Systemic Barriers to Progress on Climate and Energy: The U.S. Senate

With the entire planet waiting for the U.S. to step up and lead on climate change solutions, why couldn't America get our act together in time for Copenhagen?

One key problem, argues David Roberts of Grist, is the institutional roadblocks put up by the U.S. Senate.

In an infuriating post, Roberts points out how just 7.4% of Americans can block humanity's efforts to save itself:

Senate ratification of an international treaty requires not just 60 but 67 votes. Say 34 senators rally to block such a treaty—senators from, oh, Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, Alaska, South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Idaho, Nebraska, West Virginia, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah. Thus can representatives for 22,540,352 people—7.4% of the population—block the will of the other 281,519,372. Indeed, senators representing 7.4% of Americans can thwart the entire world’s efforts to address the climate crisis.

With climate disruption accelerating faster than expected, and our next major oil crisis no doubt not far away, something's got to give here.  With the world waiting, the Senate's Majority leader, Harry Reid, needs to show much bolder leadership than he has to date.  Most importantly, Reid needs to find a way to stop allowing the opposition Republicans, who are clearly both behind and out of step with the public majority on climate and energy, to use the filibuster to thwart progress.  I have no doubt that if the tables were turned, Republicans would absolutely not be allowing Democrats to so abuse the filibuster.

CVI is a non-partisan organization, and so rather than speaking out on a partisan basis, we speak out in support of policies that reflect the best recommendations of top experts, and offer the greatest prospects for success. 

Clearly, what the top experts are saying we need is for you to be creatively bold, Senator Reid, and do what Americans elected your party to the majority to do: pass bold legislation that moves American and the world forward on solving our crises in climate disruption and fossil fuel dependence (and in doing so helps address the problem of our skyrocketing health insurance costs, many of which are related to pollution caused by fossil fuel burning).

To Republicans, we'd love nothing more than for you to rediscover the spirits of Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt and get with the program here.  It's one thing to offer a different set of smart, practical approaches than Democrats. But to deny and ignore the consensus of the world's top scientists, scream "Drill Baby Drill" when our own Energy Department says that's not a viable policy solution, and liken President Obama's policies to those of Hitler makes your party's ideas on these issues irrelevant.

Read more>>
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One Year Later: Obama's Green Accomplishments

Joe Romm of Grist and Climate Progress details Obama's progress on green issues.

Future historians will inevitably judge all 21st-century presidents on just two issues: global warming and the clean energy transition. If the world doesn’t stop catastrophic climate change then all presidents, indeed, all of us, will be seen as failures and rightfully so.

In that sense, what team Obama has accomplished in the year since he was elected is nothing less than an unprecedented reversal of decades of unsustainable national policy forced down the throat of the American public by conservatives. Three game-changing accomplishments stand out:

1. Green Stimulus: Progressives, Obama keep promise to jumpstart clean energy, economy—conservatives keep promise to jumpstop the future. The stimulus represents the single biggest increase in clean energy investment in U.S. history—$100 billion public investment aimed at driving, which is pulling in another $100 billion in public investment. Huge investments in energy efficiency, renewables, transmission and smart grid, and mass transit and train travel are already having a big impact, for instance, helping the wind industry survive and thrive in the great Bush-Cheney recession.
2. Regulatory Breakthroughs: Obama will raise new car fuel efficiency standards to 35.5 mpg by 2015, which is the biggest step the U.S. government has ever taken to cut CO2.  And the Obama EPA declared carbon pollution a serious danger to Americans’ health and welfare requiring regulation. The EPA has begun the process of developing regulations, and while that is a very imperfect way to address global warming, it ensures that the country will take some action in the event Congress can’t.
3. First-ever climate bill advances:  In June, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a landmark bipartisan climate bill, 219 – 212. It would complete America’s transition to a clean energy low-carbon economy, begun in the stimulus, ultimately driving $100 billion a year in total U.S. investments in clean energy technologies and industries.

We don't hear about all this day in and day out, so it's a nice reminder that our vote is, indeed, making a huge difference in spite of the powerful forces resisting change.

While you can give yourself a pat on the back for helping make all this happen, we have a LOT of work to do in the next year, while strong progressive majorities exist in Congress. 

Those of you in swing states, especially, please call your Senators and ask them to support and strengthen the Kerry/Boxer Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act: 202-224-3121.

