Without wishing to sound a gloomy note in this era of credit crunch and climate change, have you noticed that we appear to be doomed? We’re not really taking this climate change thing at all seriously, are we? A recent experience in Windermere made me realise that sustainability, local and sourcing are just empty words in a dictionary.

The village’s splendid new street renovation scheme has recently undergone some changes. One was instigated by a lorry backing into a decorative metal benches. Another was caused by United Utilities digging up the pavement. These minor alterations meant that new paving slabs and a replacement bench had to be ordered. According to my highly placed journalistic sources (i.e. the local butcher) these had to be transported from, respectively, China and America.

It takes the collapse of western capitalism to deter us from buying truck loads of imported crap at Christmas. Energy bills are the only thing encouraging us to turn off the TV at bedtime. And goodness knows how bad things will have to get before shops stop lighting up their windows until the early hours of the morning, for the benefit of passing insomniacs and drunken window shoppers.

Fortunately, all is not lost. School exam pass rates have rocketed up in recent years, a sure indicator that young people are (a) getting more intelligent at an exponential rate or (b), if you’re a Daily Mail reader, examination standards are going down the toilet. I tend towards (a) and I’m optimistic that the young will sort out the mess created by the rest of us. A recent conference convinced me of this.

On September 19th, a number of day-long debates were held nationwide, entitled You, Me and The Climate. Schools were invited to get involved and offer practical, grassroots solutions to the problem of climate change. And before all the grass, and its roots, had disappeared. The local conference was held at Kendal Leisure Centre and featured several schools participating in a debate led by a number of experts, a very dynamic young organiser called Sally Broom and, um, a cartoonist on stage to illustrate points made during the debate.

It’s surprising where cartoonists turn up. When I was originally asked, the idea of coming up with ideas live - before on audience, on a stage, where everyone could see my bad spelling - caused a certain disquiet. However, you can’t let a little thing like making an idiot of yourself in front of an audience stop you doing anything.

The day was exciting, stimulating and inspirational. For my part, I kept up a reasonable flow of cartoons and wasn’t too surprised that the most popular was one about a sheep emitting greenhouse gas. That goes with the territory.

The school pupils threw out an amazing range of genuinely clever and thoughtful ideas which they were instructed to take back to their schools and implement. I’m not sure the one about firing landfill waste into the sun had been entirely thought out but the rest seemed eminently practical. The experts in attendance were all impressed; with this amount of energy and enthusiasm, there’s hope for the planet yet.

There was a short film made of the event which is now up on YouTube. If you look closely, you can see a cartoonist slouching in the background, apparently not doing any drawing at all (but, be assured, thinking hard). A few of the cartoons also appear, although not, for reasons of taste, the flatulent sheep. You’ll have to find him on my website.

Colin Shelbourn