But what's the solution? Most media sidebars and web links quickly send us to that peppy and bright list we all know so well, one vaguely reminiscent of Better Homes and Gardens: "10 Things You Can Do to Save the Planet." Standard steps include: change three light bulbs. Consider a hybrid car for your next purchase. Tell the kids to turn out the lights. Even during the recent Al Gore-inspired Live Earth concerts, the phrase "planetary emergency" was followed by "wear more clothes indoors in winter" and "download your music at home to save on the shipping fuel for CDs."

Nice little gestures all, but are you kidding me? Does anyone think this is the answer?

Imagine if this had been the dominant response to racial segregation 50 years ago. Apartheid rules across much of our land and here are three things you can do: "Take time, if possible, to feed three negroes who seek food at your lunch counter each month. Consider giving up your use of the N-word, or at least cut down. And avoid vacationing in states where National Guardsmen are needed to enroll blacks in public schools."

This would obviously be absurd, Tidwell suggests. The Civil Rights Act and the federal government's intervention was required. In a similar way, the U.S. government must now mount a massive and expensive effort to shift away from petroleum -- a project so sweeping, it would require an effort similar to the muscle it took to win World War II. "To move our nation off of fossil fuels, we need inspired Churchillian leadership and sweeping statutes a la the Big War or the civil-rights movement," Tidwell writes.

Are you on board with this?  One person who won't heed Tidwell's call to arms is Bjorn Lomborg, author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist" and now his new book, "Cool It." 

Yesterday's New York Times summarizes Lomborg's argument, which is essentially that global warming is happening -- but not a big deal.  Our government shouldn't waste too much of our time or money trying to solve the problem -- because it can't, Lomborg asserts.  And, anyway, buying an air conditioner and building up our shorelines with rock barriers might be enough.

The Times reports: "The best strategy, Lomborg says, is to make the rest of the world as rich as New York, so that people elsewhere can afford to do things like shore up their coastlines and buy air conditioners."

So who's right? Everyone now agrees that climate change is really happening.  Is it something that demands personal virtue as a response?  Sweeping government regulations?  Or just a few air conditioners? Readers, what do you think?