Someone asked me the other day about my summer vacation and the various trips I had taken to Europe and Australia with my family. “What’s the one thing about your travels that struck you?” he asked.

Almost without thinking, I told him about standing on a street corner somewhere in France and watching the traffic. “Maybe one in 50 cars was a big, gas-guzzling hog,” I said. “I shook my and head and thought: Why is it that the rest of the world seems to get it, and we Americans don’t?” (more…)