Cllr Greene recently wrote a vitriolic letter berating me for being motivated by ego rather than eco (H&H letters May 8). To be given lessons in humility from Cllr Greene would sound strange at any time, but in the week when the Tories were humiliated by

Cllr Greene recently wrote a vitriolic letter berating me for being motivated by ego rather than eco (H&H letters May 8).

To be given lessons in humility from Cllr Greene would sound strange at any time, but in the week when the Tories were humiliated by the Greens in the Highgate by-election it sounded positively bizarre.

For me, the Highgate result - where the Greens pushed the Tories into third - confirmed the findings of the council's recent residents' survey which suggested that 79 per cent of residents see climate change as serious and 74 per cent want the council to take the lead in terms of action.

I have spent the last two years of my life doing my best to respond to the concerns of Belsize as well as to raise awareness about climate change and the end of a society based on cheap oil.

If we want to keep global warming to less than two degrees, then we almost certainly have less than 10 years to cut the carbon out of our lives.

But we probably have even less time before falling oil supply and rising demand combine to send oil prices sky-rocketing to unmanageable levels.

Oil hit an all-time high of $126 last week. Analysts from Goldman Sachs predict the cost of oil will hit $200 a barrel this year or next. Hedge funds and investment banks are already betting on further oil price rises. It's a one-way bet.

As chair of the all-party Camden Council Sustainability Task Force I have written four reports - on Energy, on Waste & Recycling, on Transport, and on Food, Water, Biodiversity and Green Spaces - which are available on the council website at www.camden.gov.uk/susforce.

They amount to a blueprint for sustainable urban living - a handbook of what a local authority can and should do. Virtually all of our recommendations come from councils elsewhere in the UK and Europe. In other words there is nothing to stop us implementing them in Camden. What is required is political will. And sadly that is in short supply.

To take just one example - Lib Dem Islington, Lib Dem-Tory Brent, and Tory Merton have all brought in the London Plan rule that new developments should generate 20 per cent of their energy from renewables rather than fossil fuel. So why not Camden?

A clear majority of Camden's planning committee support me on this and, judging from residents' surveys, I'm sure the public would support me.

I believe our officers are being too cautious and Cllr Mike Greene, whose empire includes planning (and nearly half of all council business), is being, well, not very green. Is Greene the new black?

Cllr Alexis Rowell

Camden Eco Champion