When we held the first Earth Day, everyone said it was a success because of the huge turnout. It was probably the largest planned event across the country.

We presently have the technology ... fuel cells, solar cells, hydrogen ... the opportunities are amazing for clean energy.

Under communism, prices were not allowed to reflect economic reality. Under capitalism, prices don't reflect ecological reality. In the long run, the capitalist flaw -- if uncorrected -- may prove to be the more catastrophic.

Earth Day gathered up those strands, and dozens more, and knitted them together in the public consciousness as "environmental" issues. The nation was pretty startled when 20 million people hit the streets. Congress, which had adjourned for the day to go back to its districts, was blown away.

The easiest way to make something cool is to get cool people to do it. Part of this might mean the president has to forget tensions with opponents, or people like Arnold Schwarzenegger who has actually been decent with oil issues. Maybe he needs to pull some of the cool people in and make them model the right behaviors.

The more subtle thing is more speculative. The world is well past its long-term carrying capacity for human beings living a European, much less an American, lifestyle predicated on planned obsolescence. International economic growth is largely a matter of accelerated movement of materials from mines and forests to the dump. Instead of saving and buying decent furniture we can pass on to our children, we charge our credit cards for shaped heaps of sawdust and glue that fall apart in less than three or four years.

When civilization stands at the edge of a cliff, a step forward doesn't make much sense.