McKinsey Quarterly just published this interview in which Economist Nicholas Stern says that we should use the economic crisis to address climate change.

“We need to have a reflationary package, which lays the foundation for future growth. And if we look into the future, it’s actually quite exciting. Because what we see is the biggest technological opportunity that we’ve had for a very long time: as big as the railways, as big as electricity, as big as the motorcar, and, most recently, information technology. It’s the opportunity to go for low-carbon growth.”

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The country got a glimpse of the coming battle over the proposed carbon cap and trade system (a carbon tax would be better) during Secretary Tim Geithner’s testimony to the Senate Finance Committee yesterday .

Senator Grassley (R, Iowa) called the cap and trade system a “tax” and asked if President Obama is breaking his promise to not raise taxes on people making less than $200,000?

Sec. Geithner did a great job of responding directly to the question and explaining why it is important to address climate change.

I applaud the Secretary’s forthright answers and especially his statement that the impact of this system will depend on individual behavior.  The country has been waiting for leaders to tell us the truth about the challenges we face.

Cutting taxes while fighting wars on hidden budgets (full of borrowed money) sounded great - but crushed our economy.  We need leaders willing to tell us things we may not want to hear - like we need to pay our own way.

Which why, even though I would prefer a direct carbon tax, I support the Obama Administration attempt to change our energy habits. Geithner said it well, “we need incentives to change the way we use energy.”  Most Americans want to get off oil and know that it won’t be easy.  We can handle cost increases if  we have a leader who keeps us focused on the endgame (and our sacrifices result in a actual change.)

The is refreshing to have an Administration that is not trying to snow us with easy answers that don’t really address the problem.  Obama is taking the high road and providing vision for how we build a new energy economy.

The challenges is that his well-funded opponents get to  yell “raising taxes”, “hurting the middle class” and “breaking promises.” Their sound bites will work better on TV and they will come from both Republicans and Democrats.

The President will need our help responding to the gas, coal and oil spokesman. One of the things we can do is stomp on the false populism.

Senator Grassley wielded populism yesterday, saying cap and trade will hurt working families and the unemployed.  Since when has he fought for the middle and working classes?

The AFL-CIO says he has voted with labor only 14% of the time and MiddleClass.org says scores him only slightly higher at 20%.  Senator Grassley is working for the richest and most powerful forces of status quo.  If he is really worried about coal companies, then our job is to make him say so.  He doesn’t get to hide behind us.

The contrast between the Administration and the Senate could not be clearer.  Sec. Geithner told us the hard truths while the Senator used our struggles to protect the lining of his friends pocketbooks.

Branding a city

Brian Lehrer had a fascinating piece today on how the public sector took on a private sector strategy to save New York during the 1970’s. The city invested in Branding. Faced with a failing economy, rising crimes rates and a bad reputation New York officials created the iconic campaign “I Love NY”.

My main takeaway from the piece was the comment Miriam Greenberg made about branding. She said that branding is a combination of both marketing and material, that you need more than just a great message. I completely agree.

There’s a lot of discussion about what companies and governments should invest in during these times. There’s healthcare, or education, or infrastructure. If anyone said branding, I bet the suggestion was widely dismissed.  But if you take Ms. Greenberg’s use of the term, its really not such a bad idea.  Branding helps people identify with products and if anything needs support of the people right now, its the economy. Its our cities and local businesses.  Its going to be the new products.

So for every project that we are launching, stimulus or not, lets make sure we put a solid branding effort into it too.

A lesson for the public and private sector alike.

Last Wednesday the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee considered bill S2555 entitled Reducing Global Warming Pollution from Vehicles Act of 2008. The bill would allow the State of California and others to enact tougher automobile fuel efficiency standards, a move that Environmental Protection Agency’s blocked last December.

Yes, the EPA actually stopped California from cleaning the air and, as Time Magazine points out, many EPA employees agreed with new standards but the organization caved to pressure from the Bush Administration.

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As you can see from report on the bill below that the Committee did not take strong action this week, but at least they are trying to do something about the EPA’s short-sighted gift to the oil industry. This bill should followed and supported by anyone concerned with the future of health of our auto industry, air quality or trade imbalance.