50 people who could save the planet

Stranded polar bears, melting glaciers, dried-out rivers and flooding on a horrific scale – these were the iconic images of 2007. So who is most able to stop this destruction to our world? A Guardian panel, taking nominations from key environmental figures, met to compile a list of our ultimate green heroes.

Last year ended with the incongruous image of 10,000 politicians, businessmen, activists and scientists from 190 countries emitting vast quantities of greenhouse gases as they flew home from Bali clutching the bare bones of a global agreement on climate change. The agreement was to keep on talking to try to reach a deal by 2010. It was a diplomatic triumph, achieved after rows and high dramas, but it leaves all nations a mighty hill to climb. There is no agreement on what emission cuts need to be made by when or by whom, and the US is still deeply reluctant to do anything. It is a roadmap with no signposts.


Some were optimistic that a start had been made; some said that the earth’s ecological situation was in a far more perilous state than had been thought. The iconic images of 2007 – polar bears stranded, glaciers melting in the Himalayas, forests coming down all over Africa and devastating floods and droughts from Bangladesh to Ghana – may be as nothing to what will happen if people do not take immediate action.

But who are the people who can bring about change, the pioneers coming up with radical solutions? We can modify our lifestyles, but that will never be enough. Who are the politicians most able to force society and industry to do things differently? Where are the green shoots that will get us out of the global ecological mess?

Guardian