The Chinese may be on the verge of becoming the greatest cleanup artists of all time

The headlines give the impression that our environmental future is to be determined by the leaders of the world's biggest nations. And watching them duke it out with one another, it's hard to be optimistic. At the G8 summit in June, President Bush and German chancellor Angela Merkel emerged from heated negotiations with a vague plan--cut greenhouse-gas emissions in half by 2050--that smacks more of compromise than it does bold, science-based policy. But as we show in this issue, politics alone won't save our planet.

Instead, it's the hard, weird work being done on the ground that will make the difference. Long before the words "global warming" were on everyone's lips, Konrad Steffen, the glaciologist profiled on page 52, was already face-to-face with the future. Steffen isn't an activist. His 18-year study of research in Greenland is among our best sources for objective science on climate change, and his findings suggest that the ice sheet there is melting into the sea faster than anyone predicted--a threat to the Gulf Stream's stability, and thus to global weather.

But scientists and innovators all over the world are working to turn things around, and their plans will surprise you. Industrial engineer Peter Flynn wants to plop an enormous, salty ice cube into the Arctic to replace lost sea ice there and reinvigorate the world's ocean currents. Sound ridiculous? Consider what our writer McKenzie Funk discovered during his tour of China's industrial cities. As you'll read on page 78, it turns out that the Chinese, reviled for environmental irresponsibility, may be on the verge of becoming the greatest cleanup artists of all time. The projects taking form in what were once their most polluted cities will someday be a model for the countries that once criticized them. It's those kinds of stories, and not the ones you hear from the political podium, that will change the world.

By Mark Jannot