Cyclox hosted Cycling for the Climate, a major national conference, on Saturday. The cycling Lord Mayor of Oxford, John Tanner, opened the conference of 100 delegates, who had arrived by bus and Brompton from all over the UK.

Mark Lynas, the renowned environmental journalist and acclaimed author of Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, cycled from his home in Wolvercote to deliver the keynote speech. His engaging resumé of where we are today and why we're right to worry was timely. That morning the UN announced that climate change is happening faster than predicted and we are near a tipping point beyond which there is no return.

Currently, the frozen waters of the Arctic Ocean are white, so they reflect the sun's rays. Global warming will melt the ice to leave a dark-coloured sea, which will absorb the sun's rays and warm. The frozen peat bogs of Siberia will melt and release billions of tons of methane into the atmosphere. Methane is a greenhouse gas 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. Global warming becomes a deadly vicious circle.

Lynas says it's not too late (yet), but we must act NOW. More than 25 per cent of the UK's greenhouse gas emissions come from transport. More than half of all car journeys are shorter than two miles. Replacing millions of local car journeys with bike journeys will make a tangible difference.

Only a few deranged petrolheads deny climate change exists. Tim Baster, of Climate Outreach Information Network, ratcheted up the messianic fever by showing how the problem is so immense that we are in collective denial about it. In our subconscious, climate change is a looming black cloud. It reminds me of the creeping, paralysing fear I felt in the early 1980s, when nuclear war remained a distinct possibility - and there was nothing a teenager could do about it.

Baster showed how, in our reactions to climate change, we undergo the same psychological processes we experience following a personal trauma - denial, extreme reactions, bargaining with a higher being, depression, then acceptance - and the possibility of a solution.

Usually, preaching to the converted is a waste of time, but with this issue, we can never rehearse the arguments enough. Cycle campaigners are aware of the importance of moving away from carbon-based transport systems, yet we still exhibit denial. We leave the conference all enthused. But a few hours later, we drive to dinner with family or friends, and the reality of our society's dependence on carbon hits home.

It wasn't all doom and gloom. There was a lot of cycle-specific stuff, and it was motivating to feel part of a larger campaign, not just focused on Oxford.

Yours truly ran a workshop on PR and the media. We developed some clever stunt ideas emphasising how a stint in the saddle can save the masses of time - and reduce the certainty of planetary catastrophe. Watch the Oxford Mail news pages . . .