Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Chicago, Illinois (and London) - Blogging can be a terrifying process. Unlike any other form of journalism your readers are able to tell you - and the rest of the world - exactly what they think of what you have to say.

What's more they often tell you in very - how shall I put this? - "explicit" terms. I have a colleague who lives in fear of their blog because of the aggressive and rude comments people post.

I am a bit more hard-hearted. I have become pretty good at ignoring the vitriol and venom and focusing on the people who have something sensible to say and I find blogging very rewarding.

What I like is that it shifts the balance of power from the writer towards the reader.

For years we journalists got to say more or less whatever we wanted and if readers or viewers disagreed their only way to respond was a letter to the editor that, almost always, would go unpublished, if not unread.

Blogging changes all that. If I make a mistake in a blog readers are sure to let me know, which is great, because then I can correct it. And comments can be a wonderful resource. Some of my best reports have been based on ideas recycled (or should that be "stolen"?) from suggestions on my blogs.

But some comments are just baffling. Here is a message I was sent by someone on . "I was enthralled by the blog/twitter/fcebk/tv", he writes - which is nice - but then he continues: "but I don't fully understand what you have achieved in being in America. How can you summarise?"

At first I was tempted just to ignore it. After all, I have written long blogs on what we are doing every other day of this five-week trip (this is my 21st post).

But his message rankled. Maybe it is not such a bad question, I reflected. Often summarising what you are doing helps you focus in on what it is really about. Which is why, waiting for my flight on my final day in America after 35 days on the road, I am sitting at my computer in Chicago airport considering whether we have achieved what we hoped - instead of just having a beer and relaxing. Thanks Will.

So what have we achieved? Well, we came to America to do nothing less than save the world.

My year trying to cut my family's carbon emissions showed that that even the most well-meaning men and women acting alone will never achieve the reductions in greenhouse gases the scientists say are necessary. That will only happen if everyone reduces their emissions.

But, what was also abundantly clear was that most people are not interested in changing their lifestyle "just to save the world". We are far too short-sighted and selfish a species for that.

So are we all doomed?

This trip has shown that there is a lot to be optimistic about. We saw a green energy industry blossoming in Texas almost before our eyes. In Detroit we experienced what could be the future of the car. In California we were shown plants that could cut the vast greenhouse emissions from modern agriculture.

But for me, by far the most significant development was President Obama's decision to support the introduction of what is widely believed to be the most economically efficient mechanism for achieving carbon cuts - a cap-and-trade system for regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

Cap-and-trade encourages businesses and individuals to avoid polluting activities by raising the price and also stimulates innovation by making low carbon technologies relatively cheaper. And, because it is a market-based system, it gives businesses the freedom to make the cheapest and easiest cuts first.

But, because cap-and-trade involves increasing the prices of all goods and services which use fossil fuels - which means everything - I doubted whether any democratic politician would have the courage to introduce an economy-wide system.

Obama seems determined to prove me wrong. As I suggested would happen the Environmental Protection Agency has sent the White House a proposed finding that CO2 represents a danger to public health, a key step to regulating the emissions of the gas.

"Such a finding," writes the Wall Street Journal, would ratchet up pressure on Congress to enact a system that caps greenhouse gases."

So it looks like America will limit its emissions and, since it is - after China - the most polluting nation on earth that is significant in itself.

But the real significance is that America, as the most powerful and influential nation on the planet, could be the "game-changer" on climate.

In April Barack Obama is hosting a meeting of major economies in an effort to lay the diplomatic foundation for an international agreement on climate change and energy later this year. With American support the world may actually agree to cut emissions at Copenhagen this December.

Now obviously we didn't 'achieve' this. All we did was report what is happening and we could only do that because of all the wonderful people who met along the way.

We met a billionaire, a Hollywood star, President Obama's advisors, student activists and the world's leading climate scientist. We also met Amish families, the world's leading human manure composter, cowboys, Las Vegas' only pig farmer, a Kennedy trying to get his kids arrested and a Hummer-driving wind turbine builder.