Read the full Grist article>>
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CBO Estimates of Climate Bill's Impact on GDP Miss Big Picture

Just read this SF Chronicle piece about the impact of the Climate and Clean Energy solutions bill on GDP.  Seems narrow to me:

The Congressional Budget Office projects that if the House-passed climate change bill were to become law, the U.S. gross domestic product would be 0.2 percent to 0.7 percent less than its potential in 2020. In 2050, the GDP could be up to 3.4 percent less than it would be without a cap-and-trade plan, the CBO said.

How about benefits to GDP (and reduced negative impacts to GDP) from reduced pollution and associated health expenses, more stable, secure energy sources and predictable pricing, creating millions of jobs from clean tech (including sectors that we can only dream about right now, like people could only dream about the internet in the 80's), stopping the disappearance of the world's fresh water supplies, not having to spend billions trillions of tax dollars defending oil supplies in the most unstable regions on the planet, and...you get the picture?

The article did continue that:

All of the price estimates for the climate change legislation are predicated on economic assumptions and in some cases leave out major factors, including: how pollution allowances might be distributed, and what new technologies to curb emissions and create emission-free power - even those not envisioned today - could be spurred on by new costs on carbon dioxide emissions.

This is exactly why the world is starting to talk seriously about new measures for tracking the health of our economy.  GDP just doesn't cut it for capturing the benefits that climate change and clean energy solutions offer for maintaining the health of both human well being and the ecosystem services upon which it depends.

Read more>>

Want more details on the problems with the CBO's numbers than I have time to get into?  Read David Roberts' puppy-cute rant about them...

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Music To Our Ears: White House Announces New Energy Policy

Somebody pinch me -- this sounds too good to be true:

White House officials called for a new energy policy that would encourage renewable energy and fight global warming while, they say, making U.S. firms more competitive worldwide.

"If we create the right incentives on energy, it will drive demand for clean energy and efficiency that will foster the creation of new businesses and the jobs that come with them," said (Commerce Secretary, Gary) Locke, former governor of Washington state.

(Energy Secretary, Stephen) Chu announced that the Department of Energy will soon issue billions of dollars in loan guarantees for renewable energy. But, he added, further action is needed.

"Comprehensive energy legislation will unleash the American innovation machine to create new industries and clean sources of energy to power our economy," Chu said. "It is the single most important step we can take to secure our economic prosperity and leave a healthier planet for future generations."

It's really nice to have the reality-based community in charge.  But we still have a lot of work to do to give Congress the support it needs to pass the comprehensive energy legislation that Chu underscores as crucial.

You can reach your Congressional Representatives at 202-224-3121.  Folks in swing states, especially, please call your Senators and urge them to support and strengthen the Senate's "Kerry/Boxer Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act."

These policies are investments in our energy future, economic stability, and natural heritage that will pay off bigtime for generations to come.
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It's Health Insurance Reform and Clean Energy Jobs Legislation

Most of us are relatively happy with the care we get from our doctors.  So it's easy to see why Health CARE Reform sounds scary to a lot of people.  They think, "I like the health care I get -- why does it need to be reformed?" 

It's a very different story when you ask people about their health INSURANCE -- if they can even afford it.  It's either getting way too expensive way too quickly (much faster than wages are rising) or it's impossible to afford altogether.  So Health INSURANCE Reform sounds like exactly what most of us really need right now.

"Ohhhh, thaaat's what all this is about," somebody who I explained this to on a BART Train exclaimed recently, clearly getting it.  "Yes, my health INSURANCE is way too expensive and is covering less and less.  We definitely need Health INSURANCE Reform!"

Similarly, a couple of Thanksgivings ago, I had this wonderful encounter with a couple of global warming deniers.  They were all in favor of clean energy jobs, freedom from oil, energy efficiency savings -- they can see it, they get how enacting these solutions makes America more secure and our lives better.  Climate change, caused by invisible gases, affecting something so big and vague as the climate of the entire planet -- notso much.

That said, it's definitely appropriate that Senators Kerry and Boxer named their climate change solutions bill the "Clean Energy Jobs and American Power" act and Rep. Markey named the House Bill the "American Clean Energy and Security Act".

Even with climate change accelerating beyond our wildest expectations, if Kerry and Boxer's bill becomes about climate change, itself, a victory will only occur by the thinnest of margins, if at all. If the public discussion becomes about being in favor of the solutions to climate change with easy-to-see public benefits -- such as clean energy, freedom from oil, energy and fuel efficiency -- support for the bill will be much broader.  It just becomes a whole lot harder for people to be against or to not believe in things like "clean energy jobs" and "freedom from oil".

