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.

I feel more confident than ever that the power to save the planet rests with the individual consumer.

We got everyone's attention, but we didn't solve any environmental problems.

It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.

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.

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.

he economy favors throughput over quality and craftsmanship, and economists are terrified because the American savings rate has crept upward from about zero to almost five percent. But the mortgage crisis and the burgeoning credit card crisis are causing Americans to become wary of irresponsible debt.