Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who could become the next secretary of state if President Obama wins reelection, sees climate change as a serious threat to national security: It’s “as dangerous as” the possibility of a nuclear Iran or the situation in Syria, he said on the Senate floor in August.

And in his speech at the Democratic convention this month, Kerry, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said, “an exceptional country does care about the rise of the oceans and the future of the planet” — rebutting Mitt Romney’s snide comment about climate change.

Still, though Kerry is the Senate’s strongest advocate for climate action, he’s realistic about the fact that America is still reliant on fossil fuels.

We spoke to Kerry about Obama’s all-of-the-above energy strategy, prospects for national and international climate progress, and Romney’s record on clean energy in Massachusetts.

Q. The climate issue is barely registering in this election. Why has this issue fallen off the Democratic agenda?

A. For several reasons. No. 1, because huge amounts of money were spent to purposely discredit the facts. Some of the coal industry, some of your old power-plant owners, put money into branding cap-and-trade as cap-and-tax. The British university emails were exploited by the opponents very effectively, and a kind of pejorative set in about climate science as a result. I think the climate issue lost 20 or 30 points of support in the public arena.

So once the House of Representatives passed cap-and-trade, this onslaught of negative activity took place which had an impact. The people who claimed it was a hoax, nothing more than a liberal conspiracy to have a government takeover, spent a lot of money scaring our colleagues. And that’s what happened, they scared them. They created a certain credibility [problem] that was never answered. There was no counter.

Q. To enviros, Obama’s all-of-the-above energy strategy seems like a cop-out. Should the party be moving more aggressively away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy?

A. You have to be all of the above. Look, I’m the most ardent advocate up here for doing something about climate change, but you’re nevertheless gonna have to use fossil fuels. The question is, can you use them in clean and manageable ways? The answer is, Yes, you can, if you make the right sort of requirements.

Q. But we’re not just talking about using fossil fuels as a bridge to clean energy — the Obama administration is aggressively expanding fossil-fuel development in the U.S.  Rep. Ed Markey [D-Mass.] called it Obama’s “drill, baby, drill.”

A. If you’re going to use X amount of fuel and you’re using it in a clean way, it’s better to have it produced from the United States than to be dependent on other countries. So, do you want to expand it overall? No. Overall you want to find alternatives in renewables and other things. But you have to do what you have to do to meet our energy demand. You have to have scrubbers, you have to have standards, you have to take old power plants out of service and put in new power plants with higher standards. There are ways to do fossil fuels responsibly. And if we don’t do that, it’s gonna be catastrophic.

Q. What realistically can be accomplished on climate change during the first two years of a second Obama term?

A. I don’t know yet. We have to wait and see what the makeup of the Congress is, what happens to the Senate, how many members lose their seats in the House, how close is it. We have to see if Obama will get some kind of mandate out of this. All of those things will tell, and all of those imponderables are up for grabs.

Q. Only one third of Americans think climate is an important foreign-policy priority, according to a recent survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. How can we help Americans recognize the national-security imperative of climate change?

A. You have to connect the dots — show people the ways in which climate is going to have an impact on various parts of the world. You show people what’s happening in the Sahel region of Africa, what’s happening in the Sudan, where people are fighting over wells and dying. You show people what’s happened to Pakistan and the Indus River. And what’s happening in the United States — the folks down in New Orleans understand it.

Military officials are the best people to do so because they have a validation outside of politics. That’s one of the things that the American Security Project has been focused on—gathering the voices of a lot of former generals and admirals who have been very articulate and outspoken in defining climate as a national-security issue.

Q. The U.N. treaty process hasn’t been effective on climate change, quite obviously. What could and should the international community be doing to press forward on climate action?

A. It’s going to take political leadership, global leadership, and statesmanship. They have to find a way to get the Chinese to come to the table with leadership. I mean, United States and China represent more almost 50 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.

In a sense, we have to go back to where we were. I mean, we really have to revisit what happened in Rio [in 1992], and in Kyoto, but come up with a different mechanism that hopefully can be more politically acceptable in various countries. It may not be a cap-and-trade system, but we have to go back to an emissions target that makes sense. And technologies will have to be made available to less-developed countries so they can grow without a huge carbon footprint.

Q. As governor of your state, Massachusetts, Mitt Romney made progress on clean energy and climate change. Can you share any insights about his former life as an advocate of global-warming solutions?

A. Barely perceptible. He went along because the legislature pushed it. He never led on it. We had environmental activists in the state, we had a Democratic legislature, and they led the fight, but he’s never been an advocate. I’ve never heard his voice on it.

Q. So his flip-flop on this issue–

A. He’s flip-flopped on everything. No one really knows what he really believes.

Former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) has been one of the most outspoken advocates of the Obama administration’s auto-industry rescue. In a speech about the bailout at the Democratic convention earlier this month, she was so animated that Jon Stewart said she looked “like a drunk flight attendant” who shouldn’t be operating any kind of motorized vehicle. But the roaring crowd wanted more of whatever she was drinking.

We talked to Granholm — who now hosts Current TV’s political talk show The War Room and teaches at U.C.–Berkeley — about how new fuel-economy standards are also driving Detroit’s comeback.

Q. Obama’s decision to save Detroit is a hot-button issue in this election and a centerpiece of Obama’s reelection campaign. Why are cars so important to voters?

A. The auto industry is the backbone of the manufacturing industry. When the president stepped up and said it’s important for America to save this industry, it meant that we were gonna have a commitment to saving middle-class jobs in America. People want to see a government that is going to create and keep middle-class jobs, particularly at a time when we’ve seen so many manufacturing jobs exported to low-wage countries. President Bush had no manufacturing policy. So I think Obama’s decision to save Detroit really resonated with Americans.

Q. What role have stronger fuel-economy standards played in Detroit’s resurgence?

A. You only have to look at the last decade or 15 years to see what resistance to fuel economy has gotten the auto industry—and, in turn, what embracing it has gotten the auto industry. Resistance put them in a position of defending old technology, and therefore their products seemed old and they were losing market share. On top of it, people were paying more for gasoline.

So when Detroit embraced the technology and they retooled the industry to embrace it, there was a rebirth. Obviously the bankruptcy and the restructuring helped enable them to restructure in that way. But it all dovetailed with the push toward new, smarter, cleaner technology, with the fact that this was not your father’s auto industry but instead the industry of the future.

When you have clear standards, it enables the auto industry to invest long-term to meet those standards. And auto markets overseas have had a longstanding commitment to fuel economy, which means that when Detroit builds efficient cars, it can sell them not just in the U.S. but everywhere.

