How exciting, then, to get a high-wattage jolt of energy—and responsible leadership—from a powerful ally in the fight against global warming: Walmart, one of the largest companies in the world. To paraphrase Groucho Marx, these days politics doesn’t make strange bedfellows—business does.

Walmart isn't waiting for politicians or regulators to do the right thing. Last week CEO Mike Duke stood on a podium with EDF's Fred Krupp and announced a goal of eliminating 20 million metric tons of greenhouse gases from Walmart's global supply chain by the end of 2015 (watch webcast of the announcement). That's the equivalent of taking more than 3.8 million cars off the road for a year. Or, if you look at it another way — saving 2 billion gallons of gasoline a year.

To find these reductions, Walmart will be asking the estimated 100,000 companies that supply it to cut the amount of carbon they emit when they produce, package and ship their products. This pollution reduction goal will affect every step of the manufacturing process from raw materials to recycling.

For instance, suppliers could label clothes to be washed in cold water instead of hot water, or accelerate the innovation of fabrics that dry faster. "The significance of Walmart's commitment is the shift in perspective that it represents,” says Elizabeth Sturcken, EDF's managing director for corporate partnerships. “It's like moving from using a microscope to using a satellite to find opportunities for carbon pollution reduction across the globe."

This action, the result of five years of collaboration with EDF and others, is sure to have a tremendous ripple effect. When Walmart makes a sea change, it hauls other companies along in its wake. And these companies are not small: Colgate-Palmolive, Johnson & Johnson, Proctor & Gamble. Moreover, Walmart reaches consumers at home, a surefire way to change attitudes and habits. Consider a few examples:

• When Walmart decided that the shipping and storage of large containers of laundry detergent was wasteful (so much of it was water), it told suppliers it would only carry concentrates to be sold in smaller containers—and that’s become the dominant form of detergent at Walmart and all other retailers.
• When Walmart took a hard look at the DVDs on its shelves, the company asked 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment to make the plastic packaging lighter, cutting lifecycle carbon emissions significantly and saving energy. Subsequently, the lighter packaging was used for software and games as well. These greener products are now being sold everywhere – not just at Walmart – an example of how a small change can have a big multiplier effect.
• When with EDF's help, Walmart decided to educate its customers about the energy efficiency of CFLs by setting up informative displays in their stores, it sold hundreds of millions of bulbs. That compelled manufacturers to make refinements in their design and the quality of their light, transforming an entire industry.

Walmart has also been addressing its own carbon footprint—though that is dwarfed by suppliers' emissions. It is increasing the efficiency of its trucks and stores. All this is saving the company money, and that, of course, is what Walmart is about. The company can, and undoubtedly will, do more. As Mike Duke, Walmart's president, puts it: "We need to get ready for a world in which energy will only be more expensive, and there will only be a greater need to operate with less carbon in the supply chain."

More than a third of all Americans shop at the country's largest retailer every week. To critics, such big box stores are juggernauts indifferent to quality and local values. Certainly, large retailers' way of doing business reinforces corporate and global food production. Walmart, like others, relies on a massive network of transport spanning great distances. Global sourcing has occasionally resulted in shoddy or even dangerous products on retailers' shelves, such as when lead paint was found in toys from China. Like all chain stores, the outlets are physically disassociated from the very towns in which they sit, though they certainly create jobs, no small matter. But it's also true that Walmart has begun developing closer relationships with its suppliers, buying locally, demanding better quality, and now, reducing its carbon emissions.

As John Lyle, who was a professor of landscape architecture at California Polytechnic Institute, wrote: "What humans designed we can redesign and what humans built, we can rebuild." Walmart's climate initiative is an important step in that direction. Participation is voluntary, though Walmart has made it clear that companies that cut their emissions will have an advantage in getting their product onto its shelves. Compliance remains a thorny issue, as the international supply chain is plagued by practices like illegal logging and phony labeling. Walmart is working on a detailed set of guidelines for accountability (you can comment on it on EDF's Innovation Exchange website in a few weeks), and is pressing for more transparent sourcing. "We need a clear chain of custody from start to finish," explains EDF project manager Michelle Harvey.

In this recession, we've heard a lot about what's gone wrong with globalization. But today, it is possible that Walmart, one of the most agile players in the global economy, can show us how to harness the world marketplace to encourage innovation and cut dangerous pollution. "Walmart's work will impact almost every American consumer, regardless of where they shop," says Steve Hamburg, EDF's Chief Scientist. "These are the products that are sold on every Main Street: a win for the environment. The idea is to change industry norms; that will help to strengthen American businesses and reduce the impact of our consumer society."

