Yesterday's report on "The Warming of Greenland" brought home to me, not for the first time, the reality and dire threat of global warming. I have been aware of the problem for a long while, but most of the time my understanding is intellectual and abstract, in the same way that my understanding of being mortal (the fact that I will die within the next 20-30 years) is. For a moment I became deeply aware (not just in my head, but in my breast) that this is REALLY happening and that the consequences, although still some years in the future, will be HORRIFIC; not necessarily for me personally, since I will probably be dead and gone before things get really bad, but certainly for today's children and future generations.

The need for radical action is imperative, but is not happening, and doesn't look at the moment as if it will. This fills me with guilt and shame (at what my own descendents will think of me for my part in allowing it to happen), with anger (at those still insisting on "business as usual"), and with sadness at all the unnecessary death and suffering that lies ahead (the same kind of sadness I feel about the First World War).

If we understood why the necessary measures are not and, the way things look at the moment, will not be taken, there might yet be some hope for the future.

The reason is very simple (too simple, perhaps): the measures would have to involve radical changes, not just to our economy and way of life, but also to many of the values, attitudes and aspirations which underlie them. Unfortunately (if you will excuse the understatement), very few people are prepared even to contemplate either, at least, not in respect to themselves, their own business or their own way of life.

Instead, we deny that we have a problem, or that our economy and way of life are the major cause of it, or that the measures already being taken, or envisaged, will not solve it.

We have seen this many times before; most strikingly in the response of the tobacco industry to the evidence that smoking causes serious, often lethal, health damage. The industry (and its lawyers) fought ferociously to defend their interests in continuing with "business as usual", despite all the evidence for the damage and deaths it was causing.

The same is happening now in respect to emissions of greenhouse gases and their effect on climate. Those industries most responsible (the oil, automobile and aviation industries at the fore) are now defending their interests in continuing with "business as usual" with the same ferocity, irrationality and irresponsibility as the tobacco industry did. Only now what is at stake is not just the health and lives of a few 100 million smokers, but the health and ability to support life (as we know and depend on it) of our entire planet.

We have a major problem facing up fully to global warming, because it is so huge, a great deal more than just an "inconvenient" truth.

Many of us like a challenge, but only when we believe that we can rise to it. Any self-doubt will dampen our enthusiasm proportionately; and if we see no possibility of rising to it, we will not bother trying, or if we do, we certainly won't give it our best. To do that we must see some prospect of success.

Global warming is too overwhelming a problem for us to face up to (because we ourselves, our economy, lifestyles and lifestyle aspirations are the cause of it), so we refuse to believe that it is as big as it is, clinging to the hope that far less radical measures, which allow "business as usual", will do the job.

It IS possible for us to rise to the challenge, but ONLY if we first recognise the inherent non-sustainability of our economy and way of life (and lifestyle aspirations) and the reasons for it. That's a big challenge in itself, I appreciate, but for our children's sake, we HAVE to rise to it.