Q. So fuel-economy rules are already creating jobs?

A. Yes. For example, when the new fuel-economy standards came into being, Ford decided to invest a couple hundred million dollars to retool an old plant from the ‘60s to create a new hybrid transmission plant in Sterling Heights, [Mich.]. At that plant are some 1,300 jobs — jobs that are in the U.S. as a result of the fuel-economy efforts. Previous to that, Japan had been building the hybrid transmissions for Ford’s hybrid vehicles.

The BlueGreen Alliance has said that as a result of these CAFE standards we’ll create 570,000 jobs by 2030, and the Obama administration’s numbers are around 600,000 jobs by 2030.

Q. Detroit has a long way to go to phase out the combustion engine. What regulatory measures do we need in the next four years to accelerate the shift toward electric cars?

A. At this point, let’s claim victory on CAFE — to be able to get to 54 miles per gallon by 2025 is a great step forward.

The next step is to craft demand-side strategies like tax credits that will reduce the cost of hybrid and electric cars for consumers and enable the carmakers to take the technology to scale.

We also need a big federal push toward building the smart grid with quick-charge stations, and a push toward renewables so that the electricity powering cars is clean.

Q. So you see the electrification of the automobile as inevitable?

A. Oh yes. I have a very personal opinion about this because I drive a Volt. It is the best car I have ever driven. I cannot believe that everybody doesn’t want to have one of these. Granted, it’s a luxury car. It is expensive, so mine is a lease car. I don’t spend any money on gasoline. People think they’re like tin cans or something. This is such a beautifully made car. We cannot believe that it has not flown out of the dealer lots. In part, it’s probably because it’s been vilified by the right as a symbol of the auto rescue.

Q. What, more broadly, should the Obama administration be doing to rebuild the manufacturing base in America?

A. I just wrote a Politico column about that, with eight specific suggestions. [Editor's note: Here are two suggestions from the column: Offer "zero percent, guaranteed federal loans if you build a factory" and "Offer a five-year federal tax moratorium for brand-new or reshored factories."]

Q. Your passionate performance at the Democratic convention drew a big response. What happened — did you plan to be that passionate, or did you just get taken over by the excitement of the crowd?

A. Totally the latter. I’ve spoken at these conventions before and I’ve often been plunked in the middle of the afternoon and everybody on the floor is busy and they’re talking and ignoring you. A lot of people had been cut as speakers, so I was just hoping they weren’t gonna cut me altogether. The organizers tell you, Don’t worry about the delegates, don’t take it personally, just talk to the camera. So when the crowd started to get worked up, I was really surprised. The organizers said, Don’t wait for the audience to quiet down because we don’t have enough time. So I kept talking as they’re yelling louder and louder, and I had to yell because I couldn’t even hear myself.

It was very fun, that’s for sure.

Watch Granholm’s convention speech:

You recently saw L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa grinning, hugging, back-patting, and fist-pumping between acts in his role as chair of the Democratic National Convention. Villaraigosa, who was a labor organizer and then speaker of the state Assembly before he became mayor in 2005, also wants recognition for another leadership role: He calls himself America’s greenest mayor, and he calls his city the cleantech capitol of the U.S.

We spoke to Villaraigosa about the impact of the convention, his efforts to make his city-state a model of climate progress, and his progress in dragging Angelenos out of their cars.

Q. Hello, Mayor Villaraigosa.

A. I can’t believe you said my name right!

Q. I’ve been practicing.

A. I can tell. Most people screw it up.

Q. Tell me how you think the convention went.

A. I think the overwhelming opinion of the delegates was that this was the smoothest, best, most exhilarating convention they’ve ever gone to. It was the hundreds of staff members and thousands of volunteers, the hospitality of Charlotte, the consistent themes throughout, the soaring rhetoric—and it wasn’t just the soaring rhetoric, there were facts.

Q. How much of a bounce do you think Democrats and the president are getting from it, and will that last?

A. Last I saw, we got a 4-point bump in the polls. We went from I think 11 or 12 points down among white men and we’re now virtually even, or leading by 1. It’s hard to say if it will last — we’re up by 4 in a very close election that’s gonna go all the way down to the wire.

Q. Up until the president spoke, almost nobody mentioned climate change. Why do you think the issue has fallen off the federal Democratic agenda?

A. It certainly hasn’t fallen off Democratic mayoral agendas. It’s not just L.A. — it’s New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Austin. Mayors across the country—we’re all focused on our carbon footprint

But I would agree that at this convention the issue wasn’t touched as often as it was four years ago. Maybe it’s because there’s such a focus on the economy, and also because there was a great deal of focus on the assault on women, issues relating to choice and contraception, and the focus on the dreamers and immigration.

Q. Do you think that climate progress on a national level is impossible right now? Is it up to states and cities to push this issue forward?

A. At the national level you need two parties to do something serious around climate change and our energy policy. We don’t have that kind of bipartisan effort, so now cities, particularly global cities, city-states like mine, are leading the way.

The one thing the national government and the mayors share in common is that everybody’s elbowing each other. The national leaders were elbowing each other to see who could do the least and who is most to blame on climate change. The mayors are elbowing each other to see who can do the most on climate change.

Q. How are you reducing L.A.’s climate impact?

Villaraigosa proudly admires L.A.’s public transit system. (Photo by David Starkopf / Office of the Mayor.)

A. I got elected in July 2005 and immediately signed on to Kyoto targets of reducing greenhouse gases 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. We achieved that by 2009. Now in 2012, we’re close to 15 percent reduction in greenhouse gases. We’ve gone from 3 percent renewables to 20 percent renewables. We’ve opened up four light-rail lines and a bus way; every single bus is alternative fuel. We’re electrifying our port, so instead of spewing dirty diesel, trucks have to plug in. We’ve had upwards of an 80 percent reduction in diesel emissions. We’ve planted nearly 400,000 trees. We’ve installed nearly 100,000 LED street lamps, and nearly 4,000 LED traffic lights, plus we’re starting a process of putting up solar panels as we do the LEDs so our lights will go off the grid. We’ve got one of the toughest green building standards in the country. All told, we’re conserving 19 times the energy that we used to.

Q. You’ve also developed an Adapt LA framework to begin preparing your city for the impacts of climate change. Part of this effort was a study on “Mid-Century Warming in the Los Angeles Region” to predict the most severe impacts of warming on your neighborhoods. What were the most alarming findings?

A. Let me just say why I did Adapt LA. We’ve had a 34 percent reduction in water use [since I took office]. We got there with a requirement that was very, very unpopular: I went to two days of [lawn watering allowed per week]; people’s lawns went brown. I was vilified by the public, and I stood my ground and said we can’t keep on using water like we live in Seattle.

