Climate change cooperation and fundamentalism

Lord May on the Science Show today (2nd Jan 2010); I think he was talking about Game Theory but also thinking about how religion keeps a society together but how religious fundamentalism arises as we have trouble adapting to changed circumstances. He is actually talking about global warming, but says: "I see the rise of fundamentalism both in the east and in the west, as a reaction to the changes we need."

Furthermore, we need not only to cooperate, but to cooperate in equitable proportion. We need to be coming down to a level of carbon input that across the world would amount to an average of 50% reduction. But that means in Britain, and that's why we set our targets, an 80% reduction. It means we're coming down to it and we're allowing for China and India to move up to it, so more slowly than they're heading.
You've always got to keep that in mind when you hear that someone, the Americans are thinking of maybe doing 80%. That means they're only doing half as much as us, cause they're starting from being twice as bad. Huge inequities. It's not just rhetoric to say that we are already seeing the incivilities that the problems of too many people and too much impact per person are putting on the land....

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2010/2778548.htm#transcript worth reading or listening to!