Those attending the Ballarat Climate Change Forum at the Wendouree Centre for Performing Arts were asked at various times during the course of the forum whether they felt optimistic about the future. Many did not feel particularly positive about the future, nor about governments' willingness to encourage a transition to a greener economy that is less reliant on coal-fired energy generation.

What some said they felt more optimistic about was their own capacity to make changes to the way they lived. To an extent this is already evident. Two years ago a drive around Ballarat would have revealed few solar hot water services or photovoltaic panels on rooftops. Now it is possible to find both

on hundreds of Ballarat homes.

Clearly people are contemplating ways in which they can play a role to advance the status and implementation of renewable energy technologies.

Many at the forum had arrived having read a commentary on the science of climate change in The Courier by Senator Steven Fielding.

Senator Fielding has doubts over the link between human-generated emissions of carbon dioxide and temperature change.

While he has called for a debate over the science and what he believes are risks in moving to a low carbon economy, many feel the debate has already been had and the time for action has well and truly arrived. The first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report was published in 1990 and governments

have been aware of the issue since that time.

For many people including a large number in the science fraternity who contribute to IPCC reports, human-influenced global warming is sufficient reason to lobby for a shift to renewable energy.

Those, such as Senator Fielding, who are not convinced by the science of climate change, could contemplate the advantages of renewable energy which don't require large volumes of water, large open cut mines and which don't emit forms of pollution into the atmosphere in addition to carbon dioxide.