PARENTS URGED TO SET GLOBAL WARMING EXAMPLE

Contrary to what you might think, global warming hasn't sent European parents into a panic:

"The grown-ups are handling it far more realistically in Europe than we are here," said Yale child psychiatrist Kyle Pruett, one of several mental health experts I consulted for advice about how to answer an 11-year-old who says "we're doomed." Their advice: Don't push your agenda on your children. Try first to find out what they know, and whether they're worried. If so, emphasize the things they can do, even if it's only finding out more, or switching to fluorescent lightbulbs, or starting a climate-change club at school. "The combination of fear and helplessness is toxic," Pruett said.

God only knows what deluded Americans are telling their children:

Psychologist Madeline Levine in Kentfield, Calif., didn't believe U.S. teens were thinking much about climate change — until she asked several 15-year-olds. "The kids I spoke with are very knowledgeable and incredibly pessimistic. When I asked why they hadn't brought it up before, they said, yeah, well, it really sucks, but nobody's going to give up their car, so we're screwed." Levine now believes that it's less important what parents say than what we do. What our kids need to know most is that adults are acting like grown-ups.

So parents, talking is a waste of time; it's time for action:

If we want to show our kids we mean business about global warming, let's start by ponying up for a carbon tax. Let our children watch us demand this from Washington with the courage and force of the civil rights movement.

As a backup, however — because parents should always have backups — I've been introducing my own children to Buddhist meditation. It has been used for 2,500 years to cope with suffering, anxiety and change — and may be helpful in the hot decades to come.

Ah, for the good old days when nuclear armageddon was the only thing to worry about.