Green's visionary dreamboat, Jeff Lescher.

Midwest power pop worth flying in for will be taking place in the suburbs of Chicago on Saturday, May 4. Shoes was one of the first groups ever to appear on MTV, and their basement-made debut, Black Vinyl Shoes, was dubbed by no less an expert than Ira Robbins “one of the finest home-brewed releases ever.” But for this guy, it’s Green that’s worth the trip. Twenty years ago, I wrote in my college newspaper:

More than a mere collection of songs, Green’s first album is a total reinvigoration of rock and roll. Its dynamism and energy are palpable; in a Chicago scene that placed a premium on being blasé, Green made it safe to love rock again, to love it wide-eyed and big. It was so goddamn cool to like this band and I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that Green was not just my favorite band in the world, it was my favorite thing in the world.

A few months after that first record came out, I joined Green, and that’s how I earned my living for the next four years. We put out more records, toured the world. We had a ball. Later in the same article, I wrote: “The triumphs were many, far outnumbering the disappointments, and I wouldn’t trade even my worst minute in Green for anything.” That’s still true. Green’s influence, and that of its dreamy singer-songwriter, Jeff Lescher, can be felt in a ton of Chicago pop bands that made it much bigger than Green itself, from Smashing Pumpkins to Fall Out Boy to Caviar to Smoking Popes. That’s not a tragedy—it’s a triumph. And on Saturday night, I’ll join a bunch of old friends to celebrate.

Shoes plus Green, FitzGerald’s 6615 Roosevelt Road, Berwyn, Ill., $20

The High Line's extension plans (Getty Images)

The High Line is one of New York's millennial architectural treasures: a testament not only to a city's rejuvenation after 9/11 and a working relationship between public and private space (and money), but an eco-friendly green space in one of the world's most industrial hubbubs.

So with the park's planned extension with Section Three, which goes northward past West 33rd St., you'd think that everybody would be happy...at least until we can get the subterranean Low Line up and running. But they're not.

In an article for DNAinfo.com, a Greenpoint resident was grumbling during a recent guided tour through Section three that the currently non-pedestrian friendly area would be best left in au natural:

It would be nice if they kept it in this natural state, maybe just put in a path here but kept it in a state of preserved decay,” said J.R. Lettenberger, 30, who was visiting from Greenpoint. “What they have further down is nice, but they could make this like an urban Appalachian Trail.”

Not going to happen, dude. If the Friends of the High Line opened up the path without making sure that the area was clear and walkway-friendly, who is going to be responsible when a tourist leans too far over one side to snap a photo of the Hudson and falls 30 feet?

It's a sweet idea, but if you really want an urban Appalachian trail, go set up a Starbucks on the top of Cheaha Mountain.

"With concerns over climate change intensifying, electricity generation from coal, once reliably cheap, looks increasingly expensive in the face of the all-but-certain prospect of regulations that would impose significant costs on companies that emit large amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

As a result, utilities' plans for new coal plants are being turned down left and right. In the last two-and-a-half years, plans for 83 plants in the United States have either been voluntarily withdrawn or denied permits by state regulators. The roughly 600 coal-fired power plants in the United States are responsible for almost one-third of the country's total carbon emissions, but they are distinctly at odds with a growing outlook that embraces clean energy."

The Times piece goes on to discuss the expense of the technology to capture and store carbon and the expense and unreliability of renewable sources of energy. This is a worn out argument. The article also presents the usual environmental and industry advocates arguing on each side of the issue. The Edison Electric Institute can be relied on to argue that new technology will cost too much and threaten our electric supply. I wonder what old Thomas Edison would say if he knew that his name is now being used to oppose the development of new technology?

Why does this tired argument keep getting repeated? The cost figures on carbon capture and storage are based on assumptions that cannot be tested. We don't really know how much this will cost. The estimates that carbon capture and storage will more than double the cost of coal fired power plants is clearly too high. Since it hasn't been done, it's easy to see why investors would believe that the first ones will be quite expensive. I'm sure that's true, but it's not really relevant. The private sector should not and will not pay the cost of developing this technology. Government will need to subsidize this until it becomes cost effective.

The debate on carbon dioxide regulation seems caught in the same rhetoric we saw in the 1970's and 1980's over more conventional environmental regulation. There was similar discussion about how arbitrary and sudden government regulation was going to shut down American business. Anyone who actually observes regulation in this country knows that the "business of America is business". Regulations are implemented slowly, with negotiated schedules and great care. Businesses are given plenty of time to clean up their act. Moreover, regulations and rules allow the good guys to do the right thing and compete on a more level playing field. And without environmental regulation there is no pressure to develop new and cheaper technologies that produce without polluting.

