Green initiatives are ubiquitous these days, implemented with zeal at companies like Dupont, IBM, Walmart, and Walt Disney. The programs being rolled out -- lighting retrofits, zero-waste factories, and carpool incentives -- save money and provide a green glow. Most large companies are working to reduce energy use and waste, and many have integrated sustainability into strategic planning. What’s not to like?

Well, for starters, these actions don’t meaningfully address the primary barrier to sustainability, climate change. According to the International Energy Agency, without action, global temperatures will likely increase 6 degrees C by 2100, “which would have devastating consequences for the planet.” This means more super droughts, floods, storms, fires, crop failures, sea-level rise, and other major disruptions. “Sustainability” simply isn't possible in the face of such a problem, as Superstorm Sandy demonstrated.

So despite perceptions that “sustainable business” is up and running, the environment reminds us we’re failing to deal with the problem at anywhere near sufficient scale.

Two things have happened since the obscure holiday of St. Crispin's day, Oct. 25, this year. First, Hurricane Sandy emphatically reset the American conversation on climate change. A recent cover of Bloomberg Businessweek was "It's Global Warming, Stupid!" Second, the presidential candidate who understands climate science and wants to take action has been elected. In his victory speech Obama said: "We want our children to live in an America that isn't threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet."

In history, St. Crispin's day happens to have marked two legendary battles where armies overcame overwhelming odds. The U.S. and Australia's improbable victory, outgunned and outnumbered, at Leyte Gulf during World War II, was one. And in 1415 at Agincourt, Henry V and his men used longbows to defeat the numerically superior French forces. It's worth noting that the catastrophic Charge of the Light Brigade also happened on St. Crispin's day, reminding us that great boldness often carries great consequences.

Perhaps this year, St. Crispin's day marked another improbable victory against all odds: The date when Americans finally started talking about realistic paths to climate solutions.

Where do we go from here? There are at least three viable options today, and here they are:

Fracking isn’t only happening in the gas fields. Because of the never before seen and almost impossible to grok (or solve) problem of climate change, fracking is happening all over the environmental movement. Moms are fighting kids. Boards are fighting staff. Nonprofits are fighting each other. Left is fighting right and left. Republicans are getting sick of their weird and lame leaders, like Romney, Gingrich, and McCain who clearly understood climate science until they didn’t understand it, and are spinning off on their own to fix the thing. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/07/10/513568/climate-republicans-global-warming-initiativ/?mobile=nc. Just this year, I supported state legislation on a key climate …

(Reposted from Huffington Post) How weird would it have been if, in the 1960s, the press had reported from Selma, Birmingham, and Montgomery like this: "Selma, Al. March 7 (AP) -- Protests Swell in the South! Hundreds marched out of Selma on Highway 80 today. Many protesters were left bloodied, coughing, and severely injured when State Troopers used tear gas and Billy clubs on the crowds. Man, people were pissed off. They really were demonstrating!" Of course, what's weird about that reporting is that the article doesn't say why the people were angry. To not report that would have simply …

No need to hide in a corner: There are a few signs of hope when it comes to climate change. (Photo by Zen Sutherland.)

Cross-posted from Huffington Post.

With magazines like Scientific American publishing articles titled "Global Warming Close to Becoming Irreversible," and 15,000-plus temperature records set this spring in the U.S., it's no wonder the CFO of the business I work for said to me recently, "I have this crippling anxiety about climate change ... what are our children going to have to deal with?"

At Keystone, in Colorado, ski season is still going on, but a nearby fire meant the lodge was being used as an evacuation center a few weeks ago. Meanwhile, the Washington Post expressed bafflement about U.S. inaction in the face of obvious climate threats highlighted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

This all leaves most of us in the movement to solve climate change with a borderline-debilitating creeping terror that haunts our daily activities, and inclines many of us to want to rock in the corner holding our knees, eating Chinese food out of the box.

But that's neither productive nor healthy, and Kung Pao stains carpet.

Instead, we need to find signs of hope. And surprisingly, there are a few.

It wasn’t surprising that the Wall Street Journal published an error-riddled op-ed about climate change last week, essentially saying it was bunk and we shouldn’t “panic” about it. We’ve gotten used to that. But what has really started to amaze me about that newspaper’s editorial page and the far right is that they now venture beyond delusion or misinformation. They lie, and they know they are lying.

That’s a big claim, but how else do you account for the statement that “the earth hasn’t warmed for well over 10 years now” when it is well known by anyone working on climate that 2010 was the hottest year on record?

Despite the fact that many of the authors of the article are funded by ExxonMobil through the George C. Marshall Institute, and despite the fact that none of them are leading scientists, they, and the editor of the opinion page, simply had to know that that statement was false. They may be unethical, but they are not stupid.

Events of 2011 show that no matter how solid the science, some people will never accept that humans are causing global warming.  So how can we cut the Gordian Knot that is manmade global warming? by Auden Schendler, reposted from the Atlantic One version of the myth of King Midas holds that he was not greedy. Instead, he loved his daughter so much that he longed to leave her a stable future. When given the chance, he asked for the golden touch as a way to create an endowment. But when they embraced, she turned to gold as well. In …

"In a place without people, be a person." -old saying, source unknown to me. I am a parent and a 41-year-old human denizen of planet earth, climate warrior, dormant mountaineer. So like others of my ilk, I spend a lot of time in mid-life/existential crisis. That state of mind is ameliorated to some extent by my charitable giving, often done at this time of year. To that end I'm offering Grist readers my annual philanthropic suggestions. I will preface the suggestions with a short description of the conditions of my life that lead, on any given day, to me enjoying …

Kenn Wilson Come Friday, I'm usually pretty torched after a typical week of being attacked as a hypocrite for working on climate change in the ski industry. So, often, I'll join our company CFO for a cocktail. Our favorite is a Manhattan, which I mix up with some Gentleman Jack if possible, because I like owner Brown-Forman's work on climate change. And, in theory, I escape. Or so I thought. But it turns out that global warming may affect weather patterns crucial to the bourbon aging process, according to a terror-inducing study conducted for the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Hey, now. …

There is dancing in the streets in the climate world these day after another of the deniers bit the dust. I'm talking of course about Richard's Muller's study that shows warming is, in fact, happening. http://tinyurl.com/3ntvrom Not only that, but the big baddies at Koch funded the study. And even better, the biggest baddie of all, the Wall Street Journal op ed page, published the public mea culpa by the scientist in question.  Told you so. But actually if you read Muller's piece, you realize he's debunking something that even most of the deniers now take as fact--the idea that …