Global Warming is the new Population Bomb. It is so much blah blah blah that adds up to nothing. Scientific facts intended to distract and alarm, taken alone, might be true about carbon dioxide concentrations, cow farts or ice caps. But just like pure white noise, they are not additive and do not predict impending doom. We didn't run out of food in 1985 and we are not going to be cooked alive in 2100, either.

How are you so confident in that statement? I guess you have the evidence that the vast left-wing conspiracy has so cleverly hidden - the stuff that neatly refutes the overwhelming scientific consensus that large scale global climate change is occurring, and is directly caused by human activities. Pretty cool. Care to share?

As Salon is partnering Rolling Stone in this timely enterprise, perhaps a few thoughts from a singer songwriter are in order. Lyrics are from the title track of Tony Joe White's CD, Closer To The Truth.

They're taking down the rainforest

Changing it to a room without a view

And the big trees fall like dominoes

And we move closer to the truth

The eagle watches from the mountain

As the warriors turn into fools

And the dice are thrown on sacred ground

And they move closer to the truth

And who's gonna tell the children

How the rivers used to flow crystal blue

And we keep leaving scars on Mother Earth

And moving closer to the truth

Tony Joe White (1991)

Flannery has written the excellent "The Weather Makers" 2005, and persuasively puts the case for global warming to the layman like myself.

The "problem" with nominating a small group of individual "Climate Warriors" is that you leave a bunch of people out by agreement. I would like to nominate the team at Lamont-Doherty Earth Institute.

The institute houses the research wing of Columbia University's DEES or Department of environmental and earth sciences and is associated with CIESIN ( I think that's how the acronym goes ) and the Earth Institute which is the applied, policy wing of the economics department. This is run by the star economist Jeffrey "The End of Poverty" Sachs. It's an interesting concept, have a bunch of scientists figure out the science. And have an economist help explain these ideas to the world at large in real economic terms. Global warming is one of these problems and its economic consequences suggest we address that problem.

There are hundreds of people here studying the world's development problems and how science can help us address those problems. I suspect that many of the "heros" you have interviewed would privately talk about how they are like a very smart "brand name" for the very hard working, intelligent teams they represent.

It would be intersting to see some other people's nominations. My understanding is that the IPCC represents the contributions of thousands of well-intentioned, smart people.

Yvon Chouinard could be included in your list. His company "Patagonia" gives 1% of all sales to environmental causes and the "Patagonia" philosophy is outlined in his book, "Let My People Go Surfing".

Salon & Rolling Stone present �Drive-through environmentalism� � you can save the planet without ever getting out of your car!

That�s the uninspiring overall thrust of this collection of essays. While your article notes that 70% of US energy needs go to transportation, not a single one of your environmental heroes proposes a fundamental change to the transportation system. Instead we are treated to palid proposals for hybrid SUVs.

Currently, our cars waste about 99% of the energy they burn. The engines operate at about 20% thermal efficiency, and then nearly all the resulting power goes to moving the car itself, which weighs 20 times as much as its typical cargo load. So only about 1% of the energy in the fuel is actually utilized to move a passenger.

Amory Lovins, the �Visionary� of your crew, has an answer. His �Revolution� SUV would increase average fuel economy by an astounding factor of 400%. So when his Revolution is done, an auto will use 4% of its energy to move its occupant, and only waste 96%.

In the meantime, high-paid policy wonks and Hollywood high-rollers will trade in their SUVs for flashy new hybrids. Middle-income working people will buy the used SUVs and drive them for another 15 years. Over a couple of decades, the average fuel wastage of the entire American fleet will creep down ever-so-slowly, while in China, the number of cars increases by a factor of 10.

But the entire supply chain of the auto-industrial complex will roll on undisturbed, building roads, molding plastic dashboards, and designing ever more expensive child-restraint seats to safeguard the motorists of tomorrow.

Your article gives no hint that there are thousands of environmentalists who are working on ways to drastically reduce, if not eliminate, the use of cars. The next time you introduce �28 leaders who are fighting to stave off planetwide catastrophe�, could you include at least one who dares to say that cars are killing us?

Let's not forget another great warrior for the environment, Robert Kennedy, Jr. He has served as attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups. He should also be mentioned for his books, The Riverkeepers and Crimes Against Nature wherein he tackles some serious issues related to the environment.

These things I've mentioned merely scratch the surface of Kennedy's relentless efforts on behalf of our earth.

Dr. David Suzuki has for at least 30 years been far and away the most visible and articulate Canadian promoter of ecological stewardship. A geneticist by training, he's a charismatic, passionate, and knowledgeable public speaker and educator, he has written several popular books and hosted TV documentaries (including CBC TV's superb Nature of Things for a couple decades and running) that cover everything from ecological connectivity and limits to indiginous peoples spirituality. And his message has evolved (and I think this is important) from initially sounding the alarm to a focus on what can be done. He heads up the David Suzuki Foundation based in Vancouver, British Columbia. He's a national treasure and I think he should be on not just Canada's list, but any list of climate warriors.

Ken in Calgary