Loud voices can be heard urging increased investment in green technologies as the way to help world economic recovery.
This sounds good and there can be no doubt that a big demand exists for cleaner and cheaper methods of energy production and consumption, and for a generally greener and more balanced pattern of living and working.
It also chimes with the increasingly urgent warnings from climate scientists and environmentalists that destructive global warming is fast approaching and time for action is running out. Dire predictions have been pouring from the recent global gathering of climate experts at Copenhagen that disaster is on the way. The heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, has also been adding his impassioned voice to this issue, arguing that we have "less than a hundred months to save the planet."