It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.

We shouldn't fuel the future with the polluting methods of the past, ... We have the technology to power our future in ways that don't threaten our health or poison our planet. Let's choose to use it.

That said, I'm embarrassed and furious that so many coal-state Democrats in the U.S. Senate are paralyzing international progress to protect the short term interests of a dying industry that ravages the environment from mine to slag heap.

These are not exhortations from overwrought extremists, but carefully phrased warnings from some of the world's finest scientists.

There really wasn't an environmental movement 30 years ago. The Sierra Club national office in 1969 consisted of one full-time volunteer.

We got everyone's attention, but we didn't solve any environmental problems.

Our goal is to turn solar electric technologies into a commodity business like computer chips, and make them ubiquitous in the built environment. I'd couple this with a huge commitment to fundamental research in nanostructure to goose the next generation of more efficient, cheaper, dematerialized cells. And if I'm truly czar, I'd emphasize silicon technologies, as that approach is the one least likely to encounter material constraints in supplying an explosive global demand.