The government's desire to expand global trade may be understandable but we mustn't give away too much. We must tell our elected representatives to at least delay the Canada-China FIPA until it has been examined more thoroughly and to reconsider the inclusion of investor-state arbitration mechanisms in all trade deals.

We should have been there shoulder to shoulder with our allies. Our concern is the instability of our government as an ally. We are playing again with national and global security matters.

Also it is interesting that developing countries with China and India perhaps in the lead where the future of the global environment will be decided are now on board with the case for sustainable development.

The people in charge globally are maniacs. They are maniacs and unless we do something about it these people are going to deprive us of a future.

The most important thing about global warming is this. Whether humans are responsible for the bulk of climate change is going to be left to the scientists but it's all of our responsibility to leave this planet in better shape for the future generations than we found it.

A globalized world is by now a familiar fact of life. Building walls or moats may sound appealing but the future belongs to those who tend to their people and then boldly engage the rest of the world near and far.

I honestly don't know but if America continues to refuse to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions I see a bleak future not only for American society but for the world as a whole. This is a global problem that is not going away and the United States is an obstacle to solving it.

The global economic outlook remains fragile and uncertain. Global economic imbalances persist and we must address them or risk future instability.

I would like to see a future where artists think that they have a right to contemplate things like global warming.

Where globalization means as it so often does that the rich and powerful now have new means to further enrich and empower themselves at the cost of the poorer and weaker we have a responsibility to protest in the name of universal freedom.

On a level of simple personal survival understanding and forgiveness are crucial... whether in an intimate personal relationship or on a global level.

Without sound conservation and management measures fisheries will quickly become depleted and a basic component of global food security will be lost.

But Australia faces additional regional and global challenges also crucial to our nation's future - climate change questions of energy and food security the rise of China and the rise of India. And we need a strong system of global and regional relationships and institutions to underpin stability.

Global trade has advantages. For starters it allows those of us who live through winter to eat fresh produce year-round. And it provides economic benefits to farmers who grow that food.

I think it is important to ask ourselves as citizens not as Democrats attacking the administration but as citizens whether a world power can really provide global leadership on the basis of fear and anxiety?

I've never had a very closely connected family. My parents split up when I was young and I was living with my mom for a little while then I was kind of just on my own really young. It wasn't some kind of global tragedy it was just never really a very close-knit family. So there was support in the sense that they didn't stand in my way.

I believe there is a moral sense and a global ethic that commands attention from people of every religion and every faith and people of no faith. But I think what's new is that we now have the capacity to communicate instantaneously across frontiers right across the world.