Global Warming: Innovators: Forging the Future: The Climate Crusaders

(3 of 3)

The unlikely duo immediately ran into roadblocks. Bus companies took vehicles off the road, stranding angry commuters. Mile-long queues of rickshaws formed at the handful of gas stations with CNG pumps. Oil companies trotted out scientists who claimed that CNG was just as polluting as diesel. But Narain and Lal fought back. By December 2002, the last diesel bus had left Delhi, and 10,000 taxis, 12,000 buses and 80,000 rickshaws were powered by CNG.

Although air pollution in Delhi has stabilized, the fight for clean air is far from won. Some 400 to 600 new private cars roll onto the city's streets every day. Narain and Lal don't claim to have slowed global warming. But their efforts have attracted requests for advice from as far away as Kenya and Indonesia. "Delhi leapfrogged," Narain says with a grin. "People noticed." --By Alex Perry/New Delhi

THE EVANGELICAL ACTIVIST PREACHING FOR THE PLANET

The Rev. Jim Ball agrees with President George W. Bush's positions on abstinence, stem-cell research, traditional marriage and the rights of an unborn child. But the Administration's environmental policies strike him as morally wrongheaded, and he's not afraid to say so. He led the 2002 "What Would Jesus Drive?" campaign against gas-guzzling cars and was one of the organizers of the Evangelical Climate Initiative in February, when 86 evangelical Christian leaders called on Congress to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions.

Ball, 44, practices what he preaches (he drives an energy-efficient Toyota Prius) and he came to his environmental beliefs honestly: through Scripture and concern for the living and the unborn. Fearing that millions of lives could be lost in global-warming-related disasters, he began studying environmentalism at Drew University in 1994 and emerged three years later with a Ph.D. in theological ethics. He became executive director of the Evangelical Environmental Network in 2000.

Activist ministers like Ball and Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals represent a significant political liability for the Bush Administration and its allies in Congress--a sign that their energy policies have put them on a collision course with a core constituency. Pay attention to our message, Ball argues, because climate change is not a left-wing, tree-hugging issue. "It's a people problem. It's about loving your neighbor." --By Eric Roston