Sifting through the pile of letters from organisations announcing news conferences, my attention was drawn to one that claimed the group would be setting up a major initiative in India "to help bypass polluting and inefficient technologies and create more green jobs and a green economy'. The letter was from Sierra Club, a us -based ngo. What, in effect, it proposed to do was help India leapfrog high-carbon emitting technologies and yet be on the road to development adopting technologies that draw from renewable energy sources. A noble intention, but easier said than done. Intrigued as to what prompted an organization to make such preposterous claims, I decided to go to the press conference anyway, since climate change was my beat.

Without much ado, Carl Pope, executive director of Sierra Club, made the important announcement: a Green Energy and Green Livelihoods Award of us $100,000 to recognize outstanding environmental success in India by grassroots level civil society organisations