As for the cost of renewable energy; solar power, wind power and battery storage prices will also come down as the technology develops. Think of computers. The computer I am writing this on sits on my lap and is more powerful than the million dollar plus mainframes of the 1960's. As mass markets are developed and technology is refined, prices come down and today's infeasible ideas become tomorrow's everyday experiences.

How do we get this done? How do we go from here to there? In the case of computers, a lot of the basic Research & Development came from the Defense Department and NASA. Our rockets, missiles and space capsules needed smaller, more powerful computers. And then there's the internet that was also developed by government: Our military computers needed to communicate with each other. One thing led to another and eventually we had an internet. Government paid the costs of development and then it was turned over to the private sector and a new industry was created.

Sometimes national security drives the development of technology- sometimes it is public health. Cities like London developed sewers and indoor plumbing to prevent disease. Cities like New York developed a hugely expensive water supply system because local sources were polluted. I'm sure someone was saying: Do you know how expensive this indoor plumbing will be? We will all go broke installing these pipes and pumps everywhere!

More recently we had some of the same arguments raised against paying the cost of installing air pollution devices on cars and power plants and against spending billions of dollars on sewage treatment plants. We did all of that and the economy continued to grow. In fact, the economic benefits of cleaner air and cleaner water far outweighed the costs.

Here is the fundamental truth that it is time to face: Just as we needed to develop new public health technologies to survive in cities when they went over a million in population, we must now invest in world-scale technologies to survive on a planet of seven billion people. The climate problem is the first planet-wide stress we know about. Others will surely come. We need to learn how to develop and implement the 21^st century equivalent of indoor plumbing.

We are capable of making this transformation but it requires that we escape from the environment- economic growth tradeoff paradigm we see on the front page of the Sunday New York Times Business Section. We need to work on the push and pull of carbon dioxide reduction. We need to regulate and set a cap on carbon dioxide.  This should be done with mandatory reduction targets, a tax on fossil fuels and a trading system to allow the most efficient reductions possible. In addition we need to spend money on the basic and applied technology of carbon sequestration, renewable energy, energy transmission and energy storage. We need cheaper and smaller solar receptors and cheaper and more efficient batteries.

Clean coal may be a fiction in 2009, but if we are to use coal for electricity, we must develop better ways to mine and burn coal. As my Columbia colleague Klaus Lackner eloquently argues, no matter how fast we develop renewable energy, we will continue to use fossil fuels for many years. He estimates the costs of sequestration will come down dramatically as technology and a mass market is developed. The problem is developing the technology and mass market. Government can and must stimulate the technology and market.

In the long run fossil fuels will be more expensive than other sources.  Fossil fuels are finite and must be mined from within the planet. They will get harder to mine and scarcer and for those reasons will eventually be more expensive. We need to accelerate the development of the new technology of energy. Let's end these 20^th century debates once and for all and get on with the job.

For the cable news channels and the political websites, the prospect of an absence of conflict and crisis must be terrifying. What happens if the Economic Depression is avoided and all of these new programs result in an economic recovery in 2010? People will stop tuning to the news media and start reading novels or something. The absence of perspective and understanding is amazing. The Washington insiders, as they always do, are complaining that the new folks in the White House don't know how to find the washroom yet. The national media keeps reporting, as news, the fact the different parts of Congress seem to disagree about the stimulus package. Congress is supposed to represent different perspectives. That's their job. This is a big and diverse country, with many different interests and points of view. To some degree Congress mirrors the nation's diversity.  Then, at a certain point in the policy making process, crunch time comes and someone must cut a deal. While I worry that the situation could become so toxic that no one will compromise, the prospect of a Depression should be scary enough to prod Congress into a deal.

I think it is important to understand what this new Administration has already managed to do since January 20^th.  With a number of real and symbolic steps, they have begun to redefine the political center in American politics. In the United States, politics and especially Presidential politics is about defining the political center. The stimulus package is a case in point. The Bush Administration approach to the economic crisis was to define it as a crisis in the finance industry and to enact a $700 billion bailout for Wall Street. While Obama supported that step, and will soon add to it, he also started to talk about the need for a more direct pump priming stimulus that would cost about $800 billion. The Obama plan would include: funds for state and local governments, extra funds for unemployed and poor people, funds for infrastructure- especially the green variety- and tax cuts for all but the wealthy. What is now being fought over in Congress? An $800 billion stimulus package with all of the pieces that President Obama advocated.   The fight is about the relative size of the pieces that the Obama Administration defined.  