So I launched the study to see if the science would verify that L.A. and the whole region is getting hotter [and droughts more severe]. It found that we’re gonna double the number of “extremely hot days” over 90 degrees in downtown. In the San Fernando Valley, we’re gonna triple the number of extremely hot days. In the San Bernardino/Riverside area, we’re gonna quadruple the number of extremely hot days.

The other alarming prediction was the sea-level rise — we have to prepare for the impact on the port, where we move 44 percent of all seaborne goods, and on waterfront neighborhoods like Venice and Santa Monica.

Q. You’re adding more than 170 acres of new parks with the “50 Parks Initiative,” in addition to the 660 acres of parks you’ve already installed. Why have you pushed so hard to add this green space?

A. If you fly over L.A., you’ll see the pockets of park space and tree canopy, and they’re almost exclusively in the more affluent neighborhoods. Our parks initiative focuses on areas that are people-rich and park-poor. So they’re disproportionately in south L.A., downtown, and the east side, the areas of the city that don’t have as much tree canopy. In these communities, parks provide beauty, tree canopy, and shade; they build morale in the community; they invite more pedestrian traffic and exercise; and they lower crime rates.

On all the parks, we have decorative fencing with automatic time-lock gates; we have solar waste bins that reduce waste-collection frequency by 80 percent; we have motion-activated cameras there that are solar-charged and digital; we have efficient landscaping and irrigation, so it’s very cost-effective.

Q. You’ve been working to expand mass transit in L.A. and institute a bike-sharing program. Is it hard to get Angelenos out of their cars?

A. Angelenos are more excited than anyone to get out of their cars—they’re so ready! We passed a half-penny sales tax, generating $40 billion to double the size of our rail system. It was supposed to happen over 30 years, but I think we can get it done it 10.

Our bike-sharing system is already up and running in parts of the city, and in 2011 we did a CicLAvia bike and pedestrian tour of the city that 200,000 Angelenos took part in — it was incredible. And another CicLAvia event is coming up Oct. 7.

Villaraigosa talks up biking at a recent CicLAvia. (Photo by David Starkopf / Office of the Mayor.)

Q. It was great to hear Julian Castro at the convention; he’s been making big strides toward building a green economy in San Antonio. You and he are upending the criticism that the environmental movement and its leaders are too white. Do you think we’ll be seeing a new generation of politicians of color who are leading the movement toward climate action and cleantech?

A. Everybody needs to buy in. As mayor, I’ve had a 100 percent record with the [California League of Conservation Voters], certainly the greenest mayor of any color. I’ve been working on a green agenda since 1994 when I was [elected to the state Assembly]. What I’ve told the enviros from the beginning was that we need to connect the environment to social justice, we need to successfully challenge the argument that environmental progress undercuts jobs. When we’re talking about the benefits of environmental and sustainable practices, we’ve got to connect that to jobs and job creation, and importantly, we can’t focus just on the affluent area and the suburbs.

We’ve made L.A. the cleantech capitol of the U.S. with a corridor downtown, to attract cleantech companies. So we’ve worked hard to translate our sustainability efforts into real, measurable job-creation numbers. That’s what will ensure that everybody buys in to environmental progress.

Carol Browner, President Obama’s former “energy czar,” was at the Democratic convention last week acting as a surrogate for the Obama campaign. She served as EPA administrator during the Clinton administration, and is now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. Browner chatted with Grist about Obama’s first-term track record, prospects for climate action over the next two years, and what we should be doing about fracking.

Q. The climate issue was barely addressed at the Democratic convention and seems to have fallen off the Democratic agenda in the 2012 election. Why?

A. For a lot of undecided voters, the issue is economy and jobs. But the president did talk about climate and he’s very confident on this topic — he has done a lot on the issue. Look at his record: He’s been delivering on real, measurable greenhouse gas reductions from cars, power plants, buildings, and beyond.

Q. What do you consider his most notable achievements?

A. His stimulus drove billions of dollars of investment into cleantech. There’s been a doubling of renewables in the U.S. since Obama took office. He significantly strengthened fuel-economy standards that have helped revive Detroit. He set the first greenhouse gas standards on cars, working with industry rather than litigating. He proposed greenhouse gas standards on coal-fired power plants. He’s worked hard to strengthen appliance efficiency standards — we’re all going to own very different appliances in the next 10 years because of what this president has done.

Q. Environmentalists have criticized, among other things, Obama’s support for fossil fuels — his “all of the above” energy strategy. Shouldn’t he be moving more aggressively away from fossil fuels?

A. President Obama has demonstrated an unparalleled commitment to clean energy. As we look toward that future and move toward energy independence, we have to consider all of the fuels that are available. We need a bridge to get us to that future.

Q. What can be accomplished on climate change during the first two years of a second Obama term? What are the chances of passing meaningful climate legislation?

A. After the healthcare bill, passing a multiple-thousand-page-plus bill is gonna be really difficult. The politics of really big pieces of legislation is complicated, but we don’t have to approach it that way.

I think that it’s conceivable that we will see a sector-by-sector approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. For example, there might be some sort of mechanism like the acid-rain program that works for the power plants, something different that works for the industrial facilities, something that works for buildings, something that works for vehicles, and so forth.

Q. So we won’t have a big-bang approach to climate but instead something piecemeal?

A. That’s a strong possibility. If you break out the individual component parts, it’s much more achievable to get a critical mass of support for each vote, and you can reach the same goal.

Remember that historically we have passed environmental legislation when everybody needs something. Environmentalists want something, the businesses want something. Not everybody gets what they want, but everybody gets what they need. And these needs can be much better managed and met on a sector-by-sector basis.

Q. What could Obama himself do while this piecemeal approach wends through Congress?

A. He can also continue using his executive authority to get things done. In the last four years, he used his executive authority to require the EPA to use its authority to regulate CO2. He created an energy plan for federal agencies to cut their CO2 emissions. He signed an executive order asking the EPA and Department of Transportation to do a unified rule for more efficient cars. In recent weeks, he directed federal agencies to take certain steps on combined heat and energy.

I think the president deserves a lot of credit for the progress that he has made. He doesn’t have a majority in Congress sympathetic to a clean-energy agenda, and yet he’s figured out through his existing authority how to make real, measurable progress.

Q. What’s your position on fracking?

A. I think natural gas is a hugely important fuel to the country, but it needs to be federally regulated. EPA had authority to regulate fracking under the Safe Drinking Water Act, but Mr. Cheney went in and amended the Safe Drinking Water Act to eliminate EPA’s authority. It’s commonly referred to as the Halliburton exception.

