Environmentally, business in America in 1970 was very similar to business in China today. Even if a CEO wanted to be a responsible corporate citizen, he (and they were all "he's" then) simply couldn't invest a billion dollars in pollution controls to produce a product that was indistinguishable from those of his competitors. His products would be priced out of the market. Passing laws that created a clean, level playing field for whole industries had to be a core focus of the 1970s.

It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.

We presently have the technology ... fuel cells, solar cells, hydrogen ... the opportunities are amazing for clean energy.

Asbestos, EMFs, and CFCs have given us a degree of humility. When yesterday's "triumph of modern chemistry" turns out instead to be today's deadly threat to the global environment, it is legitimate to ask what else we don't know.

Whether you are buying a car or casting a ballot, choosing a job or planning a family, follow your moral compass. Don't let others define you. Don't let advertisers mold you; don't let zealots ensnare you; don't let conventional wisdom trap you....you are part of a much larger whole.

Politicians had always viewed environmental issues as narrow things of no great political consequence. Sort of NIMBY issues. A big part of the reason was that the groups that cared about wilderness didn't talk with the groups that were trying to stop freeways from cutting through inner cities, and neither of them talked to the folks who wanted to stop the military from dumping Agent Orange on Vietnam.

The easiest way to make something cool is to get cool people to do it. Part of this might mean the president has to forget tensions with opponents, or people like Arnold Schwarzenegger who has actually been decent with oil issues. Maybe he needs to pull some of the cool people in and make them model the right behaviors.