There was a time when I loved articles like this, supplied by greenmatch.co.uk. It's titled 70 Ways To Save the Planet. But less so now, not because I thing the planet needs less saving, but because I think that what we really need to do is save ourselves.

As I lay out in my second book, "Sustainable You," focusing on a symptom won't necessarily resolve the cause.

I was lucky. My (apparent) problem — obesity — was entirely evident, and "everyone" knew the solution: Go on a diet. Problem was, I could lose more than 100 pounds at a time — done it three times! — but I kept returning to where I'd begun. Actually I "returned" to a place even further set back: Not only did I weigh more than I'd started, but I was more defeated than ever, because I'd invested all that focus and energy, only to fail again.

It wasn't until I started accepting that my choices and priorities needed to change, instead of just what I put on my plate, that I started experiencing sustainable change.

The parallel I'm declaring is that while "70 Ways To Save The Planet" is entirely worthwhile, I don't think we're going to save the planet without accepting, then changing, why we're in the positions we're in — with climate change, or ocean acidification, or whatever.

Coming up with a new carbon-sink technology would take carbon out of the atmosphere, and that could preserve our ability to live on the planet. But if we continue to think we're masters of the planet, able to do whatever we want with it instead of recognizing that we're a part of the same system all other life is, we'll end up in some other life-threatening mess of our own making.