EPA’s regulatory authority needs to be reinstated. I was a state regulator, I was a federal regulator. There is a skill set that is available at the EPA that doesn’t exist at the state level. The business community needs one set of rules rather than 10 or 15 or 20 sets of fracking rules at the state level. So you’ll have federal standards set nationally, and then you’ll figure out whether on an individual watershed basis there needs to be additional protections.

A strong regulatory process and transparency are important for building public support. The more transparency about what chemicals are being used in the fracking process, the better off everyone will be.

Q. Do you think President Obama will be able to make more progress in a second term than he has in the first?

A. Absolutely. I’m absolutely confident of that.
 

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — In the hours before President Obama took the stage, there was so much warmth and excitement in the greenroom, where speakers gathered in between presentations, that it felt like a barely contained fire.

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer swaggered in with his jeans and bolo tie, released a small roar of excitement, and said to nobody in particular, “Hoo wee! What a great day for America! I am charged. So charged!”

Suits snapped photos with Mary J. Blige, who sparkled so brilliantly in her mini-dress and bling that you might have wondered if she was plugged into a socket.

Scarlett Johansson was all a-dimple as she chatted with fellow speakers, saying, “You were just awesome!” and “It’s crazy out there — America is so fired up!”

Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz bounded in with her sausage curls springing up and down and beelined for Gabby Giffords, who was smiling resplendently, her fist punching the air as her fellow Democrats hugged and praised her. Wasserman Schultz and Giffords held each other’s hands and didn’t let go.

Shouts of “I love you, buddy!” and “I’m so proud of you” among the politicians were so frequent that one had the feeling of being at a self-help retreat.

The enthusiasm behind the scenes certainly broke through onto the stage and out into the crowd.

——

But here’s what stayed firmly behind the scenes throughout the whole convention: the best arguments in favor of climate action and clean energy.

Consider former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s showstopping speech on the recovery of the auto industry:

In Colorado, the auto rescue saved more than 9,800 jobs! In Virginia, more than 19,000 jobs! In North Carolina, more than 25,000! Wisconsin: more than 28,000 jobs! Pennsylvania: more than 34,000! Florida: more than 35,000! Ohio: more than 150,000! And in the great state of Michigan? President Obama helped save 211,000 good American jobs. All across America, autos are back! Manufacturing is rebounding! Why? Because when Mitt Romney said, “Let Detroit go bankrupt,” who took the wheel? Barack Obama!

The crowd was roaring so loud that Granholm’s litany of job numbers was inaudible inside the Time Warner Cable Arena and could only be read on the close-captioned screen.

Enthusiasm spilled out into the crowds. Climate talk, not so much. (Photo by Reuters / Jessica Rinaldi.)

Just before she went on stage, I asked Granholm what role she thought stronger fuel-economy regulations have had in Detroit’s recovery.

“They’re helping to drive it!” she said. “For a long time people thought that fuel-economy laws would hurt jobs. Now we know that’s absurd! They’ve created jobs, thousands of jobs building better, smarter, cleaner cars.”

If only Granholm had made this point in her speech.

Throughout the convention, speakers recited the party line about an “all-of-the-above” energy approach, including quick nods to renewable power, but only a couple made even oblique, passing references to climate change. Most of the politicians seemed to fear that climate change would be a non-starter, that it would confuse or scare off voters.

President Obama broke the near-silence on global warming during his speech:

 … my plan will continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet — because climate change is not a hoax. More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke.

It was a relief to hear him actually mention the issue, but a disappointment that he took a defensive not-a-joke stance. He should have presented climate change as a threat not just to the planet but to America’s economy and entire future, and he should have presented climate action as a driver of economic progress.

At a time when a scorching hot summer is drawing to a close, when hundreds of thousands of Americans are living in areas wracked by drought and wildfires, when Gulf Coast residents are still recovering from Hurricane Isaac, Democratic leaders had a responsibility to address the threat of climate change more directly, and celebrate its potential to catalyze American innovation.

Instead, the greenest ideas in the greenroom never made it up on stage.

We can only hope that the euphoric confidence generated at the convention — and the loud cheers Obama got for saying the words “climate change” — will help Democrats overcome their hesitancies and push harder to address this greatest of all challenges.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) is more passionate about climate action than almost anyone else in Congress. He cosponsored the Democrats’ embattled cap-and-trade legislation in 2009, the so-called Waxman-Markey bill. He was the first and only chair of the Select Committee on Energy Independence & Global Warming up until Republicans took control of the House after the 2010 election. And he hasn’t let up since losing his chairmanship; he’s continued his tenacious fight for clean energy and against fossil fuels.

So it was disorienting to hear him wax enthusiastic about Obama’s pro-drilling policies on Wednesday:

Let me say this because I think it’s important: When George Bush left office in January 2009, we as a country were 57 percent dependent on imported oil. Today we are 45 percent dependent on imported oil. That’s Obama drill, baby, drill! Why do I say that? We are at an 18-year high for oil production in the U.S.! Let me say that again: We are at an 18-year high for oil production in the U.S. right now! And we are at an 18-year low with greenhouse gas emissions [thanks to Obama’s push for] natural gas, wind, solar, and new vehicle standards.

Markey, with his signature jazz-hands gesticulations, went on to extol Obama’s “all-of-the-above” energy policy, contrasting it to Romney’s “oil-above-all” approach.

In 2008, Democrats shuddered at the “drill, baby, drill” chants that resonated through the Republican convention. Now, one of the biggest climate hawks in Congress is repeating the mantra, and he means it in a good way.

Markey’s comments came during a Politico-sponsored panel on “Energy and the Presidency,” a side event at the Democratic convention. I approached him after the panel to dig deeper. Is an “all-of-the-above” energy policy really the right strategy? I asked. Shouldn’t the party be moving more aggressively away from fossil fuels?

“No!” he answered. “President Obama is following the promise he made in 2008 that he is an all-of-the-above president. He delivered on that promise. Oil is included, and natural gas, but also wind, solar, efficiency, plus fuel-economy standards and appliance standards — he’s put it all out there, working in tandem, and as a result we’re seeing a dramatic reduction in imported oil.”

Markey stressed that he believes Obama’s everything-goes approach will be an advantage to him in the voting booth. “We’re down from 6 billion to 5.4 billion tons of carbon going up into the atmosphere [from the U.S. each year]. By the end of this year, it’s going down to 5.2 billion. All of this occurred in the last five years with Obama’s approach. So something is happening out there. I think more and more suburban swing voters accept [Obama’s all-inclusive strategy], which is why the president is ahead of Romney 9 to 12 points in the polls on energy.”

