Get started with Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century (Abrams, $37.50), a smart, browsable collection of "bright green" solutions to the climate crisis—from replacing water-sucking lawns with edible landscape to making your own biodiesel—from the sustainable-tech bloggers at Worldchanging.com. A cool, clean design by graphic-design studio Sagmeister Inc. makes it coffee-table worthy. Or check out 365 Ways to Change the World: How to Make a Difference—One Day at a Time (Free Press, $14), by Michael Norton, founder of the London-based Directory of Social Change. Build a backyard beehive! Buy and donate Fair Trade soccer balls! Stage a street-corner "make-out" (think spiced-up sit-in) to promote vegetarianism! Uh, we'll stick with the beehives.

Buy Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century at Amazon.com.