Some thoughtful environmentalists feel we aren't going to get things right until we have a wholesale transformation of our values—and that includes cutting way down on consumption. As David Orr writes: "We do not often see the true ugliness of the consumer economy." We need a rebirth of social values that protect the environment. But that kind of change takes a long time, perhaps generations. We have experienced that painful crawl in the evolution of our attitudes about race, feminism and sexuality. How much time do we have?

We are beginning to see glimmers of change in our consumer mentality, partly because of a shaky economy and partly because of demographics. I have a hunch—based on anecdotal evidence—that baby boomers, facing empty nests and insecure stock markets, are scaling back their lifestyles, moving into smaller homes and lightening up. There does come a time when enough's enough—when we no longer feel the need for more stuff that's going to be thrown away.

There is a profound value in slowing down the pace of our lives, deepening our connections to the natural world, and honoring what is, after all, our children's heritage.

The more we understand the consequences of waste and pollution, the more intolerable those become.

I believe Walmart understands this message. As the company's president says, America needs "comprehensive legislative policy that addresses energy, energy security, the country's competitiveness and reducing pollution." Sure, cutting waste is good for business, and recasting the argument against global warming as a matter of wastefulness is smart marketing. But the message from Walmart to the American people is loud and clear: America's corporate leaders want action on global warming!

So if you're wondering who is selling snake oil these days….well, perhaps the global warming deniers will consider shrinking their packaging.

The ocean is awe-inspiring. We were born of it, and it gives us life by producing much of the oxygen we breathe and the water we drink. It is mysterious and vast. No wonder we speak of emptying oceans with teaspoons to describe impossible tasks.

Yet, unfathomably, we have accomplished the impossible. We have changed the basic chemistry of the oceans — drop by drop — in such a profound way that we may be destroying a web of life that we depend upon for our very existence. Those ocean creatures should be wary of us — not the other way around.

"Scientists are concerned that we are changing the ocean's chemistry so rapidly that we are outstripping the evolutionary pace of many organisms to adapt."

The change we've introduced is called ocean acidification.

The basic science is pretty straightforward: Since the industrial revolution, humans have been pumping ever increasing amounts of carbon dioxide into the air. Some of that CO₂ is absorbed by the ocean, where it dissolves to form carbonic acid.

The ocean today absorbs nearly a third of the carbon dioxide we produce, probably mitigating the impact of climate change. But the ocean has absorbed so much CO₂ that overall acidity levels are rising, and at a much faster rate than previously thought.

More acidic water makes it harder — and ultimately impossible — for some creatures like oysters, corals and mussels to form shells, which are made largely from the calcium carbonate, plain old chalk, that occurs naturally in seawater.  That’s why acidification is sometimes referred to as "osteoporosis of the sea."

These tiny, lentil-sized pteropods are essential to the survival of creatures like the humpback whale. (Top photo: Limacina Helicina by Victoria Fabry.)

This process affects creatures up and down the food chain — from the tiny organisms that build the planet's coral reefs and the plankton drifting with the ocean currents, all the way to the whales that feed on the plankton.

Also affected are the lentil bean-sized pteropods, delicate, balletic creatures that nourish many of the fish we then consume. In other words, the ability of all ocean life to sustain itself is being compromised.

Scientists have been surprised at how sensitive plants and animals are to even small changes in CO₂ levels. Some creatures have shown an ability to adapt to more acidic waters; lobsters, for instance, harden their shells in an initial response to acidity. But for many creatures, acid is deadly: Their shells disintegrate. And many scientists are concerned that we are changing the ocean's chemistry so rapidly that we are outstripping the capacity of many organisms to adapt.

Because the science is fairly new, we still do not fully understand the long-term effect of increasingly acidic oceans. The ocean is a complex, integrated, self-regulating system; how it will change is hard to predict.

As we conduct this uncontrolled experiment on two-thirds of the planet, scientists are racing to find ways to make the ocean more resilient. Doug Rader, EDF's chief ocean scientist, says: "Along with our partners from around the world — from Cuba to the EU, and beyond — EDF scientists are scrambling to understand why some reefs are more robust than others, why some fish populations bounce back, when others languish, and exactly what mix of strategies will suffice to maximize the resilience of the world's oceans.

"One thing is already clear," he adds. "Rebuilding ecosystem complexity, including restoring populations of large predators such as sharks, is central to the long-term survival of the seas."

The Obama administration signaled its commitment to acidification research when it appointed Jane Lubchenco to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Lubchenco, a widely respected marine ecologist and former EDF Board member, has made clear, in Congressional testimony and elsewhere, the seriousness of this threat to the seas.

There is no controversy surrounding the science underlying the acidification of the ocean. There is no question about where the CO₂ is coming from. There is no question about how the chemistry works. And there is only one known way to stop acidification: to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide. The more we reduce now, the less severe, and costly, the future consequences.

