In last months issue of Mother Jones,reporter Julia Whitty talks about the 12 tipping points of Global Warming. Now, for those of you that don't know what a tipping point is, it simply is the point at which a trend, idea, condition, etc. reaches a point of critical mass and cannot be contained. This idea can be applied to a phrase that becomes part of everyday language, such as "I see dead people!", a product in the market place like the iPod, as well as significant ecological events such as the metling of the Greenland ice sheets (which is number 3 on the list of 12).

But there is a 13th tipping point that may be able to counteract the other 12 - "the shift in human perception from personal denial to personal responsibility". So how do we set off this 13th tipping point? How do we gain the wisdom to act upon what we know? While Whitty's article isn't a "how to" of steps you can take in order to get your neighbor's to recycle, it is an interesting study about how we as humans can and do survive because we learn to work together - we evolve. While she doesn't come right out and say it, what Whitty means is that we need to keep sounding the alarm and pointing to the coming disaster that doing nothing will bring about, and as with all popular movements (Abolition, Civil Rights, anti-Vietnam) the rest of the country, or at least a majority, will come around.

But will it be soon enough?