Rock stars get room keys, I get business cards. Wherever I go I meet innovators of wind power equipment, solar energy operators.

I have no problem with a war for oil-if we accompany it with a real program for energy conservation. But when we tell the world we couldn't care less about climate change, that we feel entitled to drive whatever big cars we feel like, that we feel entitled to consume however much oil we like, the message we send is that a war for oil in the gulf is not a war to protect the world's right to economic survival-but our right to indulge. Now that will be seen as immoral.

What we do know is that the planet is going from 7 billion people today to 9 billion. More people want to live like us, drive American- size cars, live in an American-size home, and eat American-size Big Macs. What does that mean? It means that energy demand is going to be going up.

Rock stars get room keys, I get business cards. Wherever I go I meet innovators of wind power equipment, solar energy operators.

Basically all the world's computer parts come from the same supply chain that runs from Korea, down through coastal China, over to Taiwan, and down to Malaysia.

Almost all the students who make it to Caltech, one of the best scientific universities in the world, come from public schools. So it can be done.

Sometimes, when my wife and I were going out to dinner, I would take my laptop with me and work in the car, so as to take advantage of the half hour going and coming.