Of course, we all need to do our part by spreading these types of messages, including to our Congressional representatives.

You can reach your Senator via the Congressional Switchboard: 202-224-3121.
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Talking About the Costs of Climate Change & Clean Energy Legislation

As media coverage of the Senate's efforts to pass climate change and clean energy legislation revs up this fall, it's inevitable that we'll hear pundits talk about how taking action is too expensive.  As our readers know, such claims are hogwash that ignores both the eye-opening costs of inaction and the excitingly game-changing opportunities of climate change and energy-related solutions.

Grist's David Roberts gets into the topic

Imposing a cost on carbon and investing in clean energy would cost plenty of dough. But failing to take action, allowing fossil fuel prices to continue rising, allowing climate change to proceed unrestrained, would also cost. (Joe Romm makes the point well, noting that the Republicans’ Inaction Plan on energy itself represents “the most costly option.” We should call it the Inaction Tax.)

Point is, beware of scary cost numbers, and always keep in mind that the choice is not costs or no costs but which costs.

Read the full post here...
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Connecting Land Use Planning and Health Insurance Reform

One of the big drivers of the rise in health insurance costs is, well, that Americans are getting fatter and fatter.

We eat supersized fast food meals instead of cook our own fresh and healthy ones, we surf the web instead of exercise or socialize, we take our cars to where we need to go instead of walk or bike.  And the places many of us are going to -- thanks to suburban sprawl -- have become further and further from our homes and schools.

It would be much healthier -- and we would be much healthier -- if our communities were more walkable, bikable, and better served by public transport.  Not to mention the gas money we'd save...

More on the subject in this post from Planet Green...

Giving Climate Solutions Opponents A Choice: Support Congressional Action or Face the EPA

The announcement by the EPA that it will move to regulate greenhouse gas emissions not only reflects the consensus of scientists that we need to take rapid action to stop the build up of heat-trapping gases. 

It is also a bit of smart strategic maneuvering by the administration as it works to insure America has a climate change and clean energy policy in place as soon as possible.

As one article that I was reading today points out, the EPA's move leaves opponents of progress on climate change and clean energy solutions a choice: either support Congressional legislation, which will likely contain numerous compromises for polluters, or face the largely regulatory hammer of the EPA  The latter, says the article, "has generated fear and deep divisions within American industry. Some major utilities, oil companies and other heavy emitters are working closely with Congress to ensure that a climate bill would circumvent E.P.A. regulation by substituting a market-based cap-and-trade system."

It's a good position for supporters of climate change solutions, for as our readers well know, solving climate change will also provide game-changing benefits to our economy, security, public health, and overall quality of life.

A reminder to our readers -- especially those in swing states -- please call your Senator and urge them to support this bill: 202-224-3121.

Over the course of the coming weeks, we'll also be blogging talking points that you can use to educate your Senator in how to make the bill a better reflection of the best advice of scientists such as Stanford University expert, Dr. Stephen Schneider.

Kerry, Boxer Introduce "Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act"

It's more important than Health Care Insurance Reform.

With climate change accelerating at a pace that our best scientists find alarming, and America still suffering from its bad case of oil addiction, Senators Kerry and Boxer yesterday introduced the Senate's version of the Climate Bill Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act.

Our friends at Grist did a good job compiling reactions from across the web. Here is Climate Progress expert, Joe Romm's, rundown.  And the rundown from Sightline Institute.

If there ever were a bill that the well being of America and the world really depended on, it is this one.  We are facing some epically interesting times right now, as the Antarctic and Greenland Ice sheets -- the ones that affect sea level in a big way -- melt surprisingly quickly.  The impacts may be downright weird -- not just sea level rise, but also things like a rise in tectonic activity as the melting of polar ice caps causes a redistribution of weight on the earth's crust, water and food supplies become more uncertain, and who knows what else we discover we have messed with. 

The good news -- we have before us the opportunity of our generation to revolutionize our economy, create millions of lucrative and patriotic jobs proliferating technologies that free America from dependence on oil, and in doing so accomplish more in the fight to defund and defeat terrorists than the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.

Kerry and Boxer were right to call their bill the "Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act".  It ain't perfect, and I hope the bill President Obama finally signs better reflects the recommendations of top experts.  But passing this bill is a historic, and game-changing, opportunity that we have to pull out all stops to execute on.

Call your Senators - 202-224-3121, and ask them to support this bill.  For the sake of our economy, our security, our health, our quality of life, and of course this beautiful planet.

