I have no idea if anybody has studied the average amount of a time an average netizen spends in assailing others with invective online.

Some psychologists believe that venting your anger can be healthy. It helps let off steam and restore the body to balance.

In addition, many are the evils today that deserve vituperation - even if we make allowances for those who behave or speak in a deliberately provocative manner solely for the purpose of drawing our attention.

In more than one way, the Internet has revolutionized the way one can achieve renown, fame, or infamy.

Occasionally a particularly outrageous remark or act creates a stir so overwhelming, that it triggers immediate redress, sweeping punishment, or a promise of thorough investigation.

Still, when nearly all the eyes of a nation are glued to these short-lived cyber dramas, we are also in danger of trivializing the national debate on important issues.

These sensational online dramas, by overtaxing our attention and energy, can give us a false sense of participation, and severely compromise our ability to focus on real issues of importance that might lead to systemic social improvement.

Global climate change is among the many issues that does not have the potential of becoming an Internet-age sensation, nor would sensationalizing it promise us the gratification of an instant solution.

But the issue deserves our constant attention and unremitting effort.

Combating global warming is still being flirted with by politicians, but no longer as something central to human survival.

After years of fruitless negotiations, today the prevailing sentiment is "business as usual."

By comparison, we have developed more consensus on the ominous potency of even the slightest drop in energy consumption, or industrial activity.

"Global Warming Gridlock: Creating More Effective Strategies for Protecting the Planet" by David G. Victor tries to provide a new approach to global warming against the background of global paralysis.

Victor believes that treating global warming as an economic - rather than an environmental - problem can break the diplomatic gridlock.

"In every area of the international process on global warming - from crafting commitments by the enthusiastic nations to engaging the reluctant nations to investment in technology to adaptation - there is no consensus," the book claims.

In addressing the issue, the author believes governments should favor markets over mandate, by factoring in whether policies are realistic or not.

According to him, effective carbon markets and a carbon tax are necessary in achieving progress.

'Responsibility Ripple'

In short, the author believes global warming can be better addressed when linked to the economic interests of the parties concerned.

To reduce everything to economic metrics is the new paradigm, but I have grave doubts about the authors' wisdom in thus economizing a problem that stems from unbridled economic growth in the first place.

Global talks on slowing global warming stall exactly because emissions cuts will compromise economic growth.

The author's intention of reconciling the contrarieties could only have been predicated on a false assumption about the cause of global warming.

Framing global warming as something mundanely economic, as something less than life-and-death, is an act of utter irresponsibility.

The climate change issue has a better chance of being properly addressed by John Izzo, author of "Stepping Up: How Taking Responsibility Changes Everything."

Izzo explains that "stepping up" means recognizing that you perceive and must deal with a problem, whether to fill a need, right a wrong, or make things better for themselves and others.

"Stepping up is realizing ... that if you don't step up, maybe no one will do so. Maybe your stepping up means more than you can ever imagine," Izzo writes.

Izzo discusses Five Rows of Responsibility, or how your smile affects the people in the five rows around you on a plane.

Your impact extends to your personal life, your home, your neighborhood, your workplace and the world at large.

The "Responsibility Ripple," Izzo says, can lead to global change by inspiring not only yourselves, but others as well.

If everyone else did the same, society would improve, because all problems exist within someone's Five Rows of Responsibility. This is a deceptively simple observation, as all true insights are simple.

Confucius has given a better explanation in relating individual conduct to that of the management of family and then governance of a state, in saying, "Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts."

He went on, "Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts."

This sincerity in thought cannot be achieved without a thorough understanding of individual responsibility in a society.

In the case of global warming, this sense of responsibility can be derived from our role as a temporary caretaker of the earth, and the folly of putting our material comforts or vanities before the survival of life, human or otherwise.

Insistence on or toleration of this destructive life is a mockery of the word "sapiens" to describe humans.

Here a moral compass, vision, and determination matter more than the much-touted instruments of technology.

"Stepping up means taking responsibility even when there is no pressure from the outside to do so and even when you think no one is watching," Izzo says.

Compare this to the to Confucian concept of shendu (being mindful of oneself when alone).

Any initiatives not informed by higher seriousness and consciousness would not go very far.

This high seriousness would impel one to act, regardless of any external motivations or consequences.

Chinese sages have long observed that teaching by example is more effective than teaching by precept.

Aggregate influence

One survey in the United States and Canada gave four main reasons for not stepping up, according to the book.

About 46 percent said "I can't change things," or "I am only one person." Another 20 percent felt that change is someone else's responsibility, and a further 18 percent blamed "getting caught up in the daily grind" and being too busy.

These people ought to consider the "aggregate influence" of their actions, when combining their contributions with those of other like-minded people.

Sometimes when you act, everything else will fall into place.

Here I am reminded of a passage in an autobiography by veteran Kuomintang general Li Zongren (1891-1969).

In the 1920s, despite overwhelming resistance, he tried to push the government based in Guangzhou to launch a joint attack on local warlords in Hunan and Hubei provinces.

One of the many arguments he cited was that most troops were corrupted beyond redemption after being exposed to the life of ease and luxury in Guangzhou for a couple of years.

Finding a new purpose would instill new vigor in them, make them combat-worthy, and avoid annihilation, the general argued.

Today the crusade went down in history as part of the Northern Expedition (1926-1927).

As Izzo concludes, "Almost nothing ever accomplished had a detailed plan at the beginning, and even if it did, the path to success likely had little resemblance to that initial plan."