So Markey, a longtime environmental firebrand, is now pouring his vim and vigor into promoting a totally uninvigorating energy vision: just do everything. What a difference four years makes.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — There was a lot of energy at the Democratic convention Tuesday night — just not the kind you can power a house or a car with.

Michelle Obama, Julián Castro, Deval Patrick, and other headliners on the convention’s opening night had the audience and the pundits swooning. But none of the major speakers made even a passing reference to climate change or other green issues. The one prime-time speaker who mentioned environmental protection was Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, a one-time Republican gone rogue.

I hit up some delegates for their insights on the omission, starting with a Houstonian next to me in the nosebleed section of the Time Warner Cable Arena. Had she heard any commentary on climate and energy? Had I missed something? She looked at me blankly. “No,” she said. “I think that’s scheduled for another night.”

An environmental lawyer from Oklahoma City told me, “Nobody’s talking about the environment because it’s political suicide. Voters want jobs, and after Solyndra, you just can’t convince voters that cleantech will do anything but lose them.”

I sought the opinion of a hippie-looking woman a few rows down from me, who was carrying her sleeping infant in a sling. “Climate change is my No. 1 issue,” she said, “but I don’t begrudge Obama for burying it right now. It’s the only way he can get reelected.”

The full extent of environmental signage at the DNC.

At least I was bringing my own environmental ethics to the convention, biking to and from my fleabag motel on the edge of Charlotte. It had been falsely advertised on a booking website as being four miles from the heart of downtown, but it’s actually twice that far out, in a neighborhood that’s taken a heavy beating from the recession.

Charlotte is being touted as a “boomtown,” but during my bike commutes on Tuesday, I saw lots of small businesses that had been boarded up — hair salons, a cabinet maker, a bakery, a tuxedo rental shop. Neon lights advertised the businesses that were still getting by: liquor stores, pawn shops, laundromats, fast-food joints.

North Carolina as a whole has been hit hard by the recession, according to a recent report, with more than one in five state residents experiencing large economic losses in 2010.

As a coastal state, North Carolina also gets hit hard by hurricanes and flooding. On my rain-drenched ride back to the motel at the end of the night, it struck me as a sad irony that climate change is such a difficult issue to address among voters struggling, in an even more immediate way, to stay afloat.

For a while there, Jon Huntsman was the one Republican presidential candidate willing to deliver the straight dope on climate change. “To be clear,” he tweeted in August, “I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.” He even argued that climate skepticism could cost the GOP a victory in November: “The minute that the Republican Party becomes the anti-science party, we have a huge problem. We lose a whole lot of people who would otherwise allow us to win the election in 2012.” Enviros praised Huntsman as the heroically rogue elephant.

Then he joined the herd.

In December, Huntsman told an audience at the Heritage Foundation that the “scientific community owes us more in terms of a better description or explanation” of climate change, and that there is “not enough info right now to be able to formulate policies.”

Since withdrawing from the GOP primary in mid-January and endorsing Mitt Romney, Huntsman has stayed visible in the media, challenging Romney’s position on trade with China and suggesting that the country might need a third party with “an alternative vision, a bold thinking.”

But has he come to any more clarity on his climate views? We called him up to find out.

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Q. You tweeted last summer that you trusted scientists on climate change. But in December, you suggested that the science isn’t very strong. What is your view on human-caused climate change?

A. I’ve always said that I put my belief behind science. When you have 99 of 100 climate scientists who are saying that there is something happening here, [and] we have the National Academy of Sciences basically saying the same thing — that’s where I tend to place my belief.

The comment I made [in December] was that there is confusion in the minds of a lot of Americans about where the science is because of the debate still going on within the scientific community. I do believe that greater clarity is needed on the subject because you can’t get good public policy without clear and consistent and scientifically backed data and climate forecasts.

Q. If 99 of 100 scientists are saying human-caused climate change is real and happening, where is the debate?

A. Well, it hasn’t translated into any kind of action within the political community because you don’t have people on a broad basis who are pushing us because they feel it’s urgent. Like, for example, debt — people are pushing the debt agenda because they see that this nation is drowning in debt. They’re not pushing a clean-energy agenda today because they just don’t see the urgency. The political policy agenda does not move unless it has people who are moving it.

Q. Are you saying the problem lies with climate scientists — that they lack urgency — or that it lies within the political community that is failing to hear the urgent message from scientists?

A. I think in many ways the whole discussion has been eclipsed by the jobs deficit right now. We are in a serious economic hole because we have a jobs deficit. There isn’t a whole lot of bandwidth for anything else.

Q. So, to be clear: The scientific community is doing its job and the political community is just not making room for it.

A. I haven’t heard the scientific community speak with a unified voice in some time on this subject matter. Maybe that’s because, again, it’s taking a backseat to some of these other more urgent issues that are economics related. I’m not following the issue today like I was several years ago.

Q. But climate scientists are saying we have to act immediately, yesterday, to solve this crisis. Do we really have time to wait for the economy to turn around to address it?

A. People running for office are generally a reflection of where they think the electorate is, and right now the electorate wants movement on jobs and on debt and not much else.

But I think the energy sector is going to be critically important to job creation and innovation and competitiveness in the next 25 to 50 years.

Q. You brought Utah into the Western Climate Initiative, and then disavowed the initiative, saying it “hasn’t worked.” Why?

A. Because it lost momentum with the business community, and therefore it lost momentum with the people in many of the Western states. There’s a question in many minds about where climate change is and what the public-policy implications are with respect to that.

Q. In 2007, you did an ad for Environmental Defense calling for a cap on carbon emissions. What do you think we as a nation should do to address climate change?

A. The most important short-term step we could take would be a rapid conversion to natural gas. It’s still a hydrocarbon, but it’s 50 percent better than oil, and it’s a step in the right direction.

Politics is the art of the possible. What is possible in today’s discussion on clean energy? It isn’t a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade scheme — I just have to be honest with you, that is not going to be viable politically. What is viable is a movement more aggressively toward use of natural gas.

Q. But scientists are saying we need solutions that will radically reduce our carbon output, not energy sources that are less bad.

A. It’s a step in the right direction on climate and in terms of energy independence. It’s a whole lot better than just managing the status quo.

Q. Do you still support a cap on carbon emissions?

A. Not if it would stand in the way of getting this economy back on its feet and creating jobs. And I have not yet heard articulated any kind of [carbon-cap] program that would do anything other than hinder our economic rebound.

Q. In the last presidential election year, climate change was almost a bipartisan issue. What has happened in the last four years? How did this issue get so polarized?

