The Ethical Man is a blog by a BBC journalist, and also the title of a TV program, which followed one year of his life dedicated to decreasing the carbon footprint of his family.You can see the videos here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/ethical_man/default.stm Besides being entertaining and educational, it puts into perspective the efficiency of a "green lifestyle" today. There is this average middle class family - with three kids, no car, no long distance holidays, no meat, new energy saving techniques - and they only manage to decrease their carbon footprint by 20% while giving up on many of the "basics" of the Western middle class lifestyle. This suggests two things to me: (1) individual voluntary behavioral change will not lead to fundamental community-level changes (not to mention that the upcoming Asian middle-classes seem more inclined towards status symbols than green fantasies), (2) hence there is a need for higher (government/IO) level intervention in some way to encourage/induce CO2 emission reduction (I think both ways mentioned in class - R&D funding and incentives - are relevant tools).