What can you do? Become an advocate for the oceans. Take care to minimize your carbon footprint—but keep in mind one of my favorite phrases: living sustainably is necessary, but not sufficient. It's equally important to demand comprehensive legislation that cuts carbon emissions.

And go ahead, take a swim. Bathe in those natal waters, and give thanks for the life they support. The ocean has the capacity to heal itself much faster than one teaspoon at a time. We need to give it that chance. We would be doing ourselves a big favor — giving our grandchildren a chance to inhabit a livable planet.

Editor's note, 2/12: The list of animals that will experience difficulty in forming shells has been updated.

Acidification
I urge you to watch Dr. Jane Lubchenco’s fascinating, jargon-free testimony before the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming hearing, "The State of Climate Science" held on December 2, 2009. Lubchenco, a marine ecologist, runs the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and was, until recently, vice-chair of the EDF Board of Trustees. She is a terrific teacher; her demonstration of the process of acidification is classroom-friendly, and makes the science clear.

Part One:

Part Two:

The Monaco Declaration, recently approved by 155 scientists from 26 countries, sets forth the acidification problem in a straightforward manner. It also addresses the option of geoengineering as a solution. (Bottom line: only cutting carbon emissions will work.) The paper, which came out of the Second International Symposium on the Ocean in a High CO₂ World, concludes: "Ocean acidification is rapid, but recovery will be slow. The current increase in ocean acidity is a hundred times faster than any previous natural change that has occurred over the last many millions of years."

The broader picture
State of the World's Oceans, by Michelle Allsopp et al, is a comprehensive overview of the latest published scientific information about the condition of the oceans. It is written by scientists working at the Greenpeace Research Laboratories at the University of Exeter in the UK. It is also clear and accessible, though goes into some depth — I recommend this for the committed amateur as well as for the dedicated science student.

Rachel Carson is widely known for her influential book on the dangers of pesticides, Silent Spring, but she wrote wonderfully and extensively about the ocean. She was a biologist in the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries in the forties; her first job was to write radio copy for a series of weekly educational broadcasts, "Romance Under the Waters." Two of my all-time favorite books are The Sea Around Us, which was bestseller in 1951, and The Edge of the Sea, which also became a best seller. Though some of the information is outdated, both of these books are eminently worthwhile. Carson's style is poetic. She writes movingly about life in the tidal zones, and makes you care about those unseen, tiny, tough, resilient sea creatures. Her sense of wonder is contagious. After reading The Edge of the Sea, your beach walks will never be the same.

Nearly a half century after Carson's books appeared, Dr. Rod Fujita's Heal the Ocean: Solutions for Saving Our Seas, is a clarion call for action to stop the desecration of the seas. Fujita, a senior scientist at EDF, paints a picture that is both frightening and inspiring: He reveals the mysteries of sea life and of ecosystems gone awry due to humans' over-exploitation: seagrass meadows where turtles once grazed, majestic kelp forests reduced to rubble from an explosion of urchins because their natural predators have been fished out, delicate coral reefs, harboring a quarter of the world's fish, under threat everywhere from climate change and pollution. Dr. Fujita offers a wealth of creative solutions grounded in science and economics and backed by real-world examples. He makes you believe in the ocean's ability to restore itself — if humans can become caring stewards of the seas.

Dr. Dan Boone pleas for Congress to address climate change.

The conflict between politics, religion and science has been with us for centuries; think of Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin. Today there is rampant confusion between faith, something you believe in, and science, something that requires only connective leaps between hypotheses and demonstrable evidence. We seem to have lost our trust in the authority of scientists, no matter how impressive their level of training and achievement. A fascinating new Pew poll showed that Republicans are overwhelmingly less likely to "believe" the science of climate change than Democrats, who aren't entirely persuaded either.

With every passing week, the scientific data gets more precise, and more frightening. Yet this has proven insufficient to move people to action. All the more fascinating, then, to watch the growing movement among religious leaders who use their pulpits to venture into environmental action. More than 10,000 congregations of Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist and other faiths are working in 30 states as members of Interfaith Power & Light (IPL). These religious leaders are clearly having an impact on people across the country who would never call themselves environmentalists.

IPL sees climate change as a profound moral issue, a matter of values—something many environmentalists have been wary of addressing, preferring to focus on technological or economic solutions as being less politically charged and ultimately more effective. But no matter what our approach, we all have something to learn from faith communities about how to bridge divisions and instruct, inspire and mobilize people.

