On climate change, we have to make decisions about nuclear power, about the growth of wind farms and about how we can take the carbon out of our homes.
But as the world approaches the Copenhagen summit on climate change, we are hearing siren voices telling us there is an easy way to avoid these questions: voices that deny the problem, voices that say we cannot defeat it and voices that would downgrade expectations. We should ignore them all.
The people who want to deny or cast doubt on whether climate change is happening are the most dangerous. They want to tell people that we can stick our heads in the sand and the problem will go away.
Scientifically, they are the flat-earth brigade of the modern era. The scientific evidence from across the world shows we need to act.
Here in the UK, the Met Office, the Natural Environment Research Council and the Royal Society are just some of the world-renowned scientific bodies who are united in their view.
And yet people who are not scientists want to say they know better.
Who should we believe — Nigel Lawson, or the thousands of scientists who contributed to the IPCC study of 2007? One set of emails from the University of East Anglia does not undermine decades of climate science.
We must not let the sceptics pass off political opinion as scientific fact.
Those facts are clear. The 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1997, ice sheets are retreating so fast that in summer we can now sail the North West passage through the Arctic, and sea level rises are already threatening low-lying countries, from the Netherlands to Bangladesh.
Events in Cumbria give a foretaste of the kind of weather runaway climate change could bring.
Abroad, the melting of the Himalayan glaciers that feed the great rivers of South Asia could put hundreds of millions of people at risk of drought. Our security is at stake.
While Lord Lawson says we shouldn't take significant action because he questions whether the problem exists, there are others who say it's too late to act. They are defeatists.
But if we act with boldness, we can protect our way of life and prevent warming of more than two degrees, the point at which the most extreme effects of climate change kick in. That is one the key tasks for the Copenhagen conference.
Yes, there will be significant warming to which we — and developing countries in particular — will need to adapt.
Flood defences, action to secure water supplies and the like will all be vitally important.
But at Copenhagen we have the chance to turn around global emissions for the first time in our industrial history, tackling the cause of the problem, not just its symptoms.
Despite that, there are those who would downgrade Copenhagen. Let's keep negotiating and wait for a better moment to get a deal, they say. This, too, is dangerous stuff.
The world has set a deadline. That deadline is working. China, the United States, Brazil and Indonesia have all said in the last month what they will do to tackle the problem. They have
done so now because the pressure is working.
And we need action from all countries at Copenhagen if we are to turn around the growth in global emissions by 2020, which the science tells us we need to do.
That will require developed countries to reduce their emissions. The UK already has legislation to reduce our emissions by 34 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050.
We will be looking for similar steps from other developed countries. But it won't be enough if it is developed countries alone that act.
We would still end up facing dangerous climate change, since around 90 per cent of future emissions growth is likely to come from developing countries.
So we need actions from developing countries too and that will require progress on finance to support them to make those changes.
In attempting to get action from developed and developing countries to ensure that global emissions peak and decline, we are attempting at Copenhagen something never done before.
The previous treaty at Kyoto in 1997 was not ratified by the United States and did not require significant action on emissions from developing countries. So it is no wonder that global emissions have carried on rising.
The unprecedented nature of the challenge across the world may seem daunting. It will require difficult choices, including here at home as we transform our energy systems, our housing stock and our transport system.
Difficult it may be but just as we should be candid about the challenges, so we must not forget the potential benefits.
If the world sends a decisive signal at Copenhagen that it is shifting to low carbon, we can unleash a green revolution.
In electric cars, the manufacture of wind turbines and clean coal, this can mean jobs and export opportunities for Britain.
What's more, the low-carbon revolution can be good for energy security as well.
It is cultivating home-grown renewable energy that can limit our reliance on imported gas. We know that diverse energy supplies are the best guarantee of security in the modern world.
I'll be doing my best at Copenhagen, alongside the Prime Minister, to get an ambitious climate deal.
The degree of difficulty just isn't a good reason to deny the problem, concede defeat
or limit our expectations and hope something turns up. The science demands we act.
It can be done in a way that benefits our economy and it is imperative to fulfil our moral duty to future generations.
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