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We always hear from newspapers that while people understand the environmental challenge, they are unwilling to stomach the solutions. The trouble is, we only ever hear about the solutions from the media, and for whatever reason, they are almost always caricatured beyond recognition. If there's no appetite for green, it's not surprising.

Green issues have been used as a marketing tool. Sometimes these green claims are completely meaningless.

Even leaving aside government policy, whole industries are already making expensive changes around the perceived need to 'go green.' Al Gore and countless other prophets of global catastrophe are making megamillions pushing these expensive solutions. Schoolchildren around the globe are being frightened by tales of impending calamity.

Many people still believe that 'green' solutions are too expensive, but they are actually much cheaper when all of the costs to public health, social services, and waste handling are factored into the same equation.

Politicians usually get the blame for dragging their feet on environmental issues. And fair enough. Most of them do just that. But the blame isn't theirs alone. For politicians afraid of losing votes, a bristling media waiting to transform good green ideas into monsters is a colossal disincentive.

'Green' issues at last are attracting serious attention, owing to critically important links between the environment and the economy, health, and our security.

Maybe we need to re-engage our smart, energetic youth around the world to be farmers and find fresh, green technologies that will feed the world more fresh greens.

If it can be profitable to be green, that's just smart business.

Innovative companies have started to realize there are not enough 'green consumers' willing to pay more for something just because it's green.

Green policy is about triggering a shift to a cleaner way of doing things. To be effective, it needs to incentivise the right behaviour, for example through tax breaks, and that needs to be paid for by disincentives on polluting behaviour.