As talks at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen falter today, it is more than ever pressing that each and every one of us take a long hard look at the difference we can make to help safeguard the future of the planet.

Nicola Davies' Gaia Warriors, published by Walker Books in November takes an honest look at global warming and climate change but offers young people proactive models for effecting change at a personal level. Far from presenting a doom laden scenario, Davies shows how we can make a virtue out of our precarious predicament by finding creative solutions to our problems and by recognising our common humanity with people from all over the world. Solutions call for global co-operation and a paradigmatic shift from competitiveness to collective response. While governments argue from positions of self-interest, a good starting point for moving forward is to open up young minds to the reality but also encourage a sense of agency, so Gaia Warriors is the top of my Christmas list for teenagers in our family.

Write Away asked Nicola Davies some questions about her book:

Are you optimistic about the future of the planet?

The planet, in the long run will be fine; it has weathered far greater storms than the one we have created for it. But that is the very, very long term, thousands and hundreds of thousands of years. In the short term, in the next 30 -100 years - if we do nothing about green house gas emissions the prospects for our planet are not good. We could lose the Amazon rainforest; coral reefs could be wiped out by rising sea temperatures and increased acidity; we could lose 40 % of the world's animal species, and once a species is gone, there is nothing you can do to bring it back. So we need to act, not just to save our own species but to save many others.

Are you a Gaia Warrior? What do you do to help preserve the planet?

I've insulated my house, installed a heat pump to heat it. I try to buy locally grown food and drive as little as I possibly can. I put all my PLR (Public Lending Rights) into charities that preserve forests around the world. But I do work abroad, once every couple of years, and that means flying, if it's somewhere outside Europe that I can't reach on the train. That's a real problem. Of course I 'carbon offset' by paying for extra tropical forests to be preserved...but I know that there isn't enough land on Earth to offset all the flying we do. I have one transatlantic flight coming up in the New Year and that will have to be the only flying I do for a couple of years...and even that is too much.

When she was researching for the book, Nicola went to talk to James Lovelock the originator of the Gaia theory, who write the afterword in Gaia Warriors. We asked, 'What are your lasting impressions of meeting James Lovelock?'

Of having me someone truly extraordinary who has had a very long and incredibly varied and productive career. But more than that...James is just a really, really fine human being, kind, gentle with a deep love of the natural world, which I share. He also has a wicked sense of fun. It was just a total pleasure spending time with him.

Turning to the question of making a difference we asked, 'How do you think we can we best prepare ourselves for climate change?'

We really do have to take it very seriously indeed. We're going to have to be as single-minded about it as we would be about fighting a war, where we were threatened with invasion, because climate change has the potential to wreck our lives every bit as much as WW2 did. But if we do take action, and ask our governments to take action, we can avoid the worst effects. Of course the benefits are huge: shifting to a low carbon world really doesn't have any down side...houses that need very little heating, green cities where people travel about on bikes. What's not to like?

'And finally, what are your top three tips for young Gaia Warriors who want to make a difference?'

For now: Put on a sweater and make wearing a vest trendy. Turning down the heating has a BIG effect on your household's carbon footprint. Don't put clothes in the laundry becuase you can't be bothered to put them away! That means energy wasted in unecessary washing and drying. These things seem small and unheroic...but these little changes in behaviour have a big impact.

And in the long term: The world needs more scientists and engineers, to find out more about how our climate works and what we can do to save ourselves and other species from climate chaos. This is going to be a big, long job and helping with it will be exciting challenging and fascinating. So knuckle down to science lessons guys !

So come on Gaia Warriors, young and old, let's follow the call to action and take a positive step for change today.