Speaking at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas on Monday, former President Bill Clinton challenged Americans to change how the energy/climate debate has been framed by extremists on the right.

The debate so far has been dominated by a need to prove that:

1) Global warming is real.
2) Global warming is caused by human activity.
3) Global warming is bad.
4) Measures to stop global warming won’t destroy our economy and way of life.

In other words, supporters of the energy status quo and their loony mercenary mobs have the adults playing defense at every turn. That framework is reason #1 why the rather weak Waxman-Markey bill barely squeaked by in the House.

In a single phrase, uttered six minutes into his remarks and repeated throughout his one-hour address, Clinton supplied the winning frame for progress on a host of interconnected issues, including global warming, a tanking economy (particularly noticeable in a massive loss of jobs), and a series of disastrous oil wars.

Clinton’s new frame was: “We are still piddling with this.” And by this he clearly meant all of these interconnected issues of jobs, energy and the environment.

I don’t expect to see signs going up across the nation proclaiming, “No more piddling!” But it’s just the kind of phrasing that connects with working class Americans.

Clinton, whose mojo was always about connecting heart and head (or sense and sensibility), went on to discuss in the pure wonk language of numbers, the challenges facing us and the benefits of specific actions. But he always tagged up with a variation on the “piddling” theme.

T.Boone Pickens, Sen. Harry Reid, John Podesta

Low-hanging fruit

Clinton said we need to focus policy – and money – on the low-hanging fruit of energy efficiency. Retrofitting older building to make them energy efficient, for example, would provide the most bang for the buck, in terms of lowering GHG emissions and in job growth. Constructing a new coal-fired power plant generates 870 jobs for every $1 billion invested, said Clinton. The same money used to make existing buildings energy efficient would create 6,000 jobs.

A report issued on Monday by the Center for American Progress (a host of the summit), underscored Clinton’s message. According to the study, 40 percent of GHG emissions comes from energy used in building. “Deep building retrofits can cut energy use by 20 to 40 percent with proven techniques and off-the-shelf technologies,” the report continued. “Best of all, they can pay for themselves from the energy they save.”

The report recommends a $500 billion public-private investment to retrofit forty percent of our existing building stock by the year 2020. Such a program would, according to the study, employ over a half million workers and save consumers $32 billion to $64 billion annually in reduced energy costs.

For at least part of that money, Clinton advocated creating a program along the lines of the Small Business Administration. Banks, which Clinton said are sitting on $900 billion that could be available for loans, should be encouraged to make that money available for energy efficiency by government backing of the loans.

“You’ve got to get the banks involved,” he said, “if you’re going to stop piddling around.”

In a small press conference earlier in the day, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu had called energy efficiency “the fruit on the ground” ready to be picked up, even more accessible than “low-hanging” fruit.

The Green Bank

Clinton’s idea is in addition to a so-called Green Bank which was mentioned throughout the day as another avenue routing funding for a new energy economy. One plan for a Green Bank claims that at a funding level of $50 billion, it could:

• Generate enough clean electricity to power 22.9 million cars a year.
• Decrease gasoline consumption by 12.6 billion gallons a year.
• Decrease oil consumption by 642 million barrels a year.

Former oilman turned wind baron turned natural gas proponent T. Boone Pickens, offered another idea:

Mandate that all diesel fleet vehicles including 18-wheel trucks be run on natural gas. Pickens pointed out that natural gas is far less polluting than diesel fuel and that it could provide a bridge to an all clean electric transportation society. Former Vice President Al Gore agreed with Pickens that electric battery technology is not yet ready to replace diesel engines and supported the idea of switching to natural gas.

Such a costly conversion program may be unnecessary, however, even in the short run, after last week’s announcement that the DOE was releasing $2.4 billion to develop electric cars (EVs) and an EV charging infrastructure. $1.5 billion targets improvements in battery technology.

Another Clinton idea is to take the best part of the Cash for Clunkers program and adapt it for EVs. Providing buyers of new EVs with a $10,000 incentive, could, he said, put more clean cars on the road and drive the industry which is still gearing up, to get more efficient, better-designed EVs to market sooner.

The day-long event produced many other ideas for moving to a clean energy economy, creating jobs and making the US the world leader in cutting GHG emissions.

These include:

Former oilman turned wind baron turned natural gas proponent T. Boone Pickens, offered another idea:

Mandate that all diesel fleet vehicles including 18-wheel trucks be run on natural gas. Pickens pointed out that natural gas is far less polluting than diesel fuel and that it could provide a bridge to an all clean electric transportation society. Former Vice President Al Gore agreed with Pickens that electric battery technology is not yet ready to replace diesel engines and supported the idea of switching to natural gas.