A. I don’t hear Democrats talking about it either. I don’t see it on the agenda anywhere. And the No. 1 reason is because we’ve had an economic implosion.

I used to run the Republican Governors Association and we had, almost to a person, Republicans and Democrats alike who were after the same basic solutions [on climate]. And then our economy imploded. That presented a much different reality, and we’re still stuck in that reality.

Q. But it’s more than that. You got bashed for even suggesting that climate scientists might be worth listening to. Why is there such severe pressure on Republican politicians not just to ignore climate science, but to repudiate it?

A. It’s become politicized. It’s been taken out of the scientific realm, and it’s been put in the political realm, sadly enough. People aren’t going to hear out the scientific community until such time as the economy rebounds.

Q. Do you think your position on climate change hurt you during the primary?

A. Oh, it didn’t help at all.

Q. What were some of the most surprising reactions you got from both supporters and skeptics on the campaign trail on the issues of climate and clean energy?

A. There was no desire to talk about it. If it was talked about, it was more in conspiratorial terms, which made it very difficult to have any kind of rational discussion about clean energy and our future.

Q. You supported the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. Tar-sands oil is responsible for about a quarter more carbon pollution well-to-wheel than conventional oil. How do you reconcile your support of high-carbon technology with your concerns about climate?

A. Because I compare that to the transfer of $300 billion a year to the Middle East and other countries from whom we’re importing 60 percent of our oil. If you factor in what taxpayers are footing for deployment of troops overseas and keeping the sea lanes open for oil importation, the cost of gasoline is about $12 to $13 a gallon. That is completely unacceptable. The [tar-sands] alternatives aren’t perfect, but they move us in a direction that I like from a jobs-creation standpoint and from a national-security standpoint.

Q. The hidden costs of carbon emissions could have far more disastrous effects on the national and global economy in the long term.

A. I believe [the tar-sand oil offers] far better economic and security benefits short term to this nation at a time when we desperately need it.

Q. Does America need to have an aggressive climate plan in place if we want to convince other countries like China to address the problem?

A. The Chinese are not going to follow our lead. We can say and do whatever we want and the Chinese and the Indians, Brazilians, and beyond are likely going to move as a bloc of developing countries, to their own rhythm, at a pace that doesn’t harm their emerging industries.

Q. China’s wind and solar companies are thriving, thanks in large part to massive government subsidies. What should the U.S. be doing to compete with Chinese companies?

A. First we have to ensure that they’re engaging in fair trade practices, because there have been instances of unfair dumping of their photovoltaics.

Beyond that, if we are intent on creating jobs and capturing the industries of tomorrow, then clean energy clearly is going to be one of them. It may not evolve at a pace or a speed that some thought possible a few short years ago, but it will evolve. We don’t want China owning the intellectual property rights [to cleantech innovations] and then having a superior connection to economic development in the energy sector. We also want to pursue technology and owning that intellectual property.

Q. What specifically can we do to accelerate the pace of development of our own cleantech innovation? China has set an aggressive national target for renewable energy. You set a renewable target while you were governor of Utah. Do we need a bold national renewable energy goal?

A. I think the states are probably the right place to look at renewable energy standards. And you’ve got to work as regions for purposes of having the right infrastructure to distribute clean energy, a smart-grid system — a group of regional governors figuring out the cross-border issues. And once that discussion begins, there is a role for the federal government to come in. But it’s foolhardy for the federal government to step in and manage something that’s ahead of where the states are ready to go. That would backfire.

Q. Can you foresee a Huntsman 2016 campaign with a strong plank for climate and cleantech?

A. [Laughs.] I have no idea where life’s gonna take me beyond the here and now.

Q. Will there be a critical mass of public support for these issues by 2016?

A. We’ll have to wait and see. I’ve given up making forecasts politically.

Sen. Lamar Alexander.Photo: Office of Lamar Alexander

The senator recently announced plans to forfeit his role as Republican Conference chair, the No. 3 leadership position in the Senate, so he’ll be free to reach across the aisle and work toward bipartisan solutions. “[S]ome of us have to be willing to try to get results that include coalitions,” he said. That’s a rare sentiment at a time when the Tea Party is pushing Republican politics toward right-wing intransigence.

Alexander has bucked the party line on issues like climate change (he believes it’s human-caused), cleantech R&D (he wants to plow big money into electric cars and solar), mountaintop-removal coal mining (he opposes it), and a carbon tax (he’s at least willing to consider it, even if he’s not yet endorsing it). Still, this self-described “very Republican Republican” is right in line with the GOP in his love for nuclear power and offshore drilling. He sets himself apart from both parties with his deep-seated aversion to wind power.

I spoke with the renegade senator by phone last week about his vision for America’s energy future and the role he wants to play in shaping it.

—–

Q. You’ve decided to leave your leadership position in the Senate to spend more time working on issues you care about, energy among them. Why is energy a priority for you?

A. I find the intersection between environment and energy the most fascinating policy work I’ve done in recent years. I’ve found myself spending 40 to 50 percent of my policy time working on these issues. We are a big, hungry, power-consuming country. We use a quarter of all the electricity in the world. In order to keep our standard of living, we need a reliable supply of cheap energy, and it needs to be as clean as possible.

Q. Can you outline your specific goals for energy policy over the next two years and beyond?

A. First, I would try to swap the money we’re spending on permanent subsidies for energy and invest it instead in research. Second, I’d like to focus these funds on the most promising areas of clean energy. I’ve devised a plan for seven mini Manhattan Projects for energy independence: solar, batteries, green building, capturing carbon, fusion, making fuels from crops we don’t eat, and finding better ways to deal with nuclear fuel.

I like [Energy Secretary] Dr. Chu’s “hubs,” as he calls them, which to me are the same ideas as my mini Manhattan Projects. His “solar hub,” for instance, has the goal of getting the cost of solar down to a dollar a watt installed [PDF]. We approved in Congress a new “battery hub” for this year, with the goal of getting the cost of electric-car batteries down to a few cents per mile for driving.

Q. How much funding from subsidies do you want to funnel into clean-energy R&D?

A. I’m reviewing that right now. So far we’ve been able to identify about $20 billion a year of energy subsidies [that could go toward R&D]. I was visited recently by a group including Bill Gates and Chad Holliday that thought we ought to increase federal support for energy research from the current level of $5-6 billion a year to about $20 billion a year.

Q. What specific energy tax breaks do you want to eliminate in order to generate these R&D funds?

A. I would start with the wind subsidies. The U.S. is already committed to spending $26 billion over the next 10 years on subsidies for wind developers. That’s a complete waste of money in my book. This is a mature technology that no longer needs government support. I also believe the oil companies don’t need subsidies beyond those that other manufacturing and producing companies have.