That is the key idea to keep in mind here. The definition of political feasibility has changed dramatically in the past month. In environment, in science, in foreign policy and throughout the broad spectrum of public policy issues, the center has shifted. States will be able to set more stringent auto emission and fuel economy standards. Guantanamo will be closed. Our diplomats have resumed quiet conversation with our enemies.  Equal pay rights have been reinforced by new federal legislation. Poor children will find their health care financed by a new federal tax on cigarettes. The effort to transform our economy to a sustainable and green economy has been tied to the effort to avoid an economic depression. These are just the items that reach the media. Churning below the surface is over a decade of deferred governance that began in earnest when articles of impeachment were voted against Bill Clinton on December 19, 1998 and continued until January 20, 2009.

It is true that the new Administration has made mistakes. Who doesn't? In baseball, a batter fails 7 of 10 times, hits 300 and gets into the Hall of Fame. Obama is hitting well over 500 and should really not be underestimated. Last week he met with relatives of American terrorist victims who were angry about the closing of Guantanamo. President Obama assured them that closing this jail of ill repute did not mean he was about to allow criminals loose on the streets of our cities. In the NY Times on February 6, Jeff Zeleny reported on the impact of this meeting on one of the participants: 

"John Clodfelter of Mechanicsville, Va., whose son, Kenneth, was killed in the Cole bombing, said he came to the meeting with apprehension over the decision to close the prison and the delay in prosecutions. But after listening to the president and being assured that the terror suspects would not be released, Mr. Clodfelter said his opinion changed.  "I did not vote for the man, but the way he talks to you, you can't help but believe in him," Mr. Clodfelter said on Friday evening. "He left me with a very positive feeling that he's going to get this done right."

The tone in Washington is changing. The President invites his political opponents to a Superbowl party instead demonizing them as unpatriotic or naive.  There is an effort to dial down the level of intensity and dial up the time devoted to thought and reflection. This may make for less political theatre and may not be good for the political media business, but it is a refreshing development. Still, the news media shouldn't worry,  they can always interview Dick Cheney if they want to inject a little partisan contentiousness into the evening news.

The slow, steady, and yes un-dramatic events since January 20^th need to be seen in their entirety. A page has been turned. A new agenda and a new sensibility have already been put in place. Without great fanfare, the definition of legitimate policy prescriptions has changed.  Not bad for about three weeks in the White House.

After the retail giant's reputation took a hit, first for not providing employees with enough benefits and then from environmental groups that accused the corporation of polluting, CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. set about transforming the company's image. His mission: remake Wal-Mart into an environmentally conscious corporation.

Management decided to stock Wal-Mart shelves with energy efficient light bulbs, concentrated liquid laundry detergent and other products labeled as sustainable. New products involved less packaging, and the retailer's fleet of trucks now operates with improved fuel efficiency thanks to new loading techniques that make better use of space.

According to a January 24 article in the New York Times, "Wal-Mart now saves $3.5 million a year just by recycling loose plastic and selling it to processors."

Wal-Mart's new ethos came out further in that article, which included a quotation from Scott speaking in January to members of the National Retail Federation: "As businesses, we have a responsibility to society ... Let me be clear about this point. There is no conflict between delivering value to shareholders, and helping solve bigger societal problems."

Improving Wal-Mart's reputation has extended beyond its own profit margin. By placing environmentally friendly products on its shelves over other, less sustainable goods, it has pressured suppliers such as General Electric to rethink their product lines too. "There was a time where people in business believed all they had to do was run their business," The Times quoted former Wal-Mart CEO David D. Glass as saying. "But it doesn't work that way anymore. There is an accountability that goes way beyond that."

According to Steven Hamburg, chief scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, "We need to recognize that there's more than one measure in the success of a corporation." Also the author of a 1994 report criticizing Wal-Mart's environmental efforts, Hamberg said a corporation must rate its operations along three metrics: 1) financial success; 2) carbon and energy savings; and 3) the ability to achieve social goals. "These multiple metrics make economic sense," he noted. "The key is to take an integrated approach to changing the way we do business."

