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

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

Skepticism about the potential to achieve the kinds of breakthroughs we need has been a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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.

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.

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.

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