AGW protesters glue themselves to gov energy department (UK)

[Duty]

Investing in renewables - good idea...how does one do that exactly on a large scale? That's government's job innit? Good idea, again, though.

I'd say no.  Not only is it not the governments job, the government cannot not be entrusted with that job.  If it were a job, and the government were any employee...then they would have long ago been terminated for cause, and we'd have found someone who was interested, and could do the job.

Someone like you, someone like those activists.  

That we conceptualize this thing as someone else's job, even in the face of that someone else's repeatedly demonstrated incompetence, provides at least some of the explanation for why the job is not getting done.  

Government intervention has a big role in our hitting emission targets, in the UK at least. They really have a punch like no other, when they aren't pulled, as in your example. Many Janes and Johns do, and continue to do, lots of work promoting/realising reducing carbon footprints. That doesn't mean the gov shouldn't act with committed expediency AS WELL. I'm off to bump that thread about thermal clothing and thermostats now...