I would love to see a fundamental re-thinking of whether we truly want to be the world's largest debtor nation, feeding an insatiable desire for mall-crawling with cheaply made crap from all over the world.

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.

These are not exhortations from overwrought extremists, but carefully phrased warnings from some of the world's finest scientists.

We've made some heroic efforts, but the Earth as a whole is in worse shape today than 30 years ago, ... There's been 30 more years of greenhouses gases, species extinctions and population growth.

By the year 2000, such renewable energy sources could provide 40 percent of the global energy budget; by 2025, humanity could obtain 75 percent of its energy from solar resources.

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

Zeroes are important. A million seconds ago was last week. A billion seconds ago, Richard Nixon resigned the presidency. A trillion seconds ago was 30,000 BC, and early humans were using stone tools.