As for corporate concerns that selling long-lasting sustainable goods will reduce revenues, Hamburg said in fact, Wal-Mart is likely to benefit from transitioning to products that operate more efficiently. These goods allow Wal-Mart to grab a larger part of the market share, while products that have less packaging take up less shelf space, allowing retail stores to stock other goods in their place. Then there are the cost savings. Customers may buy fewer light bulbs, but that means they have more money in their pockets, and Hamburg says Wal-Mart is likely to see those savings come back in other ways.

Companies such as McDonalds and PepsiCo also are adding sustainability principles to their routine business operations. The Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy at Columbia University's Earth Institute has been helping Pepsi measure and reduce its carbon footprint on products like Tropicana Orange Juice and Gatorade.

While it's true some of this push toward environmentalism is clearly public relations, many companies are starting to see resource conservation and waste reduction as simply sound business practices.

In many respects, receptivity to these ideas goes back to the quality management principles companies such as Wal-Mart, GE and many Japanese companies adopted in the later part of the twentieth century. Sustainability is a natural extension of that long-standing effort to reduce waste and rationalize production. Total Quality Management and environmental sustainability share an abhorrence of waste and overly short term perspectives in business and production.

Not only are major corporations using sustainability principles to revive their bottom line, the new administration is hoping to use these ideas to revive America's now dormant economy. As mentioned in an earlier piece, a number of elements of the Obama administration's economic stimulus package would facilitate the development of a green economy. The $819 billion stimulus package passed by the House last Wednesday set aside $18.5 for energy efficiency and renewable energy, including $2 billion for research and development, $6.2 billion for building weatherization programs, $1 billion to support workers training programs in green job generation. A focus on innovative, renewable technologies appears in both the House and Senate bills, which could reach as high as $900 billion.

If you take even a middle-range perspective, it is obvious that an economy based on less waste and more renewable resources will be more efficient. However, the business world tends to operate on quarterly cycles and government typically focuses on the next election. The "realists" that run our world may not be that interested in the longer term focus sustainability management requires. When one looks society-wide, over an extended period of time there is no trade off between economic growth and environmental protection. However, a particular business at a particular point of time may find that such a trade off is quite real. It is government's job to change the incentive system - largely through tax deductions and credits - so that businesses can make the investments needed to reduce waste and consumption. Larger companies like GE, PepsiCo and Wal-Mart have the resources to do this on their own, but many smaller companies and even smaller local governments cannot do this without financial assistance.  Public policy is required to provide the means to move toward sustainability.

In the long run, we will only succeed if sustainability principles become the norm, as routine as best accounting practices or the use of computers in the workplace.  It will simply take its place along side other best management practices and principles. We'll know we're getting there when you start describing sustainability principles to a manager and she says, "Oh, that's just the way we do business around here. It's nothing special...."

President Obama is also pushing the Department of Transportation to finally issue regulations on fuel efficiency that were required in 2007 legislation. The Bush Administration had delayed these rules in an effort to kill them.  The reflexive word out of Detroit is that these new regulations will simply exacerbate the problems that the auto industry must face in it's struggle to survive. This is, of course, more of the same nonsense that has resulted in the demise of the American auto industry.  The temporary fix that SUV's brought to the auto industry fooled them into thinking that the old mantra: "mini-cars bring mini-profits", would remain forever. Even though gas is cheaper now then it was last summer, when people finally make enough money to buy cars again, very few will opt for gas guzzlers. The reason is that no one knows when gas will go back to $4 or higher, and the issue of environmental sustainability is creeping into the American mindset.

President Obama and Governor Schwarzenegger are doing Detroit a favor. The capital funds GM and Chrysler have received to bail them out are supposed to help them retool and make a more fuel efficient auto.  With the head-in-the-sand Bush era sputtering to an end, most people know that we need more fuel efficient cars. Let's go ahead and build them. During World War II, Detroit retooled from civilian to military production in a matter of months. This time, they have until 2011 to develop a fuel efficient fleet. We may not be fighting World War II, but we are in a battle for economic survival. Let's stop complaining and get down to work.  The future of the U.S. auto industry requires that we quickly build a more fuel efficient auto fleet. In the long run we will need an all-electric car and we'll also need an electrical power system that does not emit carbon dioxide.  American industry has an opportunity to get out front on this, develop new technology and sell it to the world.