Such a costly conversion program may be unnecessary, however, even in the short run, after last week’s announcement that the DOE was releasing $2.4 billion to develop electric cars (EVs) and an EV charging infrastructure. $1.5 billion targets improvements in battery technology.

Another Clinton idea is to take the best part of the Cash for Clunkers program and adapt it for EVs. Providing buyers of new EVs with a $10,000 incentive, could, he said, put more clean cars on the road and drive the industry which is still gearing up, to get more efficient, better-designed EVs to market sooner.

The day-long event produced many other ideas for moving to a clean energy economy, creating jobs and making the US the world leader in cutting GHG emissions.

These include:

• Funding community colleges to train workers (from all backgrounds) in new technology jobs.
• Doing more to create a national smart grid that can efficiently handle power generated from new sources.
• Sensible deregulation to allow energy efficient and environmentally sound project to scale up more quickly.
• Open public land in the Southwest to development of large scale solar power facilities.

I cringed when I heard that last goal. Not because I disagree with its premise. I’m a proponent of solar power, including the large-scale form known as Concentrating Solar Power (CSP). It was the language used at the summit that had me thinking, “here we go again.”

One speaker used the phrase “unlimited potential” to describe the desert’s use for electric power generation. In discussions about natural resources, “unlimited” has typically meant only that the speaker refuses to recognize limits and abide by them until what was once unlimited is destroyed. Then it’s time to move on to the next new thing with “unlimited potential.”

After a final press conference, I told John Podesta, head of the Center for American Progress, about my concerns and he did his best to reassure me that “they all” understood the environmental values of the Southwestern deserts. “Look,” he said, “in the Clinton administration [where Podesta was Chief of Staff] we preserved more desert lands than any previous administration. We can do CSP in the desert in a thoughtful, environmental way.”

The day ended in the late afternoon on an upbeat note. I overheard one woman leaving the area say to her companion, “I learned so much; I just don’t want to forget it!”

That enthusiasm is important. A large part of the summit was designed to get momentum rolling for passage of a Senate clean energy bill that does not “just piddle around.” That actually improves the House bill.

The only way that can happen is if proponents seize the Clinton frame and get the questions back on track. If the national discussion (or shouting match in recent days) remains fixed on defending the extent and culpability of global warming, we all lose. What we need now, coming out of the summit, is a nation asking its elected officials “When, in God’s name, are you going to stop piddling around on issues that decide whether or not I have a job, about my ability to provide for my family, my kids’ future, our national security, and a changing climate that could devastate large regions of America, and the world?”

The answer better be: “Now.”

[A version of this article appeared first in Mother Jones.]

No one has ever accused the military of being a bunch of treehuggers — but that doesn’t mean they’re blind to the military and strategic implications of global warming.

“We will pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today,” said retired General Anthony Zinni in a New York Times article yesterday, “…or we will pay the price later in human terms.”

The article by NYT writer John Broder is particularly well-timed.

Tomorrow, former Commander-in-Chief, Bill Clinton, will address a “National Clean Energy Summit” in Las Vegas. While the theme of this year’s summit (the first was held last year) focuses on jobs, the Times article dovetails perfectly with the larger context of the gathering: the dawning reality that no area of human activity will be untouched by a changing climate. From jobs to wars, the facts are the same.

Studies by military and intelligence analysts warn of “profound strategic challenges” to the US due to the affects of climate change, reports Broder. The climate-induced crises include famine, water wars, mass migration, epidemics and massive storms.

While the military is not an environmental organization — think Agent Orange or nuclear testing in the Pacific — their view is and always has been utilitarian and mission-driven. Sometimes, environmental and military needs coincide. That’s the case now with global warming — just as it was in 1817.

An early step in the conservation movement began as a military imperative. You needed wood to build and maintain a fleet in the 19th Century. For strategic reasons, the Secretary of the Navy reserved large swaths of hardwood forests on the east coast. Deforestation was halted (for a time) for national security reasons.

For those who’d argue that such an edict doesn’t come from environmental enlightenment, I’d argue: so what? Is there ever a wrong reason to save the planet? And is there ever a wrong reason to try to avoid an unnecessary war?

Check back tomorrow when I’ll be live blogging the summit — over at Mother Jones (probably in the section called “The Blue Marble”).

The first session begins at 10 AM (1 PM on the east coast) with opening remarks by Al Gore, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Podesta (the Center for American Progress is a host of the event) and other heavy-hitters. Should be interesting. You can check out the agenda yourself, here.

[This post first appeared at Mother Jones online.]