I've been doing a little bit of work on innovation policy with one of the local County Councils

It seems to me that things only happen when:

1: The local mood is strongly in favour of Climate Change innovation (such as a strong "Transition" movement)
2: The local parish is also strongly in favour (ie the Conservation lobby isn't that strong)
3: The Borough planners have a very strong intellectual grasp of what it all means

Are there any other factors? Is it reasonable to effectively exclude or rule out projects that have a social purpose from areas that also have a strong conservation lobby? I've suggested that the County might like to set up a register of 'golden triangle areas'. Would that help anyone?

I too suspect that my time would be more profitably spent awaiting the sudden appearance of a charismatic prophet, Mrs Whitecat.

Whereas Ervin Laszlo's Chaos Point http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chaos-Point-World-Crossroads/dp/074992716X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260287704&sr=8-1 says that, on a scale of millenia, humankind, and conditions on the surface of our planet, are right now in the brief chaos-theory 'window of accute sensitivity' that precedes the step-change beyond which the outcome is inherently unpredictable (though explainable in retrospect). In other words, unprecedented change is imminent, very sensitive to what we do in the next few years - but completely undirectable or imaginable by anyone, however charismatic or prophetic. So - press on, GBF comrades!