Tamminen

Back in 2006, Time Magazine ran a global warming cover that has become a negative icon of the climate movement’s message: “Be Worried, Be Very Worried,” the headline proclaimed.

The dark cloud has yet to dissipate, even with Obama’s clean energy and green jobs optimism, because the polluter-friendly climate bill moving through Congress has weak targets and large loopholes, the talks paving the way to Copenhagen have shown little progress, and the body of scientific evidence documenting accelerating climate change each week grows larger and deeper.

None of that fazes Terry Tamminen, the world’s one-man climate fixer, whose unique understanding of global climate progress arms him with an infectious supply of hope. He’s too busy to sink into worry and unafraid to offer perspective you’d never hear inside the Beltway climate policy hothouse.

The Waxman-Markey climate bill, working its way through Congress? “It’s not the only game in town,” Tamminen says.

The bill’s passage in the Senate? “Actually it could tie our hands in Copenhagen.”

In other words, while all the rest of us seem to be worried, very worried, about Waxman-Markey and Copenhagen, Tamminen is skating to where nobody else can imagine the puck is going to be.

In the last three months alone he’s been to Bahrain, Norway, Holland, India, England, Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong and of course, Beijing. At every stop, he meets with business leaders, NGOs, policymakers and government officials.