One of the only national journalists to write regularly about the story of the century is three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Tom Friedman.

The centrist columnist pulls no punches in his Sunday NY Times column, “No to Keystone. Yes to Crazy,” which opens:

I HOPE the president turns down the Keystone XL oil pipeline. (Who wants the U.S. to facilitate the dirtiest extraction of the dirtiest crude from tar sands in Canada’s far north?) But I don’t think he will. So I hope that Bill McKibben and his 350.org coalition go crazy. I’m talking chain-themselves-to-the-White-House-fence-stop-traffic-at-the-Capitol kind of crazy, because I think if we all make enough noise about this, we might be able to trade a lousy Keystone pipeline for some really good systemic responses to climate change.

He notes we’re at a unique time in our history:

We don’t get such an opportunity often — namely, a second-term Democratic president who is under heavy pressure to approve a pipeline to create some jobs but who also has a green base that he can’t ignore. So cue up the protests, and pay no attention to people counseling rational and mature behavior. We need the president to be able to say to the G.O.P. oil lobby, “I’m going to approve this, but it will kill me with my base. Sasha and Malia won’t even be talking to me, so I’ve got to get something really big in return.”

But while he praises Obama for some key individual climate policies, overall he sees back-sliding:

Face it: The last four years have been a net setback for the green movement. While President Obama deserves real praise for passing a historic increase in vehicle mileage efficiency and limits on the emissions of new coal-fired power plants, the president also chose to remove the term “climate change” from his public discourse and kept his talented team of environmentalists in a witness-protection program, banning them from the climate debate. This silence coincided with record numbers of extreme weather events — droughts and floods — and with a huge structural change in the energy marketplace.

I discussed the origins of this ‘strategy’ here (see “Team Obama Launched The Inane Strategy Of Downplaying Climate Change Back In March 2009“).

What is the structural change in the marketplace that Friedman refers to? Why none other than our new frenemy, hydraulic fracturing (aka fracking) — along with “horizontal drilling at much greater distances.”

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Anyone who follows the clean energy industry knows it isn’t a fad. The macro environmental and economic drivers like climate change, limited fossil energies, and the growing global demand for reliable, clean energy sources are simply too strong.

No one should pretend the transition is easy. But it’s inevitable.

That’s why it makes me shudder when I read words like “green energy isn’t going to be the solution” from Congressional political leaders like Cliff Stearns, who recently criticized the industry as “not viable.”

Well, guess what Mr. Stearns? The private-sector executives who actually know something about this industry don’t agree with you. A new survey of 128 cleantech executives released yesterday by the law firm Cooley LLP finds that 74% see strong growth in this industry over the next five years — even with federal heel-dragging under a business as usual scenario.

“Our survey confirms there is an overwhelming belief by clean tech investors and entrepreneurs that private sector investment in clean tech will continue to rise. I believe that this studied enthusiasm is based on the fact that we are still just at the beginning of a multi-decade energy transformation,” said Tom Amis, co-chair of Cooley’s Clean Energy & Technologies practice and based in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office. “Yet, the near term certainly presents some challenges for both investors and entrepreneurs.”

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You may remember Paul Gilding, former executive director of Greenpeace International.  Tom Friedman has been writing columns about him since his 2009 piece on how the global economy is a Ponzi scheme.  I was quoted in that column, too, and as a result, have gotten to know him (see video, “Paul Gilding on The Great Disruption:  “You can’t just have an adaptation strategy. There’s no chance of that working”).

Well, Friedman has a new column today, “Something’s Happening Here,” which asks:

When you see spontaneous social protests erupting from Tunisia to Tel Aviv to Wall Street, it’s clear that something is happening globally that needs defining. There are two unified theories out there that intrigue me. One says this is the start of “The Great Disruption.” The other says that this is all part of “The Big Shift.” You decide.

The Big Shift is “the merging of globalization and the Information Technology Revolution” to create a “huge global flow of ideas, innovations, new collaborative possibilities and new market opportunities.”  It basically means anyone, anywhere can make a contribution, get noticed, and rise to the top.

The Great Disruption ain’t so pretty:

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In Greenbuild speech, NY Times columnist slams White House: “There are endangered species I’ve seen more of in the last two years than that climate team speaking out in defense of climate science and scientists.”

The last three years have been the most politically and economically turbulent that Americans have ever seen. And that has helped pushed environmental issues — particularly climate change — onto the back burner.

Author and New York Times Columnist Tom Friedman had a fantastic speech this week at the Greenbuild Conference in Toronto, in which he briefly summarized the recent history of our rising and falling hopes on U.S. climate action.  He also made clear the Obama White House shares some of the culpability for climate change  being put on a back burner.

We’ve edited the 30-minute speech down to an 8-minute segment featuring all his best quotes. It’s worth listening to the whole thing:

Here are some of the most quotable quotes, including his discussion of the powerful impact of the “totally bogus” Climategate affair:

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Our guest blogger is Open Left‘s Chris Bowers.

In explaining why he voted against climate change legislation in the House, freshman Democratic Representative Eric Massa said Monday that calls to his office against the bill outnumbered calls in favor of the bill by 19-1:

My final reason for opposing this bill was you, the constituents of New York’s 29th Congressional District. In the week leading up to the vote, our offices received hundreds of phone calls urging a ‘no’ vote. In fact, after we tallied the responses, the “vote no” calls outnumbered the “vote yes” calls by a ratio of 19 to 1. My job is to represent you, and that’s exactly what I did in casting my vote.

Even though conservatives pretty much always win the congressional office phone call battle through their enormous lobbying operations, a 19-1 margin is still pretty shocking. The margin is even more shocking considering that the vast majority of green groups in the United States put out high level action alerts to their membership urging them to call members of Congress in support of climate change legislation.

How could the progressive grassroots get so utterly trounced in activism on the climate change bill? One solid bet is because the messaging from those supporting the bill was patronizing, not entirely forthcoming, and full of cognitive dissonance. Supporters of the bill consistently had the following four activism-depressing messages:

1. The climate change bill sucks, but we should pass it anyway;
2. We are probably lying to you about actually trying to strengthen the bill;
3. Strengthening the bill is not possible because it will probably lead to the defeat of the bill. Anyone who thinks otherwise is naïve.
4. It is your fault that the climate change bill sucks.

Man, I want to get up off my ass and work hard based on that message. And this really was the message. Take self-styled climate change expert Thomas Friedman:

There is much in the House cap-and-trade energy bill that just passed that I absolutely hate. It is too weak in key areas and way too complicated in others. A simple, straightforward carbon tax would have made much more sense than this Rube Goldberg contraption. It is pathetic that we couldn’t do better. It is appalling that so much had to be given away to polluters. It stinks. It’s a mess. I detest it.

Now let’s get it passed in the Senate and make it law.

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