major strategic error in the way its has gone about the task of persuading the rest of the planet to respect our environment. Massively more time and effort has been spent trying to bring home to us the true horror of the environmental catastrophe that awaits us than on articulating in a clear, persuasive and plausible way what an alternative to our current lifestyle might look like. The effect has been to depress, alienate and disempower many millions of people who might otherwise have become active supporters of change - but aren't clear what it is they should be supporting. If that isn't a failure of leadership, I don't know what is.
But maybe we're turning the corner. Alongside the regular drip-drip of truly alarming news about the global environment, some hopeful coverage has started to appear over the past weeks and months. Perhaps editors have decided that, as Copenhagen approaches, there's only so much bad news about the environment that people can take.
Some political leadership: Barack Obama has been using his 'bully pulpit' to promote a move to renewable energy by means of carbon caps - and escape from recession in the process. His plans may yet get bogged down and watered down in Congress, but at least he's trying.
And some journalistic leadership: The Guardian is doing its bit with its Manchester Climate Change 'hearings' and report, to which it devoted a whole section of the newspaper last week, which outlined twenty reasons to be hopeful about the environment, including ideas such as concentrated solar power in the desert, cloud-making ships and carbon mortgages.
Our research shows that, while alarm over the environment has been steadily increasing (economic crisis notwithstanding), hope has not been extinguished. There's significant public support for renewables - in our poll of 22 countries last year, we found that the proportions who felt that we should depend 'a great deal' on solar or wind power significantly outweighed those who thought that the answer lay in bio-fuels, cleaner coal or nuclear power. Sustainability experts agree. Americans are remarkably optimistic that they can make the transition to a low-carbon economy without sacrificing prosperity. And Indians, buoyed up by the technology-driven growth of the last ten years, put great faith in high-tech solutions to the climate crisis.
What's clear is that there are a lot of people out there looking for leadership, and reasons to be hopeful. Obama, Suarez and The Guardian are doing their bit - let's hope others follow.
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