The other day, one of my students told me that I was either unrealistic or overly optimistic if I thought that America could develop an electric car and a renewable-based energy system. It's not that I am overly optimistic; it's that I do not see any alternative. We need to develop a way to power our economy and society without fossil fuels. Nuclear is too complicated and creates a toxic waste. Oil and coal are hard to get, will eventually run out, and emit carbon dioxide. We have built the American economy and our cities around the automobile. While we need to add mass transit, this country will always require personal transportation.  Getting rid of autos would destroy our economy. Dismantling the modern economy would create massive political instability and dangerous unrest. Reinventing our energy system is the critical challenge of our time-and we have no choice-we must do it. It turns out that Jimmy Carter was right in 1977 when he said that the energy crisis was the moral equivalent of war

Pushing the auto industry to modernize is a critical piece to the American energy puzzle. But it is just the first step. President Obama should be commended for taking that first step, without waiting for new legislation and exercising the power of the Presidency. It is important that American industry get the idea that the new Administration is serious about building a green economy. Of course that means the new administration must be serious about building a green economy. Lots of people will say we can't afford sustainability or that it's a distraction from the real work of economic recovery. They are wrong. Our economic and political well being depends on our ability to develop an efficient, green economy. Sustainability is not a luxury and a fuel efficient automobile is essential to our future economc growth. 

"The latest in an annual series of polls from the Pew Research Center on people's top priorities for their elected leaders shows that America and President Obama are completely out of sync on human-caused global warming.... According to the survey of 1,503 adults, global warming, on its own, ranks last out of 20 surveyed issues. Here's the list from top to bottom, with the economy listed as a top priority by 85 percent of those polled and global warming 30 percent: the economy, jobs, terrorism, Social Security, education, energy, Medicare, health care, deficit reduction, health insurance, helping the poor, crime, moral decline, military, tax cuts, environment, immigration, lobbyists, trade policy, global warming.

On January 22, a piece in the New York Times discussed public opinion data on the environment and global warming and noted that support for protecting the environment was slipping in U.S. public opinion polls. According to Andrew C. Revkin:

"The latest in an annual series of polls from the Pew Research Center on people's top priorities for their elected leaders shows that America and President Obama are completely out of sync on human-caused global warming.... According to the survey of 1,503 adults, global warming, on its own, ranks last out of 20 surveyed issues. Here's the list from top to bottom, with the economy listed as a top priority by 85 percent of those polled and global warming 30 percent: the economy, jobs, terrorism, Social Security, education, energy, Medicare, health care, deficit reduction, health insurance, helping the poor, crime, moral decline, military, tax cuts, environment, immigration, lobbyists, trade policy, global warming. Although the more general issue of protecting the environment ranked higher than climate (named by 41 percent of the poll subjects) that figure was 15 percentage points lower than in the same poll a year ago."

The data reported here is accurate, but the data can be interpreted in several ways. I think it is a mistake to assume that the public's support for protecting the environment is declining. The reporter is drawing his conclusion from Pew's own survey analysts, and there is no question that the urgency of environmental issues has shifted due to the current economic crisis. However, we need to look a little deeper to really understand what is happening here. Let's start by looking at the question that was posed by the survey. It reads: " I'd like to ask you some questions about priorities for President-elect Obama and the Congress this year. As I read from a list, tell me if you think the item that I read should be a top priority, , important but lower priority, not too important, or it should not be done".

The overall finding of the Pew report is that people are much more focused on domestic issues than foreign policy. This general concern for issues of immediate impact may work against issues like the environment and global warming. Accurate or not, many people do not see the environment as having a direct effect on their daily lives. The study also reports, as you might expect, increased priority placed on the economy. Survey researchers like to pose questions like this because they encourage people to make tough choices and express priorities. This provides a greater intensity of response than typical questions. However, this type of rating question tends to understate the latent power of a political issue. These questions are better at measuring intensity of feelings than the public's overall, considered judgment of the issue's importance. Excellent social scientists such as the ones at Pew know that public opinion is difficult to measure and use "multiple indicators" to measure opinion from a variety of perspectives. For that reason, when you see a piece of poll data it is important to ask: What opinion is being measured with this question and why is this trend taking place?

For example, during the first two years of Ronald Reagan's presidency the environmental issue kept rising in the polls. We saw the same phenomenon during the most recent Bush Administration, once the public realized that Bush's "Clear Skies" and "Healthy Forest" initiatives were public relations efforts to mask anti-environmental policies. We have seen a gradual rise in support for environmental issues over the past several years. However, once the public regains confidence in the legitimacy of government's environmental programs, concern over the urgency of environmental issues starts to drop. When President Reagan brought back William Ruckelshaus as EPA Administrator in 1983, support for environment in some public opinion polls began to drop. Some of the drop seen in the recent Pew poll, may in fact reflect President Obama's name being used in the question. People know that President Obama is pro-environment and the urgency of the issue may have receded after November's election.

