Tom Friedman's "Hot Flat and Crowded" is an excellent read with great ideas as well.

I feel this is an awesome point.  In fact, there use to be 3 main reasons for going "green":  

1. Climate change
2. The price of gas
3. Getting off of "Middle East" oil

Now there's a fourth:

4. A whole new industry for a country that needs jobs!!

I feel the President Elect should use his bully pulpit to hammer home this point more.  Even though gas has gotten cheaper for the moment, the other three reasons are too important to ignore.  And the way all these reasons tie in together has to be explained to the American people over and over.  The media's not doing a great job of connecting the dots in this way.  The Whitehouse now has someone who understands these connections. Please don't let up getting this message out.  

Green Economy = Jobs, National Security and a Clean Planet

It's a no brainer!  Or it's a "Triple Double" as they say in basketball.  

(Feel free to use both those lines.  I won't charge you!) ;)

If they can be made practical , Dr Lachner's "trees"  would actually be able to reduce the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. These are machines that chemically bond CO2 then sequester it.

Those "trees" don't address the problem of water and land pollution, or the fact that petroleum products are a finite resource...when it's gone, it's gone.

There's no such thing as "Climate Stabilization".  We have to face the fact that we are living on a planet that is constantly changing.  It doesn't mean we can't live in way that has less impact to the planet we live it just means we need to find better ways to exist with the changes and with eachother.

sadly, we woulnt be leading the world were this to occur, we would be catching up to 1960's europe.  That being said, you have to catch up to lead, so good on you!

In order to avoid the worst effects we need to have a goal of reducing our emissions 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020, and 80% by 2050.

I agree that we must be an example to the world by decreasing CO2 emissions, but setting arbitrary limits is too much of a compromise since we already have the technology for a combustion free power and transportation infrastructure! The problem is that we will fail by diluting our efforts with too many approaches to “reduce” CO2 emissions and the lack of a “plan” to stop CO2 emissions entirely!. Where would we be if JFK had said “We will work on getting to the moon someday”? We have neither unlimited resources nor unlimited time! We must go with what we know how to do now! We went to the moon in 10 years and now are we supposed to be satisfied with taking 6 years to put, on the road, a million hybrids that still burn fossil fuel? Right now we can start adding 600 Gigawatts of nuclear power to replace the 400 million gallons of gasoline we burn daily. We can adapt NASA's heavy lifting capability for solar disposal of nuclear waste. We can line our interstates with metered charging stations. We can build new vehicles and retro-fit existing ones with wheel motor drives powered by nano-technology Lithium batteries. It’s a lot of work but we do need the jobs and with an unwavering commitment we can eliminate all CO2 emissions from out power and transportation infrastructure! We don’t need a “better mouse trap”! We don’t need consensus building! We need clear, unambiguous leadership that will commit us to doing what must be done with what we have. We need leadership that is not afraid of eliminating all spending on partial solutions. President-elect Obama – Are you “The Man” ?

@JasonE - well, right. It's a complicated dynamic system. That said, there are various sensitive feedback cycles that we are a part of with our huge CO2 emissions. For example, if our own actions heat up the world to the point where permafrost begins to thaw and rot, releasing CO2 in the process, we may find ourselves in a runaway scenario where nothing will stop the environment from becoming unlivable for us. So I am not talking about an engineering style "fix" to the environment, but committing to stop adding to the problem before it runs away from us.

@Konrad - Agreed, but apparently even the targets coming out of Europe are still on the "poltically possible" side and not on the "demanded by the best data we now have" side. So clearly leadership is needed everywhere.

@Sam_D - Totally agree that we can't wait for some new magic bullet to be created. We can and need to use solutions and technologies already at hand if we are going to reverse this trend in decades rather than centuries (which is time we no longer have). The call is for the commitment to do it!

@All - sorry for the mispelling. It's a "big" job, not a "bit" job! :)

We can reduce all we want, but if China, India and other developing countries don' t do the same, then assuming MMGW is real, they counteract everything we do.  We can't force any other country to change without war; we can only hope to persuade.

So why kill our economy more if we're still going to die in 20 years?  I'd rather die well-fed and drunk in a 20,000 square foot house than die under a bridge with no food.

But we're in luck - 2008 was the coldest in decades, so according to my models, 2009 will be even colder.  The discussion is over, I have an consensus.

I say that with thick sarcasm, but the facts remain - Europe is rethinking their strategy, and China and India have no interest in conserving.  If Africa comes online, then what?