So what was the price of my I’m-so-conscientious feeling? Only a penny more per Kwh than what I’ve been paying for fossil fuel-generated electricity. Sure, a true test of virtue would be cutting my morning shower short by about 8 minutes, but the estimated benefit of switching to green power is a 4.2 ton reduction in the amount of CO2 our household generates per year. (Calculate your own impact using this calculator.)

Seventy-three degree days in January in New York might make you wonder if it’s already too late, but according to James Hanson of NASA, the world’s top climatologist, we have until 2015 to reverse the flow of carbon into the atmosphere before we cross a threshold and create a "different planet." Maybe this can be your New Year’s resolution. (I had resolved not to talk about people anymore, but soon realized I’m really not a very good person.) If you’re feeling really motivated, check out ten things you can do to help prevent more global warming catastrophes at www.climatecrisis.org, the companion site to Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth. And if you’re all over this stuff already, maybe you can share any other small changes you’ve made in your daily life to help make a difference.

-- Deirdre