This is not a column about Cole Porter, the great Broadway composer who wrote the wonderful song “Night and Day”.  This column is about climate change and the urgent need for humanity to dramatically alter its’ energy equation.

At a recent global climate change summit in Poland, John Kerry, the ranking U.S. representative told the world community that the difference  on the issue of climate change between the incoming Obama administration and the soon to be history Bush administration will be like “night and day”.  He emphasized the commitment that Obama will have for facing global warming, creating alternative and renewable …

It was two years ago that I first wrote about ocean dead zones. These are areas of the ocean that, due to a lack of oxygen, no longer sustain any life.  While dead zones can happen naturally, they usually are caused by the results of human activity.  A primary cause is nitrogen-rich nutrients from agricultural fertilizers that flow into coastal waters from rivers and streams.

Last week there was a report published in the Journal of Science that stated that the number of these ocean dead zones around the world has doubled every decade since the 1960s.  There are …

GM, Ford and Chrysler represent to a large degree the Industrial Age legacy of manufacturing in the U.S. “What was good for General Motors was good for the United States” was, for decades in the 20^th century a very true statement. The manufacturing might of America post WWII was an economic miracle and the apotheosis of the Industrial Age. Supported by the explosive growth of television and the American advertising business, the consumer market of wondrous new goods exploded. The Big Three auto companies rode this wave to unprecedented success.

Every year, there were the exciting new …

The last 50 years of humanity’s mindless consumption of fossil fuels has helped accelerate global warming. The total lack of a cohesive energy policy and program in America has given us $4 a gallon gasoline with $5 and $6 a gallon a practical certainty. There are millions of new riders on our mass transit systems at a time when many of these systems are in crumbling decline due to decades of neglect and total lack of strategic initiatives. Solar and wind power are extremely exciting and coming on line quickly. Globally, and nationally we have backed ourselves into an energy …