Like most people of a certain age, I found environmentalism through the hole in the ozone layer and in the muck of the Exxon Valdez, performing years of Blue Box pennance for my sins. At thirteen, I thought that was enough to change things; by 30, I'd mostly given up hope. After all, even as the environment seemed to lose prominence in poltical and social discussions, the predictions from scientists were getting gloomier. That the prognosis was so poor frustrated me (how could we squander so much!) but it never caused me to grieve until my friends started having children. Suddenly, I understood just what was at stake; hand-throwing futility seemed an awfully chancey game to play.

So, too, for Chris Turner, who found himself reexamining environmentalism in the wake of his daughter's birth. What kind of world could he imagine for her? He set out to discover "a place in the mind worth fighting to build," an examination of the new practices — and the new ways of thinking — that might create a viable future not just for his daughter, but for the planet as a whole. Something sustainable. And something different from the apocalyptic tales of old school environmentalism. Something rooted not in fear, but in hope. The end result is "a scrapbook of a year spent living optimistically," a record of journeys from Denmark to Florida, through India and Tibet, to New Mexico and back home again to Calgary: A Geography of Hope (published by Random House Canada).

Turner's approach is different from standard looks at climate change and global adaptation. He does not candy-coat the potential consequences of inaction ("looming catastrophe or catastrophe unfolding—whatever debate remains over climate change will occur within these parameters"), but he chooses to focus on what we can do. Right now. Today. And he's thinking bigger than sorting plastics or buying a hybrid car.

Turner's journey is filled with familiar wind turbines and solar cells (albeit on bigger scales than you might imagine), dreamily named down-to-earth dwellings built from recycled tires and glass, the importance of public transit, and a rant against modern architecture — and particularly Le Corbusier's boxes — that brings to mind William Shatner's insistence that there is a demon on the wing of plane. He visits Europe and Asia, as well as North American communities that are dedicated to changing the way they power their lives. Along the way he meets with Tibetan refugees, housing developers and a woman who used her life savings to convert her home to solar power, figuring the costs savings would serve her better than her interest rate.