Communities and Climate Action

The G-8 leaders of seven industrialized nations plus Russia — minus India and China — have barely sat down this week in Japan, and already their work on the global environment is being written off as too little, too slow, too politicized.

But by most scientists' estimations, we — as a planet — don't have time to fool around. The climate change hammer, they say, is coming down.

Some communities are moving ahead on their own. Could that work? From the ground up? We check it out.

This hour, On Point: From an island in Denmark to your town, direct action on the climate.Guests:
Elizabeth Kolbert, staff writer at The New Yorker and author of "Field Notes from a Catastrophe." Her latest article is "The Island in the Wind: A Danish Community's Victory Over Carbon Emissions."
Lester Brown, founder and president of Earth Policy Institute and author of "Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization."