Now is the winter of our discount tent

If ever people questioned the reality of Climate Change, surely this week's news of record temperatures in Melbourne, combined with the UK's current harsh winter, must make them at least think twice?

I want to believe. All the evidence I've seen certainly leads me to think these are times of unprecedented climatic flux. I've seen Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth' and, despite being far from the last word on climate change, can't help but feel the overwhelming weight of data presented is too great to be ignored.

I'm proud too that, as it happens, I work for an organisation who, having a vested interest in the world's oceans (or at least those who work upon/under them), take a suitably firm stance, producing their own position statement on climate change.

The problem is that as much as we as individuals, even as individual organisations, pledge to recycle, reduce our carbon footprint and turn to alternative fuels, in reality I don't believe it's enough to have a great effect on the general trend.

People will no doubt bleat to the contary but even if every individual worldwide did all they reasonably could, would we rectify the climate change occurring in our world today?

The real issue it seems to me is countering the impact of industrial operations and addressing the global demands for fossil fuels. A start would be raising funding for the development of new technologies whilst also committing to emission reductions rather than simply sitting around and agreeing a 'need' without ensuring any 'action'.

Such was the disappointment of the Copenhagen Climate Summit last month. Leaders with a real opportunity to make a difference, unsurprisingly became bogged down in political/economical debates regarding newly industrialised and rapidly developing nations. Frustrating to say the least.

It appears the general trends in consumerism (e.g. public demand for hybrid cars etc.) will still be the only avenue to instigating an iota of change. However, until there's wider, more accessible consumer choice for sustainable heating, power, transport, it seems a somewhat distant pipe-dream.

So as we make our way through the snow, grumbling as the UK's transport infrastructure grinds to a halt, we might consider this could be the first of many discontented winters to come.

On the plus side, it could be good camping weather this summer. Book your pitch on Brighton Beach early. I better buy my bubble tent now!