In Key First 100 Days Action, Congress Mulling Return of the Fairness Doctrine

Back in 2007, when I blogged about David Orr's '100 Days of Climate Action', one of the key actions that Orr recommended be part of the next President's 'First 100 Days' agenda was reinstating the Fairness Doctrine:

The president must craft a communications strategy that rapidly educates the public about the science of climate change and the risks of a delayed response, and shows a plausible way forward consonant with economic advantage and our national heritage. The goal is to create a broad and stable coalition around the national interest in climate stability that protects our long-term security and prosperity and distributes the costs and benefits fairly.

To ensure that the public is adequately informed, not mislead and deliberately confused, the president should direct the Federal Communications Commission, among other things, to reinstate the "fair and balanced" standard necessary to hold a license to broadcast over the public airwaves.

Well, today we have great news -- Congress is apparently mulling making it happen.

I often wonder how much of rural America's heavily Republican views stem from a lack of media balance -- in much of rural America, all you can get on the radio is conservative radio talk shows, country music, and evangelical radio. There is a complete lack of balance.

Restoring the Fairness Doctrine would be a huge victory for American Democracy. It will be a major step forward that helps make sure that voters all across America are properly informed about key issues in a (truly) fair and balanced manner.

With Victory Comes Responsibility

When I stepped out my polling location yesterday, I found a few tears watering up in my eyes. Finally, the nightmare of the last 8 years of a horribly incompetent Bush administration - to put it politely - would be reaching the official beginning of its end. It's been trying for this conservation biologist to endure such an era of disastrous policy choices -- not to mention the anti-environmental and deregulatory damage to America done by the Republican Congress that lasted until 2006.

It caught me a bit by surprise to experience those tears, and fortunately they weren't the last ones I shed on Election Day 2008. President-Elect Obama's victory speech, which sounded to me more like something that would come from the mouth of FDR than JFK (who he is often compared to), was one of the most inspiring moments I have ever experienced -- and as chills reverberated down my spine, more tears of joy filled my eyes. Wow - I was truly blown away.

While the victory certainly was sweet -- and has left me operating a bit on the slow side today -- the reality is that the real work starts now.

With an economic crisis, a climate crisis and a Peak Oil crisis building towards a potential cataclysm, we have a sustainability revolution to execute on, and it won't be easy.

We have an opportunity to work to get initiatives like David Orr and Friends' 'One Hundred Days of Climate Action' incorporated into the solutions announced during President Obama's first 100 days. But we need to start working on that yesterday.

It's an exciting time, and I'm hearing a lot of 'Yes We Can' type talk, which is both inspiring and exciting. Now it's time to put this talk into action.

I can't wait!

When Will Our Leaders Start Leading On Energy?

With oil soaring past $93 per barrel today, China starting to ration diesel, and everybody from airlines (are our days of flying numbered?) to farmers (rising food prices coming soon...), and consumers feeling the pinch (more are buying hybrids and car-sharing), when are our leaders going to see the writing on the wall and start leading us to a more efficient, clean, and secure energy future?

Just curious...

As a Union of Concerned Scientists official declared in one of the articles linked to above:

"What we really need on this broad level is for Congress to act to give us the patriotic cars that are going to relieve the pain at the pump, to reduce our dependence on oil," said Jim Kliesch, a senior vehicles analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists.

How much more pain can U.S. consumers take before it's clear as day to our elected officials that they either vote to do it or their jobs are toast?

Leading the Fight Against Climate Change (and Peak Oil): Is the Next President the Most Important in U.S. History?

First, a big congratulations to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for winning the Nobel Peace Prize. The global significance of this award provides yet another demonstration of the increasing realization of (most) world leaders that unless we take action fast and take action now, climate change is going to pose a huge challenge to life as we know it sooner than we'd like.

Thus as we approach the 2008 elections, it is becoming clear that with the threats posed by unexpectedly rapid climate change looming larger each year, the next president of the United States will be the most important in America's history. This president will need to mount a New Deal-like 'One Hundred Days of Climate Action', which both leads the world in staving off a climate catastrophe, and weans America (and the world) from our increasingly precarious dependence on oil.

Such are the conclusions of David Orr, William S. Becker, James Gustave Speth, and former Senator Gary Hart in four superb articles published in the August, 2007 issue of the journal, Conservation Biology. The articles, says Orr, were the conclusion "of a small group convened by Ray Anderson, Jonathan Lash, and Bill Becker in 2006 to discuss leadership and sustainability."