The powerful message of Interfaith Power and Light—one that unites all faiths—is that people have a duty to be stewards of the earth. In loving God, we must love his creation. This is not, as some critics claim, about turning environmentalism into a religion; that is a perversion of what is actually happening. The fact is, in order to succeed in significantly altering the global course of climate change, we are going to have to harness all the power we have, whether it is the power of the market, the power of technology, or the power of heart and soul.

IPL is the brainchild of the Reverend Sally Bingham, a priest in the Episcopal Diocese of California. Bingham is also a trustee of EDF. She founded The Regeneration Project whose mission is to deepen the connection between ecology and religion. IPL is the primary campaign and is a religious response to global warming. State chapters respond to a call to action: they agree to give sermons that explain the danger of climate change, reduce their own emissions, support public policy that cuts greenhouse gases, and promote the adoption of renewable energy technologies.

"Most people want to do the right and moral thing," Bingham wrote to me recently in an email. "They just don’t sometimes know what that is. It is for that reason that religious leaders have such an important role. We need to take this issue out of the hands of the politicians and get it into the hands of the people at the grass roots level. Clergy can do this."

Communities of faith, in other words, can provide moral leadership, something we desperately need amplified from many quarters. Think of the two major moral issues in America's past – civil rights and slavery; the fight over these issues was led by communities of faith, united on moral grounds. "There are millions of people who don't listen to politicians and who are skeptical of science, but who will listen to their clergy," notes Bingham.

"The powerful message that unites all faiths is that people have a duty to be stewards of the earth."

I spent my holidays reading some fascinating books on the subject of the climate crisis and our values, as I've long wondered what is keeping us, as a society, from wholeheartedly accepting the danger we face, and doing whatever it takes to ward it off. Many thinkers claim the human brain isn't wired to handle long-term catastrophe; we need to see a real and present danger. Somehow, this isn't a very good excuse.

I found a provocative and wide-ranging discussion of these issues in Down to the Wire, by David W. Orr; I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Orr argues that we must learn to cultivate "the arts and sciences of gratitude, which is to say, applied love." We must be grateful for the gift of this world; that is the first step towards taking responsibility for the damage we have done to the planet. In a moving passage in his new book, Our Choice, Al Gore envisions the necessary social transformation: "Our way of thinking changed. The earth itself began to occupy our thoughts." As Stephen Jay Gould writes, "We will not fight to save what we do not love."

Religious communities have often mobilized themselves to act in the name of love. (And, sadly, it must not be forgotten, the opposite.) They are well equipped to talk about values—those "habits of the heart", as DeToqueville called them. The clerical message of members of Interfaith Power & Light is bracingly straightforward: help the poor, who suffer disproportionately from drought, flooding, famine and pollution, because it is the just thing to do; and heal the planet, because it is God's gift to humankind, and we have no right to destroy it for future generations.

Love may be the common theme among these scientists, thinkers and clerics, but it's not exactly the basis for a political platform. Nor is it scientifically measurable. But that's why it is the most potent message of all, embracing the kind of idealism that can unite and inspire. We are daily bombarded with messages making us desire what we haven't got. But going forward, the power will be with anyone who can persuade us to love what we do have, and what we are in danger of losing: the hospitable beauty of our planet. May the earth itself occupy our hearts—if not our prayers—in the coming year.

Interfaith Power & Light founder Reverend Sally Bingham is sometimes referred to as "the godmother of the environmental movement in the religious community." Bingham's story is fascinating; she was a stay-at-home mother of three children in San Francisco when she felt a call to the Priesthood; at the age of 45, she enrolled in college, having completed only a high school education before marrying, and then went on to seminary.

She found her calling when she realized she never heard sermons about the importance of being stewards of God's creation, a central mandate of any religion. On the weekend of February 13 and 14, members of her group Interfaith Power & Light will conduct a national preach-in on global warming and host discussions about putting faith into action.

Following are some excerpts of an email correspondence:

On Interfaith Power & Light: "We are growing so fast we cannot keep up. Every year new states come on—some red states, too, where faith is leading the effort."

On Copenhagen: "Disappointment will be the flavor of the coming weeks, but at the same time we are energized to work even harder. Copenhagen established a short-term goal of persuading the U.S. Senate that it has a moral responsibility to limit greenhouse gases in this country. Faith leaders all over America know that we have a responsibility to protect the poor among us and that they are hurt the most and contribute the least to the problem. This is a justice issue, and for precisely that reason it is a religious one.

The religious community at large will be mostly pleased over Secretary Clinton's pledge of $100 billion of aid to the developing nations. That is something we were working for.

On politics and religion: "Jesus said, 'what you do to the least of us you do to me.' Climate change is a moral issue first. It is a justice issue. We are supposed to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. You are breaking that commandment when you pour engine oil in the storm drain behind your house; it goes to your neighbor's water. You pollute your neighbor's air when you use electricity that is created by burning coal. Furthermore, it is insulting to God to blow the tops off the beautiful mountains that God called 'good'. They are sacred.

