KEY POINTS:
What are you doing personally to make a difference?
The obvious, such as recycling. I have a worm farm at home for compost and a solar hot-water heater, we use energy-efficient lightbulbs and have a composting toilet. We live in an ecological community with 15 other families,
where we own the land together and have made a commitment to look after it together. We reuse our grey water on the garden. I buy fair-trade when there is a choice and appliances based on their energy rating. I am using public transport to get to work 70 per cent of the time. I try to be conscious of my own consumption and make decisions accordingly.
What is your biggest environmental sin?
Flying - we have made reductions at work by introducing video conferencing and we are in the process of setting a target for reducing our flying emissions further.
What more could you do?
Reduce my level of consumption and act more like a conscious citizen than a consumer in my choices. Remember to take my own bag grocery shopping every time rather than 50 per cent of the time. Reduce paper use.
Global warming - man or nature?
The greenhouse effect is a natural phenomenon which for thousands of years has allowed life on earth to exist, but global warming is man-made as a result of certain human activities which have hugely increased the amount and effect of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.