Obama wants to build such things as smart electrical grids and high-speed rail lines, which will offer big environmental improvements. Another obvious thing is that large-scale project financing is virtually frozen, so a lot of renewable energy projects are on hold. If the system doesn't get unclogged before the developers run out of cash, they will be cancelled. Money matters, and we are racing against time.

By 1975 - and continuing to today - all Americans came to believe that they had a "right" to a safe, clean, healthy environment. When I grew up, no one seriously criticized the steel mills and paper mills for the deadly stench they produced - that was the smell of prosperity. In the modern society, no one would tolerate such conditions in an American city.

Zeroes are important. A million seconds ago was last week. A billion seconds ago, Richard Nixon resigned the presidency. A trillion seconds ago was 30,000 BC, and early humans were using stone tools.

By the year 2000, such renewable energy sources could provide 40 percent of the global energy budget; by 2025, humanity could obtain 75 percent of its energy from solar resources.

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

I would love to see a fundamental re-thinking of whether we truly want to be the world's largest debtor nation, feeding an insatiable desire for mall-crawling with cheaply made crap from all over the world.

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