Energy is a sector of the economy that has been particularly resistant to innovation. This is precisely the problem. It is why we are still dependant on energy sources that are 100 to 150 years old while virtually every other sector of the economy has transformed itself. This is why we believe that the faith that many environmentalists still hold that carbon regulations and taxes will drive sufficient private sector investment into energy markets to create the kind of innovation we need is unfounded.

Environmentalism has become a special interest, incapable of addressing large, complex, and global problems such as global warming.

Energy is a sector of the economy that has been particularly resistant to innovation. This is precisely the problem. It is why we are still dependant on energy sources that are 100 to 150 years old while virtually every other sector of the economy has transformed itself. This is why we believe that the faith that many environmentalists still hold that carbon regulations and taxes will drive sufficient private sector investment into energy markets to create the kind of innovation we need is unfounded.

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.

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

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.

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.