Auden Schendler: Cigarettes' Lessons for Climate Change

Auden Schendler is the author of "Getting Green Done" and a board member of Protect Our Winters.

In the 1970s it seemed like we had problems we could never fix — and I'm not talking about white polyester disco suits and the band Air Supply. The '70s presented America with the residue of a catastrophic war, soaring inner-city crime rates, runaway inflation and subjugation to Middle East oil. To punctuate the dismal vibe, everybody smoked, or so it seemed if you were sitting on an airplane at the edge of the DMZ between the smoking and nonsmoking sections, gagging and hacking as the guy a foot away from you chain-smoked filterless Camels.

The very idea that an airplane could have a "nonsmoking section" any more than a tear-gas chamber could have a "no cry" zone encapsulates the cynicism and malaise of that time. It seemed as though we were stuck with systemic problems we could never solve. Which may explain why we wore the disco suits.

But then something funny happened. We tackled those problems.

A move toward more fuel-efficient vehicles, plus Alaskan oil and geopolitical changes, gave us a breather from the tyranny of oil. Slowly we began reviving our inner cities and battling crime. We got out of Vietnam and created military doctrines to prevent such things from happening again (at least in theory). And most emblematic, we made huge strides in kicking a habit that had been part of human culture for centuries: smoking.

How'd we do it? The answer is worth considering as we struggle with a problem even harder to solve but with many similarities: climate change. In this case, we're addicted to consuming the Earth's fossil fuels in a way that's not just deadly to individuals but to the whole planet....