When I was traveling last week I noticed for the first time that there's been a drastic shift in the book titles in airport bookstores. They've gone green!

Mixed in among the Suze Ormans, Jack Canfields, and Danielle Steeles sit books with titles like Earth, The Sequel, Go Green, Live Rich, and Fight Global Warming Now. There were dozens of books that could be called environmental and many are prominently displayed and listed as best sellers in the bookstore. Most surprisingly, the book given the most prime space, the impulse buying area right in front of the register, was the book 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth.

Was that really an airport? I feel hopeful that these books wouldn't be there if people weren't buying them, but then I have to wonder what it means that people are reading these books while engaged in one of humankind's most carbon-heavy activities - airline travel.
Is there truly change in the air?

Or are we citizens of earth just going about business as usual, but with a shiny new coat of green in the form of a paperback - our own personal greenwash?

Images (left to right): Amazon, Bill McKibben, David Bach/Finish Rich