Hell and High Water

Global Warming: The Solution and the Politics

January 5, 2007, 12:30pm – 1:30pm

About This Event

Global warming has been thrust into the national spotlight as never before. Near daily headlines of dramatic changes to the climate accentuate the larger-than-ever threat of super hurricanes, mega-droughts, and sea levels rising 20 to 80 feet. If we don’t act soon, we may propel humanity down an irreversible and unprecedented path.

For decades, a campaign of skepticism and misinformation has pervaded the American media and launched political debate into rhetorical circles. In his latest book, Hell and High Water: Global Warming - The Solution and the Politics, Dr. Joseph Romm exposes the strategy the Bush administration has adopted to delay action on climate change and funding for alternative energy solutions. Romm presents the crucial energy solutions and policies, all of which are or are soon to be technologically feasible. These strategies, which have so far lacked political will, include a California-style energy efficiency effort, wind farms, carbon capture and storage, and advanced hybrid vehicles that can run on both gasoline and electricity. Romm urges policymakers to recognize the science and take serious strides to move solutions forward. According to James Hansen, Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, “Joe Romm knows what he is talking about. His message is urgent, reasoned and informative--he delivers it with surprising clarity. America had better listen up--this may be our last chance to stop global warming.” California Energy Commissioner Arthur Rosenfeld says, “If you buy only one book on global warming, make it Hell and High Water.”

Featured Guest:
Joseph Romm, Ph.D., Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and author of Hell and High Water: Global Warming - The Solution and the Politics -and What We Should Do

Moderated by:
Carol M. Browner, Principal, The Albright Group LLC

Introduction by:
Dr. Ana Unruh Cohen, Director for Environmental Policy, Center for American Progress

Location

Center for American Progress
1333 H St. NW
Washington, DC 20005

Biographies

Dr. Joseph Romm is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he oversees the blog ClimateProgress.org. He is author of a recent book on climate science, solutions, and politics, Hell and High Water: Global Warming-The Solution and the Politics (William Morrow, January 2007). He is co-author of the Scientific American article, "Hybrid Vehicles Gain Traction" (April 2006) and author of The Hype About Hydrogen: Fact and Fiction in the Race to Save the Climate, named one of the best science and technology books of 2004 by Library Journal.

Dr. Romm served as Acting Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy during 1997 and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary from 1995 though 1998. In that capacity, he helped manage the largest program in the world for working with businesses to develop and use advanced transportation and clean energy technologies-one billion dollars aimed at energy efficiency, hybrid vehicles, electric batteries, hydrogen and fuel cell technologies, renewable energy, distributed generation, and biofuels. Dr. Romm helped lead the Administration's climate technology policy formulation, and he initiated, supervised, and publicized a comprehensive technical analysis by five national laboratories of how energy technologies can reduce greenhouse gas emissions at low-cost: Scenarios of U.S. Carbon Reductions.

Romm holds a Ph.D. in physics from M.I.T. and researched his thesis on physical oceanography at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Carol M. Browner is a principal of The Albright Group LLC, a global strategy firm. Ms. Browner provides strategic counsel to clients in the areas of environmental protection, energy conservation, and climate change. She positions clients in many sectors to succeed in enhancing corporate responsibility, gaining market access, identifying political and regulatory risks, and developing strategic partnerships and business relationships.

Ms. Browner served as the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for eight years, longer than any other administrator in EPA’s history. As a Cabinet official during the Clinton Administration, she built unique partnerships with business leaders, community advocates, and all levels of government. She also developed common-sense, cost-effective solutions to the nation’s most pressing environmental and public health challenges.

Ms. Browner currently serves as Chair of the National Audubon Society, one of the country’s oldest environmental organizations. She is on Board of the Directors of the Center for American Progress, the Alliance for Climate Protection, and the National Brownfields Association.

Ms. Browner earned both a B.A. and J.D. from the University of Florida.

Dr. Ana Unruh Cohen is the Director for Environmental Policy at the Center for American Progress. Prior to joining American Progress, she was an aide to Congressman Edward J. Markey (D-MA). Ana handled a variety of energy and environmental issues pending before the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Resources Committee. Ana originally joined Congressman Markey's staff as the 2001-2002 Science and Technology Policy Fellow sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Meteorological Society. She has a B.S. in Chemistry from Trinity University and received her Ph.D. in Earth Sciences from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar.