**Editor's Note: This week, PostGlobal asked panelists to choose the best of six proposals on how to move forward on climate change.**

When we talk about global warming, we're talking about a planetary community that doesn't exist. That's what bothers me after Bali.

When Bashir Goth says: This is all part of a plot for Western dominance, I want to respond: C'mon Bashir, we're talking about my children and your children. But he could easily answer: Sorry, David, but how many Americans are ready to stop driving their SUVs – NOW – to prevent further desertification of Somalia?

Right now, the mismatch between what we say about climate change and what we do about it is so wide, you can't even see across the divide: Why is Harvard University taking the issue of climate change more seriously than the United States government? Why is it that every other car on the road in America (including one of my own) is still an SUV? Why is the Democratic Congress still having jurisdictional fights over this issue, rather than passing legislation? Why aren't the candidates in the presidential campaign angrier about this administration's environmental record? Why are we setting declaratory goals at Bali for reduction of emissions, which are meaningless, rather than real goals? What would it take to move this issue from easy talk to painful action?

If this is truly a planetary emergency, as the Bali rhetoric says, then it must have political primacy. But I see no instrument or pathway that could make this real. That's the challenge after Bali: If the world means what it says about climate change, how will it enforce that political will?