On occasion a person will say 'keep politics out of the church,' but that usually doesn’t come from clergy. They know that we are the stewards of the earth and most religious leaders understand that upsetting the climate is more, much more, than a political issue."

On the clerical role in social change: "When a society has to make a cultural change (like switching to clean energy and a green economy) it will not happen without the moral authority that comes from preaching by religious leaders. There are millions of people who don't listen to politicians and who are skeptical of science, but who WILL listen to their clergy."

We are exposed to thousands of synthetic chemicals all day long. It would be next to impossible to avoid them; they lace our lives. We sleep on chemical fire retardants in the fabrics covering our mattresses. We wake and wash with chemical soaps, and slather chemical-rich moisturizers on our bodies, shampoos on our heads, cosmetics on our faces. We cuddle our babies in plush armchairs, upholstered in fabric that is treated with stain-resistant coatings. Our toddlers cut their teeth chewing plastic toys that contain chemicals to make them soft.

We live in a society that, if anything, seems too full of rules and regulations. But that means we can trust the products that come to market; they've been analyzed and researched and exposed to exhaustive, long-range testing, right?

Wrong. Most of the synthetic chemicals we live with—and some are so pervasive that they are now in the bodies of virtually all Americans—are under-tested and under-regulated. Those bottles, those non-stick pans, shampoos and lotions, those cleaning products—so much of the stuff of everyday life—may, in fact, be harmful to our health. All those times I nestled a warm bottle into my hungry child's mouth, I may have been exposing him to toxic substances.

"Without agreeing to it...we have become the chemical industry's guinea pigs."

"Society needs to pay much more attention to this problem," says Dr. Richard Denison, Senior Scientist at EDF. "We've been complacent about it." Denison maintains an influential blog tracking the debate over chemical safety.

In 1976 Congress passed the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Unfortunately, the 62,000 chemicals on the market at that time were given a free pass: no requirement they be tested or assessed for safety. Although the Environmental Protection Agency has garnered some information about chemicals through voluntary submissions by industry in a program that EDF helped start, limited testing has been required on a mere 200 chemicals over the past three decades. Worse, EPA has managed to restrict only five substances—and even that overstates the agency's efficacy. The only group of chemicals entirely banned was PCBs, because Congress required it. Even Cal Dooley, the president of the American Chemistry Council, commented on EPA's incapacity in this matter: "EPA cannot make a determination on whether or not a chemical is safe for its intended use."

We should be worried about what amounts to a huge, uncontrolled human testing experiment. Without agreeing to it, without understanding it, without even knowing it, we have become the chemical industry's guinea pigs. "We have a system that puts the burden of proof on the government to show that a chemical is harmful," says Denison. "We need to flip this. The burden of proof should be on industry, to show that a chemical is safe."

The chemical most in the headlines these days is bisphenol A (BPA). Among its many applications, BPA has been used in the linings of food cans, and because it makes plastic clear and nearly shatterproof, it has been used in baby bottles. Traces of BPA have been found in the bodies of 92% of Americans.

Bisphenol A has been getting attention as scientists have released reports showing that this compound–first identified as a "synthetic estrogen" in the 1930s–is an endocrine disrupter. It has been connected to increased breast cancer risk, altered brain and breast development, altered thyroid function, recurrent miscarriage and erectile dysfunction. While independent scientists and industry chemists continue to debate acceptable levels of leaching and toxicity, some states, manufacturers and retailers have taken it upon themselves to ban BPA from baby products. Even Walmart, the world's largest retailer, no longer sells BPA baby products. While this is terrific, the federal government should ban BPA from all products. Babies always ignore labels telling them not to chew on the grown-up's stuff.

BPA seemed like a good idea at the time. A plastic bottle meant your toddler wouldn't crash to the floor holding glass in his hands. Lightweight plastic launched two year olds into the take-out habits of our dining culture: Those sweet fruit drinks, steadily leaking through the nipple, led to rampant tooth decay. Dentists began protectively coating children's teeth with–you guessed it–plastic sealants containing BPA.

BPA is a telling example of the shortcomings of America's regulatory processes. It was one of the chemicals that sailed past TSCA in 1976, and is now produced in amounts exceeding 6 billion pounds annually, even though its hormone-like properties have been known since at least the 1930s. And BPA is a harbinger of even greater trouble in the industry. Christopher Gavigan, executive director of Healthy Child Healthy World, says there are many other chemicals that raise similar concerns. To name a few: flame retardants (PDBEs), phthalates (used extensively to soften plastics) and organo-tin compounds, which harm aquatic life. Denison underscores the danger: all these synthetics are in widespread use, humans have been significantly exposed to them, and there is growing evidence of their toxicity.

