Some solutions are relatively simple and would provide economic benefits: implementing measures to conserve energy, putting a price on carbon through taxes and cap-and-trade and shifting from fossil fuels to clean and renewable energy sources.

Global trade has advantages. For starters, it allows those of us who live through winter to eat fresh produce year-round. And it provides economic benefits to farmers who grow that food.

The voluntary approach to corporate social responsibility has failed in many cases.

Even meeting Kyoto targets barely makes a dent in what we have to achieve.

Most North Americans know that human-caused global warming is real, even if political leaders don't always reflect or act on that knowledge.

The environment is so fundamental to our continued existence that it must transcend politics and become a central value of all members of society.

Other things, like capitalism, free enterprise, the economy, currency, the market, are not forces of nature, we invented them. They are not immutable and we can change them.