Humanity is now faced with an array of global challenges we are ill equipped to handle. Climate change and nuclear proliferation, food security and global pandemic disease each concern us all. But we lack the global institutions through which they might be solved. And these institutions are lacking because most people put the needs of their own groups first. While the great challenges of the twenty-first century are largely global, few people think of themselves as global citizens. And few bring the same balance and maturity to global issues that they do to more national concerns.

Climate change may alter virtually every major human institution. It will transform who we believe ourselves to be and the way we relate with one another. It may even bring about a reconsideration of the meaning of human existence. But while most serious thinking on climate change is scientific and political, these questions are psychological, sociological, ethical, and spiritual. The failure to explore more deeply the inner climate through which climate change is received is a major part of the story of why there has been so little climate action. And yet, leading thinkers in virtually...