But most inspiring of all were the people we met in the town where we started this trip, the people of Muskegon, Michigan. People like Cheryl, Gary, Lauren, Olivia and Trevor Howard. They made us so welcome in Muskegon and helped us so much.

And through them we met lots of other great people; their parents and their pastor, Sherwin. Also Mark, Kathy and Lea - good luck restoring Muskegon Lake. Then there was Imad and Reg - I hope your wonderful invention does well. And also people like the Cheese Lady with her wonderful shop and you Mayor Warmington - and everyone at the Marine Tap Room. I trust that picture makes the wall Steve!

So Will, what this trip has been about is documenting the beginnings of what could be a profound and fundamental change in the American economy. It is happening because of people like those we met in Muskegon. People with grit and determination who are prepared to adapt to what is happening to help make the world a better place.

I haven't 'achieved' anything by this trip - it is a journalists' job to observe and report. When I get back the Ethical Man producer Sara and I will start editing our films together. This blog is my report back and I hope you find it inspiring too. (I am sure you will tell me if you don't).

Outside San Francisco, California - It is a modern miracle. There are now over 6 billion people on earth (more than double the number when I was born), yet very few go hungry. In fact, despite the vast increase in population, the world still produces more food than it consumes.

This is in large part a result of the industrial manufacture of nitrogen fertilisers. Since World War II, the increasing use of nitrogen has helped swell crop yields year after year.

But it comes at a price. It takes a vast quantity of energy, and therefore fossil fuels, to fix the nitrogen in modern fertiliser. But the biggest atmospheric impact of nitrogen fertiliser is from nitrous oxide, a by-product of fertiliser manufacture and use and itself a very potent greenhouse gas, 296 times as powerful as carbon dioxide.

In , a report on the climate impacts of agriculture, Greenpeace estimates that the emissions from the production and use of nitrogen fertilisers contribute the equivalent of two and a half billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere every year.

That is the same amount as the pollution from all the power plants in the US, according to .

So you might expect that Greenpeace would welcome a new technology that could dramatically reduce the need for nitrogen fertiliser. Not so.

At a biotech company outside San Francisco I was shown a technology that could do just that. It does not look that impressive. A few rice plants huddled in the back of a growing chamber in a research lab, in a building on what, in Britain, we would call an industrial estate.

But these plants really could be revolutionary. They have been genetically engineered to be dramatically more efficient at using nitrogen than normal plants. What they are designed to do is allow farmers to cut fertiliser use dramatically while maintaining crop yields.

This is no pipe-dream. , the company which created these plants, says the genetic modification can be used for all the main crop species. Its research suggests crops containing its modified genes require half the fertiliser of normal plants.

Arcadia has licensed the technology to a number of big seed and biotechnology companies, and says crops containing the genetic modification will be on the market within a couple of years.

Developing nitrogen efficient plants to mitigate climate change is something Greenpeace specifically recommends in its Cool Farming report.

"The crop could have a greater water or nutrient use efficiency", the report argues, "increasing the yield at the same input, or enabling a reduction in external inputs, and the associated energy required to supply this input whilst maintaining the same yield".

However, when I discussed this technology with Rolf Skar, a senior Greenpeace campaigner, he said the organisation does not support using genetic engineering to cut carbon.

He said the technology is unproven.

"The history of GMOs [Genetically Modified Organisms] is riddled with unintended consequences and promises that have not been met," he told me.

Greenpeace has drawn up a plan for cutting emissions based on using more traditional renewable technologies, wind, solar, tide and wave power. The problem is that the plan will, as Skar says, require a huge investment of public money and the support of government.

Eric Rey, the founder and CEO of Arcadia, argues that he is an environmentalist too. He is a life-long member of the America's oldest and largest environmental organisation, the , and believes his genetically engineered plants are entirely consistent with his green beliefs.

