It was never going to be tough. It just appeared so. Consensus in the climate change talks that recently wrapped up in Copenhagen was always a long shot, and for me, it was pretty much an impossibility from the start.

Why, you ask? Well, human nature set up against our version of the capitalist matrix says decisions aren't just informed by self interest, they are informed by self interest driven by economic considerations, specifically in a manner that excludes all other considerations - including, literally, considerations about the sky falling! That fact is made all the more acute if one considers that the talks required consensus - glib and ideal, but impossible in the face of the prevailing human constructs.

Put another way, we have failed incredibly, as a world, in infusing non-economic considerations into our machinations in such a way that they also can be driven by self interest unto ends other than the type that happened in Copenhagen. We have not created a zone for true price, and for proper value. We have not created a zone for natural endowment - not natural "resource" - valuation, and for stakeholder participation.

Those are the challenges of this century, with its first decade now set to close with a colossal failure, no matter how much spin is applied to the outcome of Copenhagen by national governments. If the rest of the century is to be spared the results of our failure of imagination, we need bold thinking, bold thinkers, and the legendary will we all too often now appear to be lacking.