Australian law needs to recognise greenhouse gas emissions as a matter of environmental significance, writes Karen Bubna-Litic.

Taxpayer-funded health systems were created in an age when medicine was rudimentary and inexpensive, the old died relatively young, and doctors mainly saved people from misadventure rather than from the consequences of their lifestyle choices, warns Jeremy Sammut.

Early intervention for depression and other emerging serious mental illness is a key under-explored strategy, says Professor Patrick McGorry.

A comprehensive strategy that involves water recycling, urban runoff and desalination, together with an appropriate pricing structure must be undertaken, according to Associate Professor Hector Malano.

Pests, diseases and climate change know no boundaries, according to Emile Frison.

Complex and overlapping federal and state privacy provisions are jeopardising medical research and basic health care, according to Professor Loane Skene.

Australia should be a global and regional leader in addressing climate change, by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol and introducing policies to reduce national greenhouse gas emissions by at least 60 per cent by 2050, according to Professor David Karoly.

Australia needs a concerted and considerable investment in primary care clinical based research if it is to deal with future health care demands, according to Jane Gunn.

Drought stricken Australia can ill-afford to replace a water-thirsty coal industry with an even thirstier one: nuclear power, according to Sue Wareham and Jim Green.

Recent international conferences have revealed significant disagreements about how countries should cooperate to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat global warming.

Unless Victorian forests are subjected to more efficient bushfire preparedness, Global Warming will result in large uncontrollable fires, warns John Cribbes.

Commercialisation of research is under attack in Australia, but perhaps more, not less, commercialisation is needed, according to Dr Rowan Gilmore.

Nuclear power is a viable option that should be seriously considered to help minimise greenhouse gas emissions, according to Ian Smith.

Loane Skene finds the pronouncements in Margaret Somerville's new book, The Ethical Imagination: Journeys of the Human Spirit, too absolute, yet logically developped and clearly advanced.

There has been little consideration about how fair the impacts of our policy responses to climate change will be, says Christian Seibert.