Q. My understanding is that oil companies get lots of special subsidies. Their capital investments in things like oil-field leases and drilling equipment are taxed at less than 10 percent, for instance, compared to the 25 percent businesses in general get taxed.

A. Well, many of the tax credits that President Obama talks about taking away from the oil companies appear to be tax credits that any company has. My feeling is, let’s let the oil companies have the same deductions as any old company — they are entitled to whatever Microsoft and Starbucks get. Beyond that, the rest of the deductions should go into energy research.

Generally speaking, my thinking has evolved to the point where if I had a dollar, I’d first put it into research and, in certain cases, jump-starting new technologies like modular nuclear reactors [with short-term subsidies]. I would not put that dollar into any subsidy that lasts more than three to five years.

Q. With so many Republicans wanting to cut spending no matter what and maintain subsidies for fossil fuels, how will you find the political will to amp up investment in cleantech R&D?

A. That’s what the political process is all about. I’m going to be the voice that says, “Let’s not let runaway spending get in the way of what we need to do for national defense and national laboratories and national research that are an important part of a pro-growth policy for our country.”

Q. The 2009 stimulus bill targeted funding for cleantech development. Was it a success in your mind?

A. To the extent that it funded research in those seven areas of clean energy I support, nuclear and so on.

Q. You’ve said that wind is a mature technology and no longer needs government support, but that nuclear does need subsidies. Isn’t the nuclear industry even more mature than the wind industry?

A. That’s a very good point. The exception to that would be the small modular reactors of which we have none in the civilian world right now. The president has recommended a small program to jump-start small modular reactors, which I support, just as I support jump-starting electric cars. And since we haven’t built any nuclear reactors in 30 years, I’d put them in the jump-start category as well.

Q. Y
ou have said that you don’t think wind energy will help reduce our dependence on foreign oil. If we were to move vehicle transportation to electricity, wouldn’t wind be one of the power sources that could replace oil as a transportation fuel?

A. I think the idea of powering the country in any significant way on wind is the energy equivalent of going to war with sailboats. It’s a preposterous notion that makes for good TV but very poor energy policy in my view. You could string gargantuan wind farms along the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine and destroy the landscape of the U.S. — that would equal the power of three nuclear reactors. And you’d still need the nuclear for when the wind doesn’t blow.

Moreover, the Department of Energy estimates that we have enough idle power in our existing plants that if we plugged our automobiles in at night, we could electrify roughly 40 percent of our cars and trucks without building one new power plant.

Q. But if we want low-carbon electric cars, we’d need to replace our grid’s high-carbon power plants with low-carbon power sources.

A. The way to come closer to that is to build 100 new nuclear plants. We’re going to have to do that anyway. About half of those would replace our existing plants over the next several years, and the other half would replace the coal plants that utilities decide are too old and dirty to put on air-pollution control equipment.

Q. Department of Energy research shows that we have enough reliable wind capacity in the central corridor and coastal areas of the U.S. to provide more than the total U.S. electricity demand, provided we find affordable power-storage technologies.

A. For now, even in the Midwest, wind turbines provide reliable power only 30 to 40 percent of the time. And it blows more at night than during the day, when we use the most electricity.

Q. At night is when we’d be plugging in our cars.

A. Again, we have all that idle electricity at night that goes unused.

It seems to me that over the next 10 years, in terms of ensuring large amounts of cheap, reliable electricity, we’ll be building a lot of gas plants, putting air-pollution controls on coal plants, looking for a way to capture carbon from coal plants, and hopefully building enough nuclear power so we can have clean electricity. Of all the renewable energies, the one with the most promise is solar, if we can get the price down to less than $1 per watt. We have rooftops for solar, and the sun shines when we need electricity most.

The senator charging his Nissan Leaf.Photo: Office of Lamar AlexanderQ. You are a strong advocate of electric cars. The EV bill you introduced last year sought to electrify half of America’s vehicles by 2030. Many EV advocates have argued that we can’t quickly move Americans off gas-powered vehicles unless we make gas more expensive. How do you think we can best make the shift to electric cars?

A. Making gas more expensive would be a terrible way to introduce electric cars to the country. What we’ve seen is that slight increases in the price of gas, even when it goes to $4, affects every level of economic activity. It’s the nature of our country: People are used to traveling long distances, trucks travel long distances to deliver food and other products. Our focus should be low cost, not high cost. The way to do it is to invest heavily in research, get batteries that will travel 200 to 300 miles per charge and are cheaper than they are today.

Q. Climate change is another issue you’ve led on. Many of your fellow Republicans, including presidential candidates, deny that climate change exists. Even figures like Newt Gingrich who were once outspoken on climate have backpedaled. Why are we seeing so much erosion on this issue? And what is needed to get Republicans and other skeptics to see the reality of the threat?

A. Well, it became a politicized issue. I believe that we have global warming, and I accept the conclusion of the National Academy of Sciences that human beings are a sufficient cause of it. If people of that caliber told me that my house had a good chance of burning down, I’d buy fire insurance. But I wouldn’t jump out the window or spend all my money on fire insurance.

I think what happened was the cap-and-trade proposal that came our way was such a big contraption and had so many problems that it was easily criticized. A better approach is R&D: gradually moving step by step toward cleaner forms of reliable energy.

Q. Are you saying that if moderate proposals for climate mitigation are proposed, more climate skeptics might be willing to recognize the reality of this threat?

A. Maybe in two to three years I think some of the politicizing which is on both sides will have died down a little bit. But it will be very difficult to get consensus on climate change in the next two to three years.

Q. You’ve also advocated a carbon tax on coal to address climate change.

A. I’ve thought about that. I’ve never put in carbon-tax legislation because I haven’t been persuaded by it. At some point we might require a certain limit of carbon on coal plants, just as we limit tailpipe emissions. But before we do that, we have to start with research and development to try to figure out a technological means to capture carbon.

Q. You’ve also taken a stand against mountaintop removal. What is the role of coal in America’s energy future?

A. It’s hard for me to see an energy future in our country without coal, but it has to be coal that is burned and extracted as cleanly as possible. The holy grail for electricity production is if we can find a commercially viable way to capture carbon from coal plants. If we can, coal will probably increase as a source of supply because we have so much of it.

Q. You’ve said that plugging in your new Nissan Leaf gives you “the patriotic pleasure of not sending money overseas to people who are trying to blow us up.” How are you liking your new ride?

A. I got it in May, after driving a plug-in Prius for two years, which had an A123 battery installed in it. I drive the Leaf around D.C. and have absolutely no problems — even driving it out to Dulles [Airport] and back. I don’t have a charger; I just plug it into the wall at night and that works fine.

