As social values shifted through the '80s and '90s, as modern conservatism rose to power, and as the electorate became a good deal more skeptical of both government and environmentalists, these strategies, and the institutions that were created to prosecute them, foundered.

It is worth noting that virtually every alternative energy source we have - solar, wind, nuclear, and battery and fuel cell technologies for storage - resulted from public innovation and R&D, not private. The problem is that we haven't done enough of it, and we have done it inconsistently.

All of the barriers to innovation in the energy sector are arguments for a big commitment to public investment. Only the public sector can make the kind of long-term, common investments that we need to overcome those barriers to innovation.

We can still cap carbon, but that needn't be at the top of the agenda that we communicate to voters.

In the months after George W. Bush's reelection, a lot of liberals and environmentalists were ready to take a hard look at their political agenda, the Democratic Party, and the interest groups they supported.

The levels of technology investment in the energy sciences pales compared to the kinds of investment we make in the computer and bio-sciences.

After a brief couple of years in the late '70s, public funding for clean energy technologies dried up and has been on the decline ever since.