But, given the host of competing
problems — a deep economic recession, the urgent need for health care reform, geopolitical instabilities in the Middle East and elsewhere, soaring federal
debt, and so on — selling the electorate on a set of fundamental changes in the way we consume and produce energy in the short run — and congressional appropriators on making the large investments needed to bring these changes
about in the long run — will be a
tough task, even for Barack Obama and his newly appointed team of highly competent advisers, and a Congress that has given every indication that it will take up and give priority to climate legislation.