"We have much better science today than we did thirty years ago," says Denison. "We are gaining an understanding of our biological response to even small doses of chemicals. But we have old regulations—blind to the new science."

As consumers, we find ourselves in a familiar and uncomfortable position: individual efforts to stay safe, versus inadequate information and weak government regulations. Indeed, it often seems that government protects industry better than people. Consumers can try to avoid BPA-laden canned food. We can be vigilant about not using anything that has known carcinogens in it. We can consult websites (like those listed above on the right) to get some of that information. But there are countless undisclosed chemicals in everything we use. We have no clue where the next toxin lurks. The burden of responsibility should not be on the consumers. Manufacturers must be held accountable for the safety of the products they make and sell.

We shouldn't despair—but only because that won't do any good. We should be outraged. We should make noise, lots and lots of noise. Demand reform of the laws governing toxic substances. Demand that the EPA have the power to restrict the use of dangerous chemicals. Demand more rigorous testing. Demand transparency: Ingredients that might be harmful to human health should be disclosed. But more to the point, products made with unsafe or untested chemicals should never reach the marketplace. Because that's how they end up in our bodies, and in the bodies of our babies. When it isn't clear that even the smallest exposures to certain chemicals are safe, regulators cannot continue with business as usual. You can take action right now—tell Congress to strengthen standards for toxic chemicals.

Our social networks are buoyed by trust. Trust in the companies that make the things we buy. Trust in the stores we buy things from. Trust that our government makes laws to protect us. Trust that most people believe in doing no harm. But trust is earned, not assumed. And it has been broken. It is up to us to demand, more than anything else, the repair of trust between consumers, industry and government. Now more than ever, we need the retailers we have been trusting to take the lead on ensuring that we aren't being poisoned by the things they are selling. Their combined market leverage will provoke greater cooperation from manufacturers, and pressure government agencies to require transparency and proof of safety.

There shouldn't be anything to hide, should there? As with any relationship, all we're looking for is good chemistry.

One problem that EDF and Walmart had to confront was suppliers' requirements to keep the formulations of their products confidential. Because under current chemical policies companies are not required to disclose which chemicals are used in many types of consumer products, neither Walmart nor the public know the chemical composition of such products. To identify potential chemicals of concern, Walmart needed 100% full disclosure of ingredients. The stopgap compromise that EDF helped develop to get Walmart over this hurdle requires the information be collected under confidentiality agreements by a third party for assessment. This lets the third party evaluate and inform Walmart as to whether there are chemicals of potential concern in a given product without disclosing the product's formulation to Walmart.

The GreenWERCS results can be used by Walmart to initiate dialogue with product manufacturers on the chemical ingredients in their products and can be used to encourage safer substitutes. And best of all, the tool is available for other retailers to use.

"GreenWERCS is a robust first step towards bringing the safest possible products to consumers and complements EDF's work to reform chemical safety legislation and press for full public ingredient disclosure," says Harvey.

When the world's largest retailer demands change for the better, it usually happens, as when Walmart requested laundry detergent with less water. The bottom line is: more sustainable products benefit us all.

There are a couple of things that I consider everyday miracles. My list does not include moments such as a child phoning me without asking for my credit card number. I’m thinking here about opening a tap for hot and cold water whenever I want it, and flipping a switch for a flood of light whenever I want it.

Most of us know vaguely where water comes from, but electricity is just there—you know, in the socket. This morning, I went out to the front yard to take a look at my electric meter. The dial spun around lazily, numbers breezed past, and I had not a clue what it all meant. I asked Mark Brownstein, Deputy Director of EDF’s Energy Program, to be my guide through the world of electricity, because he is the sort of person whose eyes brighten when conversation turns to transmission grids. He developed a passion for all things electric as a child, watching Godzilla send sparks flying as he tromped on those spindly towers.

"Electricity is the only industry that has not yet been revolutionized by the information technology that has so utterly transformed the rest of our lives."

“Electricity is the most amazing form of energy we have,” says Brownstein, whose passion for the subject is contagious. “Even our bodies work because of electricity. When you’re talking about electricity, you’re talking about everything. Social science, politics, economics, physics, environmental science. Everything.”

Listening to him, I finally realize why it is imperative to understand what happens when I flick a light switch. Nearly 50% of U.S. electricity comes from coal, the dirtiest, most carbon-intensive, source of energy. Burning coal pollutes the air, contributes to acid rain, wastes huge amounts of water and creates mercury emissions that get into our water and food supplies. Eat tuna sushi for lunch everyday, and watch the toxic methylmercury levels in your bloodstream go up.