Public opinion on an issue's priority has at least two components to it: 1. How important is the issue overall? 2. How confident am I in the work that government is doing to solve the problem? If I have little confidence (as we all do today about the economy) it becomes a mega-priority. If I feel that it's moving along OK, I may not express a great a sense of urgency when responding to this question. In the Pew survey, 83% of those responding still think the environment should be a top or important priority. About 67% felt that way about global warming. While not as highly rated as the economy, it is not a minor issue either.

We see a similar phenomenon on polling about crime. The overall issue remains central to people's perceptions and lives- certainly here in New York City. But with crime rates going down, people do not consider it an urgent issue and it does not rate very high in local surveys of critical issues. That does not mean that people want the police department's budget to be cut. All it would take is one crime wave and the issue would jump to the top of the polls. People expect government to protect them. They expect their streets to be safe, and they expect their air and water to be clean. Remove that safety and you will discover the enormous latent power of those issues.

There is another factor at work here which we could call a "crisis effect". Some of the priority shuffling we see in the latest survey is undoubtedly a reflection of the urgency of the economic crisis. When there is a crisis such as the economy or the 9-11 terrorist attack, all priorities are suddenly no longer equal. Crises tend to crowd out other priorities. As important as the climate issue is to our long term survival, the issue of jobs and the economy is so important, that we are willing to hold off on those long term issues-for a short time-while we deal with the crisis.

This is a normal human response to emergencies- probably hard wired into our genetic code-and one of the reasons we have survived so far. If I get a call that one of my daughters is ill, and I need to take her to the hospital or doctor, as important as my job is to me, I will drop everything at work and take care of that emergency. When the emergency is over, I can return to "normal" priorities. As I've written before, everyone of us has that image in our head (probably in black and white) of unemployed folks on a bread line during the Great Depression. The fear of losing the ability to provide for ourselves and our families is a powerful force that can drive out our other concerns.

One of the problems with some environmental issues such as global warming is that they do not pose the immediate threat people feel from other issues, like toxic waste or "not-in-my -backyard" land use development. It does not have the urgency that the wild beast at the cave entrance had for our ancestors. When we feel an immediate crisis, our ability to deal with powerful long term threats is reduced. That does not mean that we've forgotten about the long term threat. It just means that in order to get to the long term, we need to survive over the short term.

From my perspective it was a wonderful speech. I felt the entire country exhale and breathe a sigh of relief. Here was a voice that over these past two years many of us had come to count on; possessed by a man with near perfect political pitch.  The main message was responsibility and stewardship. He called on all of us to leave behind the childish pettiness of partisan politics and remember that we are a unique community, formed from every part of the planet. As technology shrinks the size of our world and creates a global, interconnected economy and society, he noted that America's diversity got us there first and we have a responsibility to lead.

Of course as in any piece of great pubic oratory there was something for everyone. For me, he said:

• "...each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.
• "Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America."
• "We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All this we will do."
• "What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them- that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works"

And finally:

• "We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace."

I was not the only one thrilled by President Obama's message,  I heard Conservative pundit, Pat Buchanan, laud our new President in his call for a return to: "...those values upon which our success depends - honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths."

Our new President makes you want to help him and wish him well. I have never seen anything like the flood of support and good will that he has enjoyed these last few days. It was amazing to see and could not be better timed.

Of course inauguration day is more than words, it is also symbols. The most important of these symbols is the peaceful transfer of power represented by past Presidents and Vice Presidents joining together and the great tradition of the outgoing President seated on the podium with the new President. The size of the crowd on the Capital mall and at viewing parties from coast to coast was a thrilling final act of this great pageant of democracy. On the Columbia campus, our President, Lee Bollinger hosted thousands of students, faculty and neighbors in an outdoor viewing of the ceremonies.

To inaugurate is to begin. It is more than a little scary to think of the challenges we face. The sustainability of this fragile blue island in the vacuum of space, the violence of the Mideast, the dire poverty in Africa and the economic crisis here at home. The inauguration of this President was an event of enormous affirmation and, one of unity and inclusion. President Obama referred to his own story and as he often does, used it to demonstrate how much is possible here in America.   In concluding he observed that assuming the Presidency was "a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant".  This is the promise and potential of America. While watching the ceremony and listening to Aretha sing at the start and Dr. King's colleague Rev. Joseph E. Lowery's benediction at the ceremony's end, I felt like I was dreaming- or watching an improbably sentimental and sappy movie.

