A Walkable Life?

Dear Greenies -
I am all about the environment. I love trees. I recycle religiously. I want to reduce my carbon footprint. But I'm running into a little trouble...
One good way of reducing one's carbon footprint is living a "walkable life." In other words, living in an area where I could walk (or bike) to work, the grocery store, library, etc, etc.

Here's the problem: It narrows your world. Remember that day when you just didn't leave your house? Maybe for a couple of days in a row?  Slowly, "the outside" becomes less and less pertinent to your life. Not that you stop caring, but issues can't break into your bubble enough to REALLY fire you up.

Living in walkable bubbles shrinks the world and the power of its issues.
Maybe its a human mentality problem more than a "walkable life problem." Its easy for people not to care about what doesn't directly affect them, what they don't see, feel, hear or experience. In order to care, people need context. They need to feel the potholes in the road to care about maintaining streets. They need to see the starving polar bear to care about global climate change. (See: The Planet Earth, Episode "Ice Worlds," Clip 1, Clip 2.)
 
So what do we do?

Love,
Laura