Meanwhile electricity demand is steadily rising; the Department of Energy calculates that it will rise by 26% over the next 23 years. The answer to meeting that demand with clean energy supply lies in the ever-renewing abundance of the wind and the sun. That’s the future. There’s only one problem. We are not—yet—ready for it.

The way we generate and deliver electricity has basically not changed in a century. If Thomas Edison came back to life tomorrow, he would recognize today’s electric grid. (In contrast, imagine how stunned Alexander Graham Bell would be by our cell phones.) The system is massive, a marvel of human engineering, with 160,000 miles of lines designed to move electricity from power plants to customers. The grid is so finely tuned that it adjusts to changing conditions and demands instantaneously, in milliseconds. If a tree falls on a line in Florida, it takes a mere two seconds for people in Canada to feel the impact. That’s not always a good thing: The calamitous blackout in the Northeast in August 2003 was triggered by branches touching two wires in Ohio.

Unfortunately, the grid, however fast, is not efficient: up to two-thirds of the fuel burned to produce electricity is lost in the process of generation and delivery. Wasted. And at the other end of those lines, when the power reaches you and me? More wasted energy.

Back to that spinning meter in my front yard—the one that speeds up alarmingly when my clothes are in the dryer. Electricity is the only thing that is simultaneously purchased and consumed. Every time you flick that switch, a power plant has to generate the electrons you’ve asked for and send them to you, often from hundreds of miles away. Because we can’t store electricity, we need to keep lots of extra power plants waiting around, ready to meet any level of demand. Expensive.

We can text or twitter or tweet, day and night, to let each other know where we are, moment by moment. But your local electricity supplier has no idea if your lights are on. In fact, the system operates blindly. If you lose power in your home, you have to notify your company. Electricity is the only industry that has not yet been revolutionized by the information technology that has so utterly transformed the rest of our lives.

That is changing. If it seems miraculous for power to arrive at the flick of a switch, things are going to get even more wondrous with smart grids, a vision for the nimble utility of the future. EDF is a partner in The Pecan Street Project in Austin, Texas, one of the nation’s first comprehensive smart grid experiments. As team leader Miriam Horn puts it, “Smart grids are networked, like the Internet. They will find what you need on the energy web and route it to you along the most efficient pathways. They’ll adjust demand to match clean, renewable supply, not only in your home, but across neighborhoods.”

Smart grids will make us smarter about energy consumption, because they’ll give us lots of detail about what we’re spending on those extra refrigerators, and when during the day it will be cheaper to spin that clothes dryer. Sure, it takes time to build a new power system—but remember, it wasn’t so long ago that we had to buy our phones from one phone company. We can change the world quickly—especially when change makes our lives better.

But will smart grids make us smarter about the real cost of wastefulness? We seem to be finding more ways to do things electrically that used to be done by hand. I have to remind myself that I don’t always need to haul out the vacuum cleaner, and can reach for a broom to sweep the floor. Just stroll down any suburban street in the middle of the night and try to see the starry skies—you’ll be blinded by the blaze of outdoor lights. I doubt they’re on to give the raccoons a better look inside the garbage bins.

In the end, it’s a free country. When you get down to it, these days we have come to believe in a right to be wasteful. Smart grids won’t immediately change that. They’ll just charge a premium for prime-time use. But maybe smart grids can do something more radical.

Information is powerful. Learning more about how we’re spending our resources could throw light on what’s become of our national character. A prominent part of the American temperament, deeply embedded in our cultural DNA, is a propensity to be thrifty, which my dictionary defines as “wise economy in the management of money and other resources.” It may be old-fashioned; it may even, in just one generation, have become a recessive trait. But with the right kind of support, we could once again see how to get a charge out of saving. Now that would be forward thinking.

Personal change is not the same as social change—and that’s what we need. Lots of political energy right now is aimed at a large-scale overhaul. But as individuals, we can still make a surprising difference in cutting carbon emissions, starting at home. Read on for some easy ways to save money on your electric bill.

Turn down the thermostat on your hot water heater. We generally make the water much hotter than is necessary; think about how much cold water you have to add to the mix to get a temperature comfortable for your skin. If appropriate, have a timer installed on the hot water heater too; most of us have pretty regular patterns of hot water use and don’t need the heater working all day long.

Wash your clothes in cold water. And use a non-polluting cold-water detergent. It really does work just as well.

Buy a drying rack. Use it in the bathroom for hanging those wet clothes. After the spin cycle on your new front loader, laundry isn’t that wet anyway. I tried using a clothesline but got turned off by the souvenirs left behind by birds. By the way, that lint in your dryer means your clothes are getting thinner. (At least throw it outside for the birds and mice to use in making their nests.)