One of the outcomes of the meeting, says Orr, was "the formation of an effort to define the first steps that must be taken by the new administration in 2009 to create and implement a climate action plan adequate to the emergency ahead. We focused on the first 100 days so as to shed light on the critical importance of the first steps in a new direction."

One Hundred Days of Climate Action

Back in the first 100 days of the Roosevelt Administration -- which Orr's 100 days of climate action is modeled after -- the crisis at hand was much more tangible: the debilitating economic conditions of The Great Depression. Today's crisis of accelerating climate change is, as of yet at least, not nearly as tangible to most Americans. Of course, that could easily change quite quickly, as it did for thousands of Gulf Coast residents following Hurricane Katrina. The prospect of more frequent and intense Katrina-level climate disasters -- from hurricanes to tornadoes to floods to droughts -- hammers home the reality that, as Orr emphasizes, "it will be far cheaper to act now than at some other date, by which time effective action of any kind will be difficult or impossible." (a possibility that insurance companies are certainly worried about)

Orr recommends that the next president make 10 key choices to shift our country, and eventually the world, to a largely emissions-free energy infrastructure over the next 50 years:

1. The president must make a climate action plan the linchpin connecting other issues including policies for security, economy, environment, and justice.

2. The president elect and the transition group must identify unusually talented potential appointees who can quickly gain public confidence and command the machinery of government, and who share a commitment to act decisively to meet the challenges posed by climate change.

We cannot afford any more of the crippling cronyism and incompetence in key positions that has characterized the current administration.

3. The president must rise above the divisions of right and left, stake out common ground, and present a vision of the safer, healthier, more secure America that we can achieve by confronting climate change.

4. The president must craft a communications strategy that rapidly educates the public about the science of climate change and the risks of a delayed response, and shows a plausible way forward consonant with economic advantage and our national heritage. The goal is to create a broad and stable coalition around the national interest in climate stability that protects our long-term security and prosperity and distributes the costs and benefits fairly.

To ensure that the public is adequately informed, not mislead and deliberately confused, the president should direct the Federal Communications Commission, among other things, to reinstate the "fair and balanced" standard necessary to hold a license to broadcast over the public airwaves.

5. The president should outline a course in which we rapidly remove carbon from the U.S. energy system. This policy would (1) reduce our dependence on imported fuels; (2) minimize our vulnerability to political conflicts in unstable parts of the world, (3) reduce our balance of payments deficit and money going to fund terrorist groups; (4) lower the total costs of energy, notably those costs that are now externalized; (5) generate better technology and a better economy; (6) create good and stable jobs; (7) improve air and water quality; (8) protect public health; (9) lower health costs; and (10) reduce the influence of entrenched energy industries on U.S. politics.

The right energy policy, emphasizes Orr, "should solve many different problems including that of climate change and national security while providing other collateral benefits."

6. The president should expand the federal capacity to implement climate policy consistently across all aspects of government, from assessing new technologies (ala the Office of Technology Assessment, which was terminated in 1994) to responding to disasters (a need that was clearly demonstrated by Hurricane Katrina).

7. The president would be wise to initiate a longer-term effort to reign in the power of money in politics - which has badly corrupted the policy process and rendered it largely ineffective for solving America's most pressing problems. Although there is no shortage of ideas on how to do so, the best solution would be to remove money from the electoral process once and for all by publicly financing elections to national offices.

8. In the first 100 days, the president must take bold steps to rejoin the international community on climate, security, and economic issues. There is no prospect of stabilizing climate without a coordinated global effort. The world is waiting for U.S. leadership to help create a global partnership on climate policy.

9. Federal action is necessary, but not sufficient. The next president should create a national commission on local responses to climate change focused on the steps required to build locally and regionally resilient economies, food systems, and distributed energy networks that would enhance the capacity to withstand disruptions caused by climate change.

Orr cites the model of the Civilian Conservation Corps as a good model of how the government can organize a rapid mass-proliferation of wind farms and solar technologies, and help improve energy efficiency in low-income communities.

10. The next president must change the spirit of this country, exorcising the fears that have manifested in demons that haunt our nights and darken our days. In the light of higher purpose and clearer vision we might once again be a great, not merely powerful, nation.