But it all was real. Each of us now, in our own way must now participate in the great national renewal that President Obama spoke of on the Capital steps. January 20^th was a very moving day that we will need to remember and draw on during the difficult days that are surely ahead.

Let's hope this is a metaphor for our country and our world. Working together, we can help each other and survive this season to live and thrive in the next one. Spring will surely follow this bleak winter. Let's celebrate the competence and courage of pilot Chesley B. Sullenberger III, a name we will all come to know: The captain who truly was the last to leave his sinking craft. But let's also celebrate this post 9-11 mantra that tells us we are all in this together. We are all interdependent and all part of the same community. As ecologist Barry Commoner said over four decades ago- everything is connected to everything else.

What does that mean? Next week we inaugurate a new President, who is as sophisticated and self aware as any President we have ever had. I don't think it's wishful thinking to believe that he understands both the peril in the modern world and the opportunities that abound. We need to turn this big boat around and become a force for good on this planet. I recognize that we have enemies throughout the world, but bombing them into submission does not really make them submit. It simply makes them hate us more.

We need to change the rules of the game. Perhaps our competition with China is a good example. In the days when we called mainland China "Red China", we imagined they would use force to push the rest of Asia into their orbit. Instead, they learned to exercise power through economic rather than military strength. They never invaded San Francisco, but they manufacture a lot of the stuff we use and we owe them a small fortune.

A great political scientist, E.E. Schattschneider once wrote about what he called the "contagiousness of conflict". In his classic book, The Semisovereign People, he starts with a story that summarizes his main point: It is 1943 and there is a fight in a Harlem Hotel lobby between an African American soldier and a white policeman.  Before long crowds are assembling at the hotel, the hospital and police station, millions of dollars of damage takes place and hundreds are injured.  The cop and the solider had nothing to do with the riot, but it spread without reason.  Conflict spreads due to unreasoned emotion. However, the contagiousness of conflict can also be part of someone's explicit strategy. We see this in a typical barroom brawl.   One guy is pummeling another. A crowd is drawn by the fight and the guy losing starts to implore the crowd to help him. The bystanders get involved and the loser stops losing. When you are losing a fight, a typical strategy is to expand the scope of conflict and try to change the rules of the game.  As Schattschneider wrote: "The outcome of every conflict is determined by the extent to which the audience becomes involved in it. That is, the outcome of all conflict is determined by the scope of its contagion." (p.2) However, as modern terrorism has taught us, it is not simply a case of expanding the scope of conflict, but changing the rules of the game.

In the modern version of Schattschneider's fist fight in Harlem, the guy losing doesn't just scream for help, he takes out a mobile rocket launcher and sends a missile into the other guy's apartment.  Or even worse, if that's possible, the loser is so desperate and demented that he sends a child to a public place with a bomb in his backpack. This is the unavoidable and even unspeakable peril of the modern world. The terrorists try to change the rules of competition in more destructive directions and we need to be smart enough to change the rules in a different direction. A descending spiral of violence makes us all losers. An ascending path of sustainable commerce makes us all winners.

It can be done. We see the beauty of the response to the jet liner that landed on the Hudson.  We see election evening in Grant Park Chicago and all over America.  We see the possibility of situations where everyone wins. That is the nature of peace. All of us share a common humanity. As John Kennedy once said, "our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's futures. And we are all mortal."

The most common human need is to live in a community, free from want, secure to relate to family and friends. The 20^th and 21^st centuries have seen many wars fought over issues of power and competing views of god and ethics. The technology of destruction has advanced more rapidly than the technology of defense. For that reason the key to our survival is to move this competition to other arenas.  We know that this will not be easy, since the losers will always try to change the rules of the game. The lesson is to not let losers stay lost. The losers in World War II, are major winners today. Japan, Germany and Italy are wealthy, peaceful societies.

Our new President and his team must learn to pilot like Chesley B. Sullenberger III and his crew. We need a safe landing where everyone wins. It's true that the winter wind is howling outside and we live in a frightening moment; but watching that miracle on the Hudson was inspiring.  How about a miracle on the Potomac too?

For the stimulus to work it has to be decisive, dramatic, coherent and quick. The psychology of recovery is that people have to believe that if they don't jump back into the economy, it could take off without them. An incremental, slowly releasing, partial and incoherent stimulus won't stimulate. Ask Secretary Paulson- he's managed to spend $350 billion and his biggest accomplishment has been to avoid a complete collapse.

