Hello ladies and gents this is the Viking telling you that today we are talking about

SAVERS OF THE WORLD

Henry Saragih

Union leader and farmer

Henry Saragih is a small farmer who has hardly seen his wife and children in 15 years since taking on the Indonesian government and the palm oil barons of Sumatra and Kalimantan. Companies with links to government are devastating vast areas of Indonesia and southeast Asia to grow palm oil to supply Europe's cars and kitchens with biofuel and cooking oils, and Saragih is one of the few people standing in their path. 

Not only does he lead a union of several million agitated Indonesian peasants, but he also heads Via Campesina, the global movement of increasingly militant peasant farmers which campaigns for land reform in 80 countries. Saragih and his colleagues are lobbying the UN and the World Trade Organisation. How this struggle plays out in the next 20 years will determine whether there is any rainforest left intact south-east Asia in 50 years' time, and possibly the political future of many developing countries.

Eric Rey

Bioscientist

Eric Rey is not a natural ally of the broad green movement, at least in Europe. He leads a biotechnology company, Arcadia, that develops GM crops. One of his biggest customers is Monsanto. Yet Arcadia's GM technology could help the fight against climate change. Its plants are engineered to require less nitrogen fertiliser, so lowering emissions of nitrous oxide - a greenhouse gas some 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. World agriculture accounts for 17% of industrial greenhouse gas emissions, more than the transport sector. Arcadia's first commercial crop could be rice. Swapping global rice supply to the GM version, the company says, would save the equivalent of 50 million tons of carbon dioxide each year.

Bjørn Lomborg

Statistician

Bjørn Lomborg, 42, has become an essential check and balance to runaway environmental excitement. In 2004, the Dane made his name as a green contrarian with his bestselling book The Skeptical Environmentalist, and outraged scientists and green groups around the world by arguing that many claims about global warming, overpopulation, energy resources, deforestation, species loss and water shortages are not supported by analysis.

 He was accused of scientific dishonesty, but cleared his name. He doesn't dispute the science of climate change, but questions the priority it is given. He may look increasingly out of step, but Lomborg is one of the few academics prepared to challenge the consensus with credible data.

And as always have a chilled day from the Viking