So the Copenhagen juggernaut judders on, with daily starts and stops, waves of optimism and pessimism, and the CRU e-mail leak providing a nice counterpoint for the press (as an aside their reporting on this has been atrocious – the phrase “hide the decline” cannot possibly refer to the last couple of years’ observed data as it was written in 1999 – doh! – and they have the cheek to criticise the quality of the CRU science…). The completely coincidental, erm, coincidence of the two have given the sceptics and deniers their moment in the sun.

Most of the climate change scepticism bouncing about the media and the blogosphere at the minute seems to be predicated on the idea that it is some sort of a scam to raise taxes and curtail free trade. Leaving aside the preposterous implications of these loony conspiracy theories (thousands of scientists and politicians secretly building a world socialist government – most of them can barely manage a national government), the media has been obsessed with the “sacrifice” the world will have to make to “save the planet”.

A report in New Scientist says a low carbon economy will have a minor effect on consumers, with the exception of air travel where there are no significant techno-fixes available as yet. I would go further – a high tech, low carbon future to me is an exciting one. One where the idea of sitting in a traffic jam on the way to an expensive gym after a day stuck in an air-conditioned strip-lit box would be ridiculed. I’m sitting writing this in my home office, looking out at the birds playing in the trees, having just taken a run up the valley where I live. No commuting, no air con, no strip lights, but with all the office technology I need – you can’t beat it. But most of our “knowledge economy” is still acting as if its participants are making widgets, chained to their desks like 19th Century mill workers.

The UK’s Climate Change Secretary, Ed Miliband, hit the nail on the head when he said “If Martin Luther King had come along and said ‘I have a nightmare’ people would not have followed him”, but he needs to practice what he preaches – the Government’s recent “climate nightmare” TV ads got rightly panned by both sides. Back in the 1980s the spread of information technology presented us with the vision of a bright new future. We now need to do the same for the Low Carbon Economy.