The Idea Blog

This was the title of a Tom Friedman piece on Discovery a year or so ago (link here and here), but now it comes back as a major edit piece in the April 28, 2008, issue of TIME.

Here’s the crux of the story, which is part of a bigger series in the magazine:

Halting climate change will be far harder than even [the Manhattan Project or putting a man on the moon]. One of the more conservative plans for addressing the problem, by Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala of Princeton University, calls for a reduction of 25 billion tons of carbon emissions over the next 50 years—the equivalent of erasing nearly four years of global emissions at today’s rates. And yet by devising a coherent strategy that mixes short-term solutions with farsighted goals, combines government activism with private-sector enterprise and blends pragmatism with ambition, the U.S. can, without major damage to the economy, help halt the worst effects of climate change and ensure the survival of our way of life for future generations. Money will get us part of the way there, but what’s needed most is will. “I’m not saying the challenge isn’t almost overwhelming,” says Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund and co-author of the new book Earth: The Sequel. “But this is America, and America has risen to these challenges before.”

I know I’ve shared it before, but here’s Friedman’s talk at PopTech several years ago.