Last week in Wuxi, I noticed a newspaper headline about the bankruptcy of Suntech, one of China’s largest solar panel manufacturers. 

Below the fold was a story about the success of several local car companies and the dramatic rise in their stock values. Was there something that these stories had in common - - and something from them that could help the U.S. economic recovery?

Peak Oil is the concept that new discoveries of commercially exploitable oil resources do not keep pace with growing demand. By extrapolating the data, you can estimate when we will run out of it for all practical purposes. 

“The government can’t change the weather,” said Florida Senator Marco Rubio last week, describing his opposition to President Obama’s State of the Union call-to-action on climate change policy. Given the staggering costs of droughts, heat waves, and super storms, it would seem our political leaders would come quickly to some consensus on these seemingly urgent issues and take some kind of concerted action. So where do our political leaders get their information that has instead led to partisan gridlock?

In his inaugural address this week, President Obama committed us to get back to work on the challenge of a sustainable energy future.

“We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations,” he said. But will this reignite the debate on climate change or have three widely publicized stories already done that for us?

As the world assembles in Doha to debate climate change policy, solutions, and costs, few attendees at “COP18” are looking at this as a profit-making opportunity. 

If they did, there might be agreements among nations instead of continued gridlock and finger-pointing.

In a political commercial that has been viewed by over a million people so far, Samuel L. Jackson shares his views on national priorities with the tart refrain “wake the [blank] up!”

After the 2000 census, many states used politics and innovative mapping technology to gerrymander new electoral districts to lock in gains for one party or the other. California politicians, for example, drew new “safe” seats and the result was hyper-partisanship and politicians who didn’t need to pay attention to anyone that wasn’t singing from their sheet music. Unfortunately, the results may also be dirtier air and a less sustainable future.

One of the first things you notice about Vietnam is the hundreds of thousands of motorcycles darting in and around the cars and trucks.  The second thing you notice is that most of the riders on motorcycles are wearing masks to reduce the soot from getting into their lungs. 

Recent campaign stops by Mitt Romney and President Obama could not provide a more stark contrast of energy policies. Romney promises coal miners that he’s in favor of energy from “below the ground”, albeit preferring domestic sources of all fossil fuels.

Until headlines last week announced the end of his marriage to Katie Holmes, it seemed there was no mission too impossible for Tom Cruise to accomplish. But even his cool, Burj Khalifa-climbing character in the famous film franchise might refuse the Mission Impossible assignment facing global economies today - - powering growth with nuclear energy.

When I helped Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger create the Million Solar Roofs Initiative in California a few years ago, we designed it to stimulate mass production of solar panels to bring down cost.

Consider the extraordinary efforts we undertake to secure a barrel of oil. Lives lost from wars.

Oil-rig blowouts. Cancer clusters downwind of refineries. 100,000 premature deaths each year in America alone when we combust the stuff in our engines. 

Zhongwei “Wally” Jiang is a multi-cultural entrepreneur with more 24/7 activity than the Energizer bunny. His WesTech Solar Energy company in China and green city developments in Texas make the most of what Nature and efficient technologies can provide. His secret to success is stitching together people, technology, and ideas that might not normally interact, a process he calls “1+1=11”. Like Wally, we can all find these force multipliers that leverage our assets beyond what many might think is possible - - but only if we look for them.

What’s trending in Q1 of 2012? Three things that will cost more going forward and one that will definitely be heading down - - and the causes behind all four are the same.
 

In recent months, Japan and China have blustered over disputed islands that don’t appear to have any real economic or territorial benefits for either nation. Jets have scrambled and radars locked on opposing vessels, all signs of increasing tension. But the two Asian powerhouses have now begun to argue over a shared threat that actually does have impacts on the health and future of their respective populations - - air pollution.
 

After numerous trips to India and discussions with the leaders of many businesses (large and small), two things are clear. There is already a US-sized market here and it's very green.

Every state capital in the nation is struggling with massive budget deficits - - over $20 billion in states like California and Texas and comparable red ink everywhere else. States and cities are exploring bankruptcy to get out from under crushing debt and pension obligations, but there’s actually a better solution. Close all public schools.

It's that time of year when someone at a holiday gathering inevitably asks about your resolutions for 2012. Feel free to plagiarize mine.

"This obsession with a legally binding treaty [to tackle climate change] is an obstacle for countries achieving targets they have committed to," declared Paul Bledsoe, a climate change advisor to President Clinton. "What we need is national will to reach stated goals."

In the Broadway hit musical, "Book of Mormon," a woman from Uganda envisions paradise as a place where warlords are benevolent and the Red Cross hands out as much flour as you can eat.

In other words, the things that inspire hope and gratitude in any part of the world are in the eye of the beholder.