A Climate Exchange

On December 14, the Sierra Club convened a panel of heavyweights from the political, public policy, business, and scientific communities for a day-long forum in San Francisco, "Helping America Take the Lead: A Climate Exchange." A roundtable brainstorming session at Club headquarters, moderated by Club Executive Director Carl Pope, was followed by an afternoon presentation of the panel's recommendations at the Commonwealth Club of California, the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum.

Presiding at the afternoon session was former Vice President Al Gore, pictured above with Pope and Stanford University climatologist Stephen Schneider. Rounding out the panel were Paul Anderson, Chairman and CEO of Duke Energy; Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems; Bettina Poirier, global warming policy advisor to California Senator Barbara Boxer; and Dan Reicher, president of New Energy Capital and former Energy Department official in the Clinton administration. Senator Boxer joined the panel for the afternoon session. Among the panel's recommendations: the urgency of setting a "carbon price" on greenhouse gas emissions, and the importance of government kick-starting the process by sending a clear signal to capital markets that carbon dioxide emissions will be bad for the bottom line.

Senator Barbara Boxer at the Commonwealth Club panel discussion. "Global warming is coming together as a consensus issue in a bipartisan way," she said. "I'm beginning to see Republican senators come to me on global warming who've never done so before."

Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla makes a point at the morning roundtable session. Khosla said no replacement for oil, coal, and plastics will work in the marketplace until it's cheaper than its fossil fuel competitor. "We already have the technological solutions," he said, "but we need stable long-term policy to get Wall Street to invest."

Duke Energy Chairman Paul Anderson during a break in the morning brainstorming session. "Until there are penalties for emitting carbons, business won't move," he asserted. "A clear signal from government, such as a carbon tax, would make clear that emitting carbon is a liability, not an asset."

New Energy Capital President Dan Reicher listens during the roundtable working session. "We need to put a price on carbon," Reicher told the crowd at the Commonwealth Club. "Everything else is secondary."

Comments

[Philippe Boucher]

Any audio recording of this event? A digital recorder costs $30...

[David Nicholson]

Good for the Climate Exchange meeting. Go to windhunter.org to see one way to get large quantities of hydrogen without ecological damage or human resistance.

[Janna Nijland]

vinod Khosla's comment should be taken seriously. If you want people to buy products that aren't damaging to our environment they must be cheaper than the alternatives-Most people are making ends meet every month!

[Daud Almakhafi]

Im very concern about the Earth, that we are destroying the nature by cutting trees,using fuel and gas for our cars, launching rockets, result is consuming the OOOOOOO, so people and animals will die step by step through some decades of years if we do not do some thing to relieve our nature allover the eart.

Happu new year for all.

[Supportive in San Diego]

All of these brave leaders get my vote! And so does the idea of putting a price on carbon.

[Jackie Bartosh]

I love the idea of taxing carbon. I agree with Gore on that we should tax carbon not labor! Rid income taxes for pollution taxes!

I also think we Americans need to take action and not wait around for our leaders to FORCE us to take action. Solar and wind power is out there for regular home owners. My home is powered entirely by the solar panels on my roof and the wind turbine in my backyard. My entire renewable energy system was LESS then $25,000! That's the same or less then a new car or SUV. And we Americans seem to be buying new vehicles like nothing. So I can't understand why people keep crying they can't afford a renewable energy system for their homes. They just CHOSE that SUV over that solar/wind setup. Our priorities aren't straight.