In Friday's New York Times, Peter Baker and David N. Herszenhorn wrote that:       

"...the broad support he [Obama] has enjoyed so far for the basic concept is now being tested as the specifics become clearer. While conservatives criticize the high spending, and moderate Democrats express concern about the swelling deficit, liberals are pushing for even more money devoted to social programs, alternative-energy development and road, bridge and school construction." 

In case no one's noticed, this is a national emergency and no time to roll out the usual suspects. The economy is suffering a deep crisis of confidence and it is going to take a lot of cash in a hurry to get it moving again. While no one will agree with every element of the plan, and some may say it's too little, too expensive or not fair enough-come on folks! Let's get this show on the road. Try this, and then adjust it once we see what's working.

The plan has a number of important provisions, and should be read in full, but let me note the plan's elements that are squarely on the sustainability agenda:

• "Save one million jobs through immediate investments to rebuild America's roads and bridges and repair our schools: ...make $25 billion immediately available in a Jobs and Growth Fund to help ensure that in-progress and fast-tracked infrastructure projects are not sidelined, and to ensure that schools can meet their energy costs and undertake key repairs starting this fall.
• Partner with America's automakers to help save jobs and ensure that the next generation of clean vehicles is built in the United States: ... [provide]$50 billion in loan guarantees to help the auto industry retool, develop new battery technologies and produce the next generation of fuel efficient cars here in America.
• Invest in our next generation innovators and job creators: ...create an Advanced Manufacturing Fund to identify and invest in the most compelling advanced manufacturing strategies. .
• Double funding for the manufacturing extension partnership: ... [work] with manufacturers across the country to improve efficiency, implement new technology and strengthen company growth.
• Invest in a clean energy economy and create 5 million new green jobs: ... invest $150 billion over 10 years to advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure, accelerate the commercialization of plug-in hybrids, promote development of commercial scale renewable energy, invest in low emissions coal plants, and begin transition to a new digital electricity grid.
• Create new job training programs for clean technologies: ... increase funding for federal workforce training programs and direct these programs to incorporate green technologies training, such as advanced manufacturing and weatherization training, into their efforts to help Americans find and retain stable, high-paying jobs.
• Boost the renewable energy sector and create new jobs: ...create new federal policies, and expand existing ones, that have been proven to create new American jobs.
  • ...create a federal Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) that will require 25 percent of American electricity be derived from renewable sources by 2025, which has the potential to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs
  • ...extend the Production Tax Credit, a credit used successfully by American farmers and investors to increase renewable energy production and create new local jobs.
• Create a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank: ...creating a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to expand and enhance, not supplant, existing federal transportation investments. This independent entity will be directed to invest in our nation's most challenging transportation infrastructure needs. The Bank will receive an infusion of federal money, $60 billion over 10 years, to provide financing to transportation infrastructure projects across the nation. These projects will directly and indirectly create up to two million new jobs and stimulate approximately $35 billion per year in new economic activity.
• .Invest in the sciences: ...doubling federal funding for basic research and changing the posture of our federal government from being one of the most anti-science administrations in American history to one that embraces science and technology.
•  Make the Research and Development Tax Credit permanent: ...make the Research and Development tax credit permanent so that firms can rely on it when making decisions to invest in domestic R&D over multi-year timeframes."

If enacted, the impact of this plan could be transformative. For the past decade, the innovation, energy and momentum of the emerging green economy has been thwarted by an Administration dominated by the interests of the oil business and the now discredited financial industry. Environmental sustainability was a public relations catch phrase rather than an expression of the nation's core economic strategy. If these proposed programs are made law and effectively managed, they could stimulate unprecedented creativity and investment in a green economy.

If the economy wasn't in free fall there would be time to fine tune these programs and start them gradually. Unfortunately, we are in a crisis. Congress needs to get moving with the same sense of urgency we feel outside the beltway. The new Administration needs our support, and our economy needs a strong dose of adrenalin in a hurry. Come on Congress, show a little leadership and enact this stimulus package right away-if not sooner. 

This crisis is both a test and an opportunity. Can we respond to a crisis of confidence that is still gathering momentum? A weak economy will harm the people at the bottom of the economic ladder. It will make it more difficult for young people to begin their careers and will cause retirees to suffer as their life savings evaporate.  On the other hand, it also gives us a chance to steer the investment we are about to make, toward a more sustainable economy. The risk and the opportunity are both great. Our new President has clearly articulated his understanding of this crisis- and the potential opportunity it presents. It's time for Congress to step up and do the same.