When Barack Obama introduced us to his economic team in Chicago this week, you could almost hear an intercom blasting in the background: "Dr. Obama, please report to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, stat."

The new advisers gathered around the President-elect looked like a crew of surgeons about to go to work on a patient who is flat on his back and suffering a heart attack -- an apt description of the economy. How the Obama team chooses to treat the patient will mean everything for the long-term prognosis. The economy needs more than a jolt from a defilibrator; it needs a heart transplant. The doctors should use the paddles if they must, but they should not spare the scalpel.

As Obama’s team begins work on a recovery package, I hope they’ll keep a few guiding principles in mind.

The Cleantech Group parses the crisis in the financial markets as it relates to clean energy technology, and concludes:

[The economic crisis] is going to take out some of the peripheral players in cleantech. There will be a flight to quality. We're going to see a better market emerge for cleantech that is more sustainable, more enduring.

-- Nicholas Parker, Executive Chairman, The Cleantech Group

In other words: expect a short-term shake-out followed by long-time growth that will drive more jobs, wealth creation and opportunity than ever. Or as the AP recently wrote: expect the sector to get "scarred but stronger."

Western Governors: 'Obama, Act Quickly on Energy' (AP)

The governors of the nation's largest energy-producing states are encouraging President-elect Obama to quickly adopt a national energy policy that will "aggressively" reduce greenhouse gas emissions through "market-based mechanisms."

EPA, Interior Dept. Chiefs Will Be Busy Erasing Bush's Mark (Washington Post)

Few federal agencies are expected to undergo as radical a transformation under Obama as the EPA and the Interior Department, which have been at the epicenter of many of the Bush administration's most intense scientific and environmental controversies.

EU Fails to Agree on Climate Change Before UN Summit (Deutsche Welle)

When the UN climate change talks convene for 10 days starting Dec. 1 in the Polish city of Poznan, the EU will be unable to present a unified front.

Sharp Plans Joint Solar Venture with Enel (Reuters)

Sharp of Japan, Enel of Italy and a third manufacturer have announced a plan to invest more than $2.6 billion in Italian solar power ventures to tap growing demand for cleaner energy.

NBC Nightly News made media history when Brian Williams uttered these words while looking into the camera:

Coal. While you might have heard the phrase 'clean coal' during the presidential campaign, it's actually an oxymoron. Wishful thinking. Coal does not burn cleanly and it's hugely expensive to make it burn that way.

It was merely and finally a bit of honest reporting, but nonetheless, it crossed an important watershed: to actually say out loud that capturing carbon and pumping it underground forever was still "wishful thinking." It supplied a taste of what was sorely missing from mainstream media offerings during the entire Bush administration and right on through the presidential campaign.

It's easy to understand the causes of the long, shameful silence. After all, the Oval Office was occupied by fossil kings. McCain still had a shot to win thanks to generous donations from the oil wing of the Republican party. Big Coal had cornered the market as primary sponsor of the Presidential debates. Even Obama was genuflecting to the myth of clean coal to secure his victory. The networks weren't about to the rock the boat, the First Amendment notwithstanding.

So to hear Brian Williams take a clean shot at dirty coal seemed like a signal heralding a great thaw of a long media Ice Age that has prohibited honest reporting on the fossil fuel industry.