A number of years ago, I got into a heated barroom debate (imagine that!) with an environmentalist of the granola-crunching, Birkenstock-wearing variety.

Nothing against Birkenstocks, my wife swears by them, but you know the stereotype I mean.

It was my argument that until the environmental movement changes its focus to engage the interest, and thus the cooperation, of a population broader than those just concerned about saving whales and baby seals, it is destined to remain marginalized.

What people need to understand, I said, was not that animals needed to be saved for their own cute and cuddly sake, but because they symbolized a visible aspect of the overall environment on which we depend, and future generations will depend, to survive as a species.

In other words, folks needed to understand that baby seals and bee colonies have a lot in common with coal mine canaries. They die, and then we die. It's that simple.

She insisted instead that the entire population must be brought around to her way of thinking because she was right.

I wished her luck with that and suggested that perhaps she might have had enough to drink.

Flash-forward 20 years and global warming, one collapsing ocean fishery after another and the looming prospect of $4-a-gallon gas, has made the case for me.

Everyone is interested.

And no more clearer evidence that everyone is taking notice can be found than an item I spotted recently on the Environmental News Service wire. (I must have missed it in my scrupulous reading of the sports pages.)

It seems that those Fightin' Phils have seen the light -- the green light that is.

The Phillies have signed up to purchase 20 million kilowatt hours of renewable energy to serve the 43,500-seat Citizens Bank Park.

With that commitment, the Phillies became the largest green power purchaser in major league baseball. You don't get more mainstream American than that.

The purchase, which will offset the stadium's carbon footprint, will avoid the emission of greenhouse gases equivalent to a year's worth of driving by 2,800 vehicles.

It will also make them the third largest green power purchaser in Philadelphia and the seventh largest in Pennsylvania.

But they're not done there.

Frying oil from the stadium is being recycled to create biofuel.

Glass, plastic and cardboard from each game day is recycled; the carry-out trays are 100 percent post-consumer fiber and the food the fans are buying at the park is all locally grown.

Lighting is being converted to energy saving light-emitting diodes, which take 80 percent less power than incandescent bulbs and last years longer.

But wait! There's still more!

Even the clean-up is green, with the crew at the stadium using environmentally friendly cleaning products and a bio-enzyme to remove grease trapped in kitchen drain pipes rather than toxic chemicals which inevitably find their way into our rivers, bays, oceans and drinking water.

Not that we weren't already fans (my 9-year old son would disown me if I didn't mention here that Chase Utley rules!), but now we can enjoy America's pastime without that nagging enviro-guilt creeping into everything we do these days.

Not that there's anything wrong with saving whales and baby seals, but if you want to save the whole planet for our children and our grandchildren -- sappy as it sounds, it is no less true -- you have to involve the whole planet.