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In a report released last week, the UN called on the USA to "take the lead" in balancing the global carbon budget and "climate proof" its growth. It was an appropriate and no-nonsense welcome mat spread out for the American delegation to upcoming climate talks in Bali. And that's about where attention to the report started and ended.

Too bad. More striking than the call to action is the report's title -- Fighting Climate Change: Human Solidarity in a Divided World -- and the statistics that fill up half of its 399 pages. They tell the quantitative story of the astonishing wealth and advantages America enjoys. But they also tell a sad tale of a nation's failure to provide the moral leadership needed to create human solidarity in the face of global warming. Most Americans are unaware of what these numbers show, and were they to find out, would be appalled. They're not in any headlines. The news just wouldn't sell.