The classic saying is that “everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” Well, thanks to the recent release of the IPCC report on climate change, the stunning success of former Vice-President Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth”, and celebrity campaigning on behalf of high-profile groups like StopGlobalWarming.org, that adage is no longer true.

Everybody’s still talking about the weather, but now politicians are jumping on the bandwagon and proclaiming that they’re going to do something about it. Environmental politics is the biggest hot new trend in Washington these days. (Global warming: it’s not just for science wonks any more.) It’s a bipartisan rush to be even more earth-friendly than the next pol. Green is the new blue… and red.

Big-business leaders are suddenly talking about fleet fuel standards in public again. Less-is-more minimalists are discovering that they’re the hit of the parties. Conservatives are hugging ethanol corn the way liberals hug trees. A former vice-president not only wins an Oscar for sticking to his guns and talking about what used to be political anathema, but looks like a shoo-in for winning a Nobel Peace prize over it, too. (When you consider that the last Washington insider to win a Nobel Peace prize was Henry Kissinger, the irony is difficult to miss.)

Most politicians these days are scrambling to produce some sort of bona fides to buttress their claims of having been environmentally-friendly all along. Some of them don’t have to scramble to do that, though; they’ve been on the side of the green angels all along, and they’ve got the track records to prove it. Senator Kerry is one of the good guys in that regard, and always has been. <!-more-> As referenced in this omnibus article on DKos, he was one of the original founders of the very first Earth Day celebration in Massachusetts back in April of 1970. Twenty years later he was chair of the 1990 National Earth Day board. In fact, he first met his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry at an Earth Day rally. And as the biographical information on his official Senate site points out,

John Kerry’s record on the environment reflects his understanding that our quality of life and the long-term sustainability of our economy are threatened unless everyone, including individuals, towns, states and nations, join together to prevent global warming, combat acid rain, clean up and eliminate toxic waste, rebuild depleted fisheries, and protect essential habitat.

Senator Kerry’s concern for the environment has earned him a 100 percent rating from the League of Conservation Voters, an organization which closely monitors the environmental records of members of Congress. The League commended Kerry for his “unsurpassed leadership.” The Sierra Club has stated that “there is no stronger advocate in the Senate for environmental protection than John Kerry.” Kerry has also received a 100 percent rating from the Humane Society of the United States.

And as noted elsewhere on this website,

John Kerry has been described by the League of Conservation Voters as an “environmental champion.” He introduced legislation to improve standards for clean air and establish a fund to finance emissions reductions. He secured millions of dollars in funding to clean America’s waterways, harbors, and drinking water, worked to strengthen the Safe Drinking Water Act, and introduced legislation in 1996 to ensure “protection in the quality of our water.” He sponsored legislation that extended and strengthened laws protecting marine mammals from commercial fishing. He helped protect America’s National Parks and National Forests from pollution, excessive logging, and overdevelopment while ensuring that endangered species are preserved for all Americans to experience. He has opposed opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling for over a decade, ensuring that future generations can experience this national treasure.

The record is clear. For the past four decades, John Kerry has been a tireless advocate for environmental causes, both in government and outside of it. And now, his most recent efforts to carry the message of good green living outside the beltway has resulted in the imminent publication of an important new book that John Kerry co-wrote with Teresa Heinz Kerry, This Moment on Earth: Today’s New Environmentalists and Their Vision for the Future As the publisher’s description of it states,

The environment, and the movement that grew up to protect it, is under attack—concerted and purposeful. Yet the need for solutions to pressing environmental problems grows more urgent each day. Teresa Heinz Kerry and Senator John Kerry traveled across the country in a national campaign to see at first hand how these issues unite people across party and ideological lines. From the San Juan Basin to the Gulf of Mexico to the South Bronx, from mothers on Cape Cod to Colorado ranchers, they found a vibrant coalition of people and communities deploying ingenuity, technology, and sheer will power to save the world they know and love. Now, in this passionate and personal book, Senator John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry shine the spotlight on an inspiring cross-section of these new environmental pioneers.

This Moment on Earth combines intensive research with keenly observed personal experiences to present a portrait of Americans devoted to the natural diversity and spectacular uniqueness of our country. It also includes an extensive guide on where and how readers can get involved.

The book itself is slated to hit the shelves in a few weeks. Your local independent bookshops, chain bookstores, and various online booksellers such as Powell’s, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble are all accepting pre-orders for the hardcover edition now.

This Moment on Earth isn’t just another sky-is-falling compendium of scary facts and figures, it’s a hopeful and forward-looking prescription for positive change. But does that mean it’s a good book, though? Well, at least one guy with plenty of street cred seems to think so:

“John Kerry and Teresa Heinz have written a book that is a profound challenge to all of us but contains, in the examples of the men and women who are fighting the great fight for a better future for our environment, the clear hope that if we can embrace their resourcefulness, determination and essential patriotism we will prevail. Both John and Teresa have been long-time leaders in the battle to save the Earth’s environment. Way back when it was not all fashionable, indeed when very few people in the world were even paying attention to it, both John and Teresa were providing outstanding and courageous leadership.”

—former Vice President Al Gore

More to the point of this blog post, Senator Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry will both be making time to appear on talk shows and visit a number of cities over the next several weeks to discuss this book and the importance of the issues that brought them to write it together. They will be participating in local and regional advocacy group and foundation events, and an extensive online campaign will also be launched in support of these causes. A partial schedule of some of the upcoming events currently includes:

March 23 ..... The Daily Show with Jon Stewart March 26 ..... Imus in the Morning March 26 ..... The Today Show on NBC April 1 ......... This Week with George Stephanopoulus (T.B.D.) ....... The Tavis Smiley Show

April 2 ......... Seattle, WA April 3 ......... San Francsico, CA (T.B.D.) ....... Portland, OR; Los Angeles, CA; Washington, DC

Additional appearances are being scheduled at this time. Keep an eye on this blog for updated information on where and when Senator Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry will be talking about their lifelong commitments to environmental issues and their new book, This Moment on Earth: Today’s New Environmentalists and Their Vision for the Future.

[Updated to add: A new web page devoted to this book has been added to this site and it includes the most up-to-date and accurate scheduling information for media appearances and book tour events at: http://www.johnkerry.com/momentonearth/ ]