Professor Kevin Anderson from Manchester University's Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, writes:

"Human emissions of greenhouse gases are significantly and irrevocably changing the climate. Although uncertainties persist in our understanding of climate change, the scientific conclusion is stark and unambiguous. Unless we take urgent action, future generations will suffer the consequences of our profligate behaviour.

Climate change is not, however, just about the future. Many poor people in the southern hemisphere are already suffering. The deaths in Darfur are linked to tensions triggered by reductions in rainfall and the Sahara encroaching on grazing land. The typhoon that killed 3,500 Bangladeshis last November was exacerbated by our driving, flying and even heating our gardens.

Another view that needs quashing is that China and India are to blame. Clearly, population matters, but it is wealthy Europeans and North Americans that are the problem. An average MEN reader will have emissions hundreds of times higher than a typical Chinese person, and a quarter of China's emissions arise from their manufacturing TVs, computers, clothes, cars, toys, and fridges for us.

As we seek excuses not to act responsibly, our history of inaction leaves us facing immediate and dramatic reductions in our emissions if we are to have any hope of avoiding the worst excesses of climate change. Certainly we should be doing the small things. But to achieve real change we must also be making big and challenging changes to our lifestyles: cut back on flying; get out of the car and on to the bus, tram and train; shun large, fast and inefficient cars; don't buy power showers or large fridges; eat less meat; heat only core rooms in the house; share car journeys and bathe with a friend.

If we continue to delude ourselves that a bit of recycling is enough, our children will face a future of climatic instability, mass human migration, collapsing infrastructure, food shortages and military tension. And somewhere, many miles from here, our behaviour will force another mother to watch her child drown as the flood waters rise."