The long-term answer to the financial and energy crises facing our country and the world is to become a producer nation again.
If we cannot learn from what happened to China, how they were willing to make everything we needed and wanted to support our way of life and make it cheaper, we are in deeper trouble than anyone can imagine. They are growing stronger and more dominant every year because they are now a producer powerhouse that no longer depends on the American consumer economy as much as they did in the past.

However, we can still compete with China by becoming a major green technology producer. We went through the polluting phase they are now experiencing, and we have learned the lessons of what unfettered industrialism does to the environment. Now we can guide the world toward a cleaner, safer future if we can get the oil companies to channel more of their windfall billions into developing the green technologies we pioneered.

It is time for the multinational oil companies to put country and world ahead of profits, and help us save our economy and our planet. Not just through slick TV ads, but through major financial committments to clean, renewable energy sources like solar, wind, water and hydrogen. And for a stopgap, inexpensive alternative that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil, natural gas.

We had a head start in green and alternative energies, but our edge will be lost if we don't get going and devote our resources to growing a green economic base.