Barack Obama speaks so eloquently and his message of hope is so uplifting and revitalising that I just hope that our expectations of him are not too high.

In yesterday’s inauguration speech I was particularly happy to see that he gave several nods to the environmental issues facing our world:

“each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet”

“We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories”

“We will work tirelessly… to roll back the spectre of a warming planet”

“We can no longer afford indifference to suffering beyond our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect”

If he can live up to the soaring rhetoric and has the will to leap the inevitable obstacles in the way, we have the possibility of a real change for good in the world’s attitude to climate chaos and our monumentally unsustainable ways of living.

Best of luck to you Mr Obama!

DT