Indeed, he argues that his technology is truly sustainable in the sense that it does not need any subsidy or political support. He argues that farmers will want to use his plants - and thereby reduce greenhouse gas emissions - not because they want to save the planet but out of their own self-interest.

Nitrogen fertiliser is a major expense for farmers, sometimes their main outlay. Because these new plants require less fertiliser for the same yield they will save farmers money.

Genetic engineering is a life-altering technology. It goes without saying that no genetically modified organisms should be used that pose a significant risk to health or to the environment but, I asked Skar, given the potential catastrophe of climate change, surely it is prudent to explore any technology that could cut emissions?

He told me no.

"Could be is not good enough for me", he said, "I want to know that it is actually going to work."

Is he right?

Orange County, California - Weatherizing is an American word. Not a very pretty one. What it means is protecting houses from the weather, keeping the heat or cold out so they are more energy efficient.

Weatherizing is not glamorous. It is about draft proofing, putting in insulation, new boilers, efficient fridges, low-energy lights, all that kind of stuff. But weatherization is big news here in America.

That is because it is reckoned to be something of a panacea, able to help lift America out of recession, reduce dependence on foreign energy supplies and tackle global warming.

The Obama Administration certainly thinks so. It has said it aims to weatherize a million homes a year and has committed over $10bn to it in the stimulus package.

Weatherization creates jobs here in America because you cannot outsource the work of caulking and lining and lifting and fitting, it has to be done by local people. It tackles global warming because improving energy efficiency is one of the most cost effective way of cutting carbon emissions.

But weatherizing does something else too. If people's homes use less energy they are less vulnerable when energy prices rise. That is a good thing in itself, of course, and the US has used weatherization as an anti-poverty device for decades. But it is particularly useful if you plan to increase fuel prices.

When the finished I was very pessimistic about the prospects of successfully reducing the world's greenhouse gas emissions. I thought democratic societies would not be able to respond to the challenge until it was too late. The problem, I thought, was democracy itself.

Now don't get me wrong, I would not wish to live in anything but a democratic society but the fact is democracies are not always good at taking tough decisions.

It was clear from my year of ethical living that it would take really substantial changes to the way we all live to get the kind of cuts in emissions the scientists say are necessary. It was clear that this would mean, for example, some kind of carbon pricing mechanism that would raise the price of fossil fuels.

I thought democratic politicians would baulk at the task. Politicians in democracies want to be popular, because if they are not popular they are out of a job. And politicians tend not to be popular if they ask people to lower their standard of living.

There are exceptions. Democratic societies have proved very resilient during times of war. But the threat of global warming is not like a war, it may threaten global catastrophe but (unfortunately) it just isn't that frightening.

Unlike the immediate threat posed by war, climate change is an insidious danger, happening slowly over decades. Wars (at least the popular ones) tend to have a clear cause and require a national response. The causes and consequences of climate change are contestable and require a concerted global response.

What's more, in war (again, the popular ones) individuals can make a clear link between the threat and their self-interest (freedom). Individuals find it very hard to link their role in causing the problem of climate change (driving, flying, heating their home), with the effects (changing weather patterns).

When the Obama team decided that cap-and-trade was the way to get emissions cuts they will have recognised the need to cushion those hit by the increase in fuel prices.

So, as well as creating jobs and cutting emissions, weatherization may protect Obama from some of the opposition that rising fuel prices will engender. The Administration will be hoping that these vast weatherization programmes will give it a bit of shelter and improve the chances that significant emissions cuts will be achieved.

One word of caution here: establishing the carbon pricing mechanism is one thing. The true test of democratic mettle will be imposing a sufficiently tough limit on emissions. The current target is 14% below 2005 levels by 2020. Green groups and many scientists say the cuts should be much deeper.

P.S. There has been a very significant breakthrough in battery technology. According to an article in last week's , two MIT researchers may have discovered the Holy Grail of battery technologies by creating a lithium-ion based super-capacitor.

When I wrote about General Motors' electric car a number of contributors talked about