We don't have to choose between protecting our kids' health and making a living. We need our leaders to set a new course for America's economy. And it has to start with the will to tackle joblessness and climate change.

The last-minute deal to delay the fiscal cliff included good news for our nation's wind energy sector. The bipartisan compromise extended tax credits that encourage the production of clean domestic energy.

Across the country, candidates who stood by the environmental community and a clean energy agenda -- including President Obama -- were overwhelmingly elected, while candidates tied to oil and coal companies lost.

Solar, wind, oil, and gas all provide us energy and electrons, so the debate needs to be about all sources of energy, or none.

Romney may tout his business credentials, but he's turning his back on this lucrative sector and putting thousands of jobs at risk. Why? It seems that the Republican nominee may be in bed with the fossil fuel industry.

In talking recently with climate expert Michael Mann, I realized that our conversation was nothing short of a roundabout tour in an effort to identify just how the well-funded climate denial machine has become a Catch-22 phenomenon.

Ask yourself: Are the oil, coal and gas going to suddenly move to the North Sea? My guess is that with subsidies or not, Exxon will still want at the fossil fuels here. Want another reason to end these subsidies?

Public transportation ridership is surging nationwide -- whether it's bus, light-rail or train, Americans are using transit.

How can world leaders at the Rio+20 Earth Summit next week show that they are serious about sustainable development and environmental protection? The answer is simple: end fossil fuel subsidies.

We have a new tool. It's been coded so we can keep track of everyone on Capitol Hill, registering their position on fossil fuel subsidies -- and so that we can crowdsource the effort.

Renewables currently generate only about 5 percent of U.S. electricity, but by 2030 they have the potential to produce more than 40 percent, half coming from wind. And yet, unless Congress acts soon, the wind industry will have to trim its sails.

In less than a month, world leaders will gather in Rio de Janeiro for the United Nation's 2012 Earth Summit. At stake: a new global green deal that could pull our planet back from the brink of irreversible climate change.

For this election, let's acknowledge that environmental concerns are not moving the electoral needle -- natural gas will probably not be adequately regulated until the industry destroys an acquifer. And maybe not even then.

One could think that an industry that has been around for more than a century should be ready to wean itself from the public trough. But Big Oil's power in Congress is formidable.

Bottom-line, these dirty corporations don't need any more handouts, bailouts, or subsidies. Our country does not have a money problem; it has a priorities problem.

There's a problem: the very word "subsidies" makes American eyes glaze over. If due attention is to be paid, we have to figure out a language in which to talk about them that will make it clear just how loony our policy is.