Q. Do you get applause from bystanders as you roll silently down the streets of D.C.?

A. Not yet. They probably know I’m in the Congress, so they withhold the applause.

Check out our list of the top 12 women in cleantech.

But there’s one aspect of the clean-energy field that’s just as sclerotic as the world of fossil fuels: patriarchy.

Men invented, engineered, invested in, and presided over the technologies and companies that made oil, coal, and natural gas the dominant fuels of our time. And now men are running the show at most of the firms pushing renewables, efficiency, clean cars, and the smart grid. There is only one female CEO, for instance, among the companies on The Wall Street Journal‘s recent list of top 10 cleantech enterprises, and only a small minority of the companies have women in senior executive positions.

The blog VentureBeat hilariously declared the whole cleantech sector to be a “sausagefest” in which “the glass ceiling … persists,” and listed 25 top cleantech companies that have no women on their boards.

But there’s more to the story. Look a little closer and you can see that women are gradually, quietly permeating clean-energy industries. Some are running their own start-ups. Some are climbing the ranks in big companies. Some are investing tens of millions in start-ups via venture-capital firms. They are still a small minority, to be sure, but there’s good reason to believe that women will play ever greater and more influential roles in the fast-evolving cleantech sector than they ever have in fossil fuels.

“The oil, coal, and gas industries were for a long time all about heavy lifting,” says Denise Bode, former president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America and now CEO of the American Wind Energy Association. Picture grimy roughnecks driving heavy drills into the earth and soot-faced miners slinging pickaxes underground. “Even top executives had to get out in the field, overseeing these kinds of operations,” says Bode. “Women weren’t really recruited at any level.”

There’s comparatively little manual labor in the cleantech industries. Much of the heavy lifting required to harvest energy from sunlight or design the smart grid occurs inside a laboratory or at a computer. Laura Ipsen, director of smart-grid technology at Cisco, notes that the engineering behind renewable and efficient next-gen energy technologies depends heavily on IT: “There’s a lot of overlap between information technology and green technology.” So as women gain more of a foothold in Silicon Valley, that trend, in turn, is feeding women into cleantech. (Not coincidentally, nine of our top 12 women in of cleantech are working with companies headquartered in Silicon Valley or funded by investors in the area.)

Education has been another barrier to women in the energy sector. While women have almost reached parity with men in earning law and medical degrees, they’ve lagged far behind in technical fields like electrical engineering and geology. Girls are still subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) steered away from studying math and science, and are therefore unlikely to choose those majors in college. Today men still outnumber women in most fields of scientific study; in some, including physics, engineering, and computer science, women are earning only 20 percent of bachelor’s degrees, according to the American Association of University Women [PDF].

That education gap begets a workplace gap. While women hold about 46 percent of jobs in life-science and social-science occupations, including in the medical and environmental-science fields, they represent only about 25 percent of the workforce in computers and mathematics and 13 percent in engineering, according to 2010 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics [PDF].

Says Shyama Venkateswar, research director at the National Council for Research on Women, “There’s a fascinating body of data showing that women, particularly in their late 30s and early 40s, gravitate toward career paths where they can have a positive social impact, careers that give them a certain level of meaningful satisfaction, and where they can participate in dynamic, collaborative environments. That, in part, is why we see so many women in health care, for instance.”

That could also explain why more women are gravitating toward renewable energy, which is a veritable mecca for social do-gooders who also want to make money. Eugenia Corrales, who was a top engineer at Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems before she became executive vice president of engineering and operations at Nanosolar, said that at a certain point in her career, getting a generous paycheck wasn’t enough to fulfill her. She wanted to use her technical skills to “help create a society with a very different makeup.” When she entered the renewables industry, she noticed “a very different set of motivators among the people I work with. They tend to be driven by the meaning inherent in their work, by having a greater impact in society. It’s a much more respectful environment, and that may be drawing more women.”

Bode argues that “women have a particularly keen sense of what we would like to see for the next generation — in part because we bring life into the world. That breeds a certain sense of social responsibility in our work.” Bode adds that her role at AWEA is “the only job I’ve ever had, after many decades in fossil fuels, where my son looked at me and said, ‘I am so proud of you for doing this job.’ It was probably one of the greatest achievements of my career to date.”

Bode also posits that women are well-suited to the renewables sector because it requires cooperation. Virtually every emerging “green” technology — solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, smart grid, green homes, electric cars — is part of a dynamic network of solutions; one alone can’t serve all of our energy needs, but together they create a synergistic whole. “Women are hardwired to cooperate, to be interconnected,” Bode says. “Maybe it’s a lack of ego, maybe it’s an inherent wisdom that we can achieve more together than we can alone, but in general, women tend to work well as a team.”

“Fossil fuels represent silver-bullet solutions,” Bode continues. “Renewable energy technologies represent silver-buckshot solutions. I think women can relate to and get behind that buckshot idea on a fundamental level.”

Marianne Wu, a partner at the venture-capital firm Mohr Davidow who specializes in cleantech, agrees: “I shy away from gender stereotypes, but I do believe women at large are good bridge-builders — we’re good at building connections and putting pieces together. In the world of cleantech, a lot of different disciplines come together
to form one ecosystemic whole. I think that makes sense to us.”

Ipsen also spoke of the “massive coordination challenge” in the cleantech sector. “We’re good not just at connecting the dots between the different solutions, but between those solutions and the larger issues that relate to them — issues of policy, the environment, and the global economy.”

On a more practical but no less significant level, women comprise a majority of the consumer end market that is investing in making households more sustainable. Lynn Jurich, CEO of SunRun, notes that when she sells solar power to homeowners (her company has so far worked with some 12,000 households), the “buyers are typically females — often the husband has no idea what the energy bill is. You have to make the green product work within the wife’s household budget.” As a result, adds Jurich, a new generation of female consumers is becoming educated in emerging cleantech products for the household, a trend that may in turn drive more female interest and talent into these industries.

For now, women have a long way to go before they hold an equal share of leadership positions in cleantech companies. If and when they do, it may not be just because they’re getting better technical and science education, or because they’re seeking more meaning and social responsibility in their work, or because they’re good at building bridges and developing “buckshot” solutions. It may also be for the grim reason that women tend to thrive in crisis, and crisis is ultimately what’s driving the growth of cleantech industries. Eleanor Roosevelt once said that “women are like tea bags — we don’t know our true strength until we are in hot water.” Her insight may prove eerily apropos at a time when humanity is steeping in ever-hotter water.

Check out our list of the top 12 women of cleantech.