I'll admit, I was skeptical when I saw the headline on The New York Times Web site.

"Why isn't the brain green?" it asked.

As Earth Day approaches, every publication and Web site is flashing it's "Green" cred, including The Mercury, which has a page on its Web site every day devoted to environmental news.

So I figured this was just The New York Times upscale version of some deep think piece about why the brain wasn't born an environmentalist, especially when I saw it was in The New York Times Magazine. Their stuff is always too long (HEY!, get that mirror away from me...)

Because I'm devoted to you, dear reader (all nine of you), I threw myself upon the green grenade and undertook the task of reading it FOR you, so you wouldn't have to.

But now, I'm afraid, I am going to have to throw you under the bus, hydrogen powered of course.

As it turns out, the subject is darn interesting.

First of all, CRED, created with the help of a $6 million grant from the National Science Foundation, actually stands for something: the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions.

And while this immediately presents itself as an excellent candidate for mocking, the following quote from one of its founders, Elke Weber — who holds a chair at Columbia’s business school as well as an appointment in the school’s psychology department -- dispels that impulse.

It goes like this: "Let’s start with the fact that climate change is anthropogenic. More or less, people have agreed on that. That means it’s caused by human behavior. That’s not to say that engineering solutions aren’t important. But if it’s caused by human behavior, then the solution probably also lies in changing human behavior."

And THAT, dear reader, is the core message of Earth Day.

When it began in the 1970s, Earth Day provided the public face that helped push for the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Clean Air and Clean Water acts.

But the necessity for a more tidal change is now upon us.

Consider the case of water pollution. What began when Ohio's Cuyahoga River caught fire has been addressed. Factories are regulated, power plants have inspectors, sewage treatment plants have been upgraded.

What now poses the greatest threat to water purity is us, and all we do. Called "non-point source pollution," it's the fertilizers, the pesticides we put on our lawns, the drippings from the car that go down the storm drain, the expired prescriptions we flush down the toilet.

It's our lifestyle that now has to change, and it goes far beyond water pollution. It's everything.

And what CRED is looking at is the fact that human beings are not wired to do something now that will prevent harm later.

Consider this paragraph:

"In analytical mode, we are not always adept at long-term thinking; experiments have shown a frequent dislike for delayed benefits, so we undervalue promised future outcomes. (Given a choice, we usually take $10 now as opposed to, say, $20 two years from now.) Environmentally speaking, this means we are far less likely to make lifestyle changes in order to ensure a safer future climate. Letting emotions determine how we assess risk presents its own problems. Almost certainly, we underestimate the danger of rising sea levels or epic droughts or other events that we’ve never experienced and seem far away in time and place. Worse, Weber’s research seems to help establish that we have a “finite pool of worry,” which means we’re unable to maintain our fear of climate change when a different problem — a plunging stock market, a personal emergency — comes along. We simply move one fear into the worry bin and one fear out. And even if we could remain persistently concerned about a warmer world? Weber described what she calls a 'single-action bias.' Prompted by a distressing emotional signal, we buy a more efficient furnace or insulate our attic or vote for a green candidate — a single action that effectively diminishes global warming as a motivating factor. And that leaves us where we started."

So fear won't work because, quite simply, it can't be sustained; at least not on one subject. With fear as an inadequate motivator for saving the future, perhaps, and yes I know it sounds trite, we should try love -- the love of our children to be specific.

We've all heard the tales of the mother who lifts the car to save the trapped child, the father who donates a kidney to save his daughter. Those things are true and real. Why should it be harder to buy a more fuel-efficient car or use recycled products?

We all know we're supposed to save for their college, get life insurance to provide for them if we get hit by lightning, why is this different?

Perhaps its time to ask ourselves this question: "Do we love our children enough to save the place they will live out the rest of their lives?"