Earth Day

The NY Times Magazine this week celebrates Earth Day with many little articles about things that one can do, and that are being done by others, to fight global warming. And addressing the seeming hopelessness of any one person’s actions having an appreciable effect on such a huge problem, Michael Pollan argues that it’s the “cheap energy mindset” (a concept borrowed from Wendell Berry) that paralyzes us. While combatting global warming will surely take large-scale governmental action, what will that action do, ultimately, but change the way that each of us lives?