James Mills is a web developer in the North East of England and founder of Refresh Teesside »
Mike Hughes is the Head of Business for the Evening Gazette. He will be blogging on all matters of importance to Teesside businesses - and some that are just worth knowing »
Jez Davison, business writer at the Evening Gazette, is a regular blogger on all things business - particularly finance, entrepreneurship and the state of the Teesside economy » 
Karen McLauchlan is the Evening Gazette's deputy business and features editor - with special interest in all things industry, property and arts related » 
Jeremy Middleton is a venture capitalist and the co-founder of FTSE-200 company HomeServe » 
Deloitte, which has 23 offices across the UK including Newcastle, is among the country's leading professional services firms » 
ClimateNE & Climate Change Schools Project support the move to a low-carbon, resilient economy and help businesses avoid risk and realise commercial opportunities. Posts by Jen Atkinson, Krista McKinzey and Harriet Thew » If 80% of the population are primarily motivated by fear or greed how come only half of them believe climate change is real?
I am passionate about statistics, but when I say that I love them that is only true about 92.4% of all statistics! However, when it comes to getting a clear message about climate change across in my back yard I think we need to be working at a level that does not have the words over-arching/strategic or mission critical in it!
At a conference this week organised by Northumberland Strategic Partnership at Linden Hall Hotel we focused our minds on what it means for my four children - and thier friends - as they grow up in the north east and Northumberland in particular
A DVD has been produced showing the impact of climate change on Northumberland and it relies in equal measure on fear and greed. I suspect what we see in this piece of 'cinema' depends on our present views?
This is in line with a consensus that a substantial part of the population will see only what they want to see; even though trial by jury is designed to look for people who review the facts and leave any 'baggage' at the door! Indeed you could argue that the newspaper you buy - I talk of course of the national press - reflects your own views and so you are comfortable with their tone and interpretation. Comfortable slippers and all!
So as an entrepreneur I watched the film and said fantastic I did my own business carbon footprint in 1994 and so have a 14 year lead on the market; I sell biomass boilers and am a sustainability consultant and am helping with a big green event in Newcastle next year yippee...
As an environmentalist I say why have you all not been listeneing to me for the last 20 years - it is nearly too late!
As a policy wonk I say the quicker we take advantage of the present interest in climate change and turn the north east into 'green central' the better it will be for all of us in this region. What is our regional point of differece? After all we started the last coal based world energy revolution let's not shy away from inventing the cleaner better alternatives!
More sermon than blog.... my apologies but the subject warrants it - we are all sinners; the scale of our sins do of course vary and most of us can make amends/offset?
More sermons are available from the news pages of Brown towers!
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