OK, so maybe we're not yet in a depression from the ravages of environmental degradation. But just to be sure the carbon collapse doesn’t provoke one, former U.S. Senator Gary Hart, Oberlin College environmental department chair David Orr and Yale economist Robert Repetto, are developing the Presidential Climate Action Project.

The Project is essentially a blueprint to help the next president slam the brakes on a climate meltdown. "We're trying to use the Roosevelt model to stress the urgency," Hart told a press conference at last week's American Solar Energy Society conference in San Diego. "We're gathering the best ideas for laws and especially for Executive Orders that the next president can sign into law immediately, without having to go through the approval process. We have lost eight years."

Because no one is willing to push a simple carbon tax as the best solution, one of the Project's favored proposals is what its creator, Repetto calls an "upstream cap and trade" program. Under that scenario, the major producers of carbon, such as coal mines and oil refineries, get their production of carbon capped. "This way, you're not regulating hundreds of thousands of businesses; there are less than 2000 [big producers]," said Hart. He said the Project's authors are scheduled to meet July 1 in Washington with senior representatives of both campaigns, "to underscore the importance" of their mission.