The lesson to be learnt here is about the responsibility that accrues with exercising choice.

Consumers/citizens need to give careful consideration to their choices, because in democratic societies acting irresponsibly during the process of making choices 'costs'—and how!

All consumers need to vote towards restoring political and moral credibility and any successful change should be fundamental: in financial policy, and in the dialogue among civilizations about the state of the environment. If these two suffer, everyone suffers.

The Bush administration in the duration of its tenure has brought the entire planet to the verge of a meltdown, financial as well as environmental. Unfortunately the consequences have to be suffered not only by the populace that brought him and his retinue into power, but by people everywhere, and in either case consumers are the worst hit. Their financial and physical health as well as the survival of their future generations has been put in jeopardy. Consumers are notoriously irresponsible and even a hundred mechanisms provided to them to uphold their rights are of scant help if they themselves are hell bent on harakiri. Consumers International, a global coalition of consumer organisations has sustainable production and consumption on its agenda for a very long time, and hopes that units like VOICE will promote the concept to its member consumers. We have tried and continue to try to do that because we feel that it is consumer responsibility to actually take care of their survival on planet earth and that they will not be able to do, unless they vote wisely.

Americans have their Gores and Naders as we have our Medha Patekars and Bahugunas, but of what avail is that unless they have political clout to operationalise their policies in favour of citizens. Powers that be, work overtime to take environmental policies out of the hands of activists and scientists and hand them over to the industry. First and foremost task for any new government must be to clean up the nation's land, water and air. By refusing to agree to mandatory greenhouse gas emission reductions, the Bush administration gave major developing nations, such as China and India, carte blanche to do the same. Why would any growing economy concern itself about global warming when one of the world's biggest greenhouse gas polluters and richest of nations couldn't be bothered.

American author and climate activist, Bill McKibben has said: "The Chinese have all the coal they need to destroy the atmosphere by themselves to get rich, and we can have no moral objection as to why they shouldn't just go ahead and burn it, because that's precisely what we did."

The recurring focus on global warming is not just hot air. As a result of the Bush administration's policies eight precious years have been wasted. The world has watched carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere shoot up, with the scientists' predictions about the speed and severity of global warming becoming increasingly dire.

Hopefully, coming of Obama will signal that the United States will change its shameful record on global warming. It could start with the international climate talks in Poznan, Poland, this December, and if the U.S. is seen to be serious about reducing greenhouse gases, it could set the stage for the major climate negotiations to come in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December 2009, when a climate treaty to succeed Kyoto needs to be hammered out. Indian consumers need to wake up to these realities as their chosen leaders take their positions in these negotiations. The stated policies of the new government could affect the quality of consumer lives in the years to come.

Akio Morita, founder and creator of Sony, with his now famous view of globalisation "think globally, act locally" should be the leading light of all environmental action.