The Most Important President and Us

William S. Becker, in the article following Orr's, agrees that "I think we can say without exaggeration that the American people are about to elect the most important president in our history." He emphasizes, however, that the responsibility to solve the climate crisis lies not only with the president, but also with the American people, who, he says, must end their reluctance to be lead. Becker elegantly states that:

"As a people, we need to be smarter, tougher, more entrepreneurial, and eager to regain our edge as a culture of invention and industry. We must show that our opposite thumbs still have capabilities beyond operating the remote control and that we still deserve to be called the most intelligent species."

"We will have to wake up from the dull denial that masks the cruel ironies of our mindset. We stick yellow magnetic "support our troops" ribbons on the back of our urban assault vehicles while we fill their insatiable tanks with gasoline, enriching nations that support the terrorists our troops are presumably in the Middle East to fight."

He concludes that:

"The challenge Orr describes so well for the next president is really the challenge that faces us all. We must be willing to accept the feedback coming from the ecosystem; to raise the standards of politics, government, and leadership; and to give our candidates and leaders permission to be bold."

Indeed, the fight versus climate change requires big, bold steps from the next president, Congress, local governments, businesses, and the American people alike. The good news, which I emphasize time and again on this blog, is that working to implement climate change solutions will provide all Americans with a much-needed positive vision and a beacon of hope to aspire to as a nation: growing a new, more stable renewable energy-powered economy, improving our public health and national security, and protecting the health of the earth's wondrous ecosystems and biodiversity. Perhaps most important to our quality of life, it will help us to prepare for and sidestep the potentially calamitous consequences of another looming threat -- Peak Oil.
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U.S. Lags in Environmental Performance, But We Predict: Not for Long

An outstanding article in the October, 2006 issue of Bioscience, titled Biodiversity: The Interplay of Science, Valuation, and Policy, reports on a new "Environmental Performance Index" devised by Yale University's Center of Environmental Law and Policy; Columbia University's Center for International Earth Science Information Network; the World Economic Forum in Geneva, Switzerland; and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission.

The Environmental Performance Index (EPI) identifies specific targets for environmental performance (e.g., related to pollution control and natural resource management) and measures how close the world's nations come to those goals.

According to the article, Daniel Esty of Yale's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and others evaluated the EPI of the world's countries and found that the U.S. finished with strikingly disappointing results:

"In the Americas, Canada is the top-ranked nation at 84.0. The United States is fifth at 78.5. Lowest is Haiti at 48.9."

"To put the US score of 78.5 in perspective, the European Union's scores ranged from Sweden's high of 87.8 to Belgium's low at 75.9. Many Asian and Pacific nations scored higher than the United States, such as Malaysia at 83.3, Japan at 81.9, Australia at 80.1, and Taiwan at 79.1."

What explains these differences?

"Wealth emerges as a major determinant of environmental performance", said Esty, "but at every level of development, some countries manage environmental challenges better than their peers, suggesting that policy choices and effort applied also matter."

"They matter a lot," emphasizes the article's author, Cheryl Lyn Dubas. "Differences in governance explain a significant part of the variation in EPI scores, Esty believes."

The good news - if inadequate policies, governance and effort are the root of America's falling behind even countries like Malaysia and Taiwan in environmental performance, Americans surely have both the knowledge and drive to fix these problems.

After all, environmental performance - sustainability - is on the rise in America as THE hot trend in everything from business and natural resource management practices, to building and interior design, to foods and even clothing. This trend is motivated, in part, by a rise in the public's awareness of the many benefits that sustainability provides - economic, security, health, quality of life and, yes, environmental. Energy independence not only helps us fight global warming, but boosts our freedom from foreign oil and thus national security, saves us money, boosts corporate profits, and curtails pollutants that harm the public's health. Eating organic not only reduces the influx of toxic pesticides into our soils and waterways, but into ourselves (and makes our food taste better)! Sustainable forestry not only protects the habitats of salmon and spotted owls, but helps protect communities and businesses from destructive floods and mudslides - intact forests providing the ecosystem services of reducing the severity of floods by absorbing rainfall and preventing mud slides by holding soils together.

But there appears to be something more - and perhaps deeper - to the rise of sustainability. It's just a feeling that I have, but after five years of being governed by fear of terrorism, and having been forced to face the prospect that global warming will bring more Hurricane Katrina-type disasters, sustainability seems to be providing a positive vision for America's citizens and decisionmakers to aspire to.

Thus, I am going to make a prediction: being tired of fear and hungry for hope, Americans are going to increasingly turn to sustainability as a beacon of hope for a better world for ourselves and our children. As a result, America can and will come back as a global leader in environmental performance and our future EPI score will reflect this comeback.