It's in the air: Earth Day was April 22. And if Christmas Day is the day when we're all a little kinder, if only for a short while, Earth Day is the day when we're all a little greener -- if only for a short while.

The environment's own special day has steadily grown in popularity. This year, environmental stories seem to be everywhere: It's the cover story and centerpiece of the latest issue of Newsweek. The Discovery Channel plans to launch a green network. And Al Gore seems to be everywhere, and even where he's not, people are talking about global warming.

Is it all just for a short while? I've been wondering this for a while, and I hope that it's not just being trendy, but I really don't have the answer. I suspect a lot of the changes for the environmental good will become part of our permanent world. I think businesses see the economic as well as environmental benefits to being green, and that's not going to change radically. Genuine concern about global warming isn't likely to disappear. New technologies that are clearly more efficient as well as environmentally friendly, like replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents, seem like inevitable progress.

But I think of what's happened with recycling. It was the trendy environmental movement in the 1990s, when people thought we were running out of landfill space. And when that turned out not to be the case and the economy softened, recycling lost its steam. Progress that started in the 1990s wasn't wiped out, but the growth leveled off.

Is that the fate for global warming, energy efficiency and other hot environmental issues? To quote my own favorite piece of columnist wisdom, time will tell.

As Americans, we don't always have the strongest staying power with issues. We get bored or distracted easily. We're a wildly successful society, and we don't like sacrificing what we've achieved, whether it's big cars, new gadgets or supersized eating portions.

But in spite of all that, we often somehow make permanent progress. The spirit embodied in Earth Day can make us a little greener -- maybe not for a full calendar year, but maybe for more than for just a day.

Allan Gerlat is editor of Waste News. Past installments of this column are collected in the Inbox archive.

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