Shut off your freezer. One day I realized that I had half an appliance running full force for one box of frozen peas and a pint of ice cream. Why? If you don’t depend heavily on frozen foods, shut off the freezer. (And just buy ice next time your friends come for Whiskey Sours.)

Buy more efficient appliances. If your appliances are old—more than 25 years—and you can afford it, the energy savings will be large. Find out about rebates and tax breaks.

Change HVAC filters regularly. Maintain the equipment you have diligently—get to know it, and care for it. Learn your way around your basement. Ask your plumber or your electrician to explain what you have; I’ve found that people are delighted that you are interested enough in their work to want to understand it.

Turn down the heat. Wear those sweaters that are piled up in the closet. And tuck small blankets around your legs when you are curled up with a book.

Replace incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents. The quality of light has improved radically in the last few years, so if you gave up on CFLs a while back, try again.

Turn off the lights when you aren’t in a room. And if you can’t get family members to remember, or cooperate, install motion detectors to do the job.

Turn off the lights when you are in a room. Try candlelit family dinners every night. You’ll be astonished at how calming—and bonding—it is. Your children might even use their restaurant voices at home.

Install efficient flow showerheads. You can cut hot water consumption by 40% or more simply by replacing your showerhead. And time your showers. Even more important: time your teenagers’ showers.

Turn everything off when you don’t need it. And watch closely. The single largest new source of electricity use in your home is all the electronic gadgets that don’t turn off, but instead stand by. Plug these into a power strip and turn it off when you’re done for the day.

Insulation, insulation, insulation. If you do one remodeling project this year, inject new insulation into your walls or replace the old stuff in your attic. Why let your precious hot or cool air leak away?

For more tips about how each one of us cans save energy, go to the EPA's Climate Change Action Steps.

So it is fitting that the most exciting new development in the story of electricity is happening in the capitol city of Austin. The city is becoming a clean energy lab, staking out a leadership position in our energy future. The goal of the ambitious Pecan Street Project is to invent and deploy, at a significant scale, the most innovative urban power system possible. EDF has partnered with the city, Austin Energy, the University of Texas and corporate partners like Cisco, Oracle, Gridpoint and Applied Materials to develop the project.

Miriam Horn, co-author with EDF president Fred Krupp of the bestselling book Earth: The Sequel, and a team leader in Austin, says that this is the most interesting project she has ever worked on. “The old electric system is like a single-celled amoeba,” she notes. “Poke it, and it responds.” (Think back to 2003, when a branch falling in Ohio caused a blackout in the Northeast.)

Horn adds: “A smart grid adds brains and a nervous system. Instead of the one-directional system we have now—electricity is generated every time you ask for it—smart grids will be networked to find many different sources of supply, or to modify demand. They will enable dozens of things to happen instantaneously when you flip that switch, to find the lowest cost, lowest impact way to turn on your light.”

The Pecan Street Project is creating tools and installing 400,000 smart meters to give customers real-time information about, and control over, their energy use. “It’s like YouTube,” Horn says. “Citizens will no longer just be passive consumers but also energy producers with a system smart enough to manage itself according to their goals—buying them the cleanest power, or the cheapest, selling their homemade electricity when the price is right. Their refrigerator will know to cycle off for a few minutes when a cloud passes over their solar panels. They will be able to buy cars that run on electricity, and the car battery will know to charge at 2:00 am when windmills are churning out clean, cheap electricity and demand is low. And people will be able to sell electricity back into the grid—for a profit—during peak demand.”

Similar experiments are blossoming nationwide. President Obama recently announced a $3.4 billion stimulus grant to 49 states to deploy sensors and communications technology on transmission lines, substations and houses. This is a small down payment toward a safer, cleaner energy future.

But as EDF's Mark Brownstein points out, a smart grid system will only work if, to the consumer, it is seamless, better than what we have now. “No one will adopt anything that has voltage fluctuations, or that is more expensive. And consumers have to get a share of the savings that smart grids will generate.” In addition, energy systems won’t come in one-size-fits-all models, but will be designed to make the best use of local resources. “Just as you wouldn’t dream of growing pineapple trees in your Rhode Island backyard,” says Horn, “the electric system in Seattle won’t be based on solar energy.”

Note to engineering students: this is the most exciting time ever to be in the energy business. If the future for the college graduate in 1967 was “plastics,” the future now, in one word, is “batteries.” Energy storage. That will make it possible to deploy energy from lots of different sources, even the sun, in the middle of the night.

Transforming the way we produce and use energy, the kind of change that can have a significant impact on global warming, must be developed system-wide. The Pecan Street Project captures a kind of world-altering approach, and its promise ignites hope. Sure, we’re consumers. But we’re citizens, too. It is ultimately up to us to demand a new system of power.