I grew up in the 1970s, in the first decade of Earth Days, and can recall brief presentations at my Episcopal Montessori (a bit redundant, that) about pollution, recycling, and gas mileage. To be honest, the subject did not interest me very much then or later. I much preferred trying to think globally—or historically and politically—to acting locally. Under pressure from my wife and now my children, I put the newspapers in the right receptacle. Or at least I do most of the time.
I share these not-exactly-earth-shattering domestic details because I suspect many of you are similarly ambivalent about the efficacy of small-scale action to address a planetary problem.
Please hold the e-mails about how the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step or that it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness (where would we be without Chinese proverbs?). I stipulate that an individual's sense of responsibility to reality beyond one's self is indispensable to addressing climate change and our dependence on foreign oil. It is just that my lightbulbs and Diet Coke cans are not going to make up for the CO2 pouring forth from China's coal-fired plants.
What might begin to make up for all those emissions is discovering how noncarbon sources of energy could become economically attractive. In a new book that marks an evolution in his thinking, Al Gore, whose Our Choice is the occasion for our cover, recognizes that the debate over climate change can be more about doing well while doing good. As Sharon Begley, who profiles Gore for us, told me, "He is no less concerned about the threat of what he continues to call the climate crisis, but while An Inconvenient Truth had a final section on 'what you can personally do,' this book is much more the analysis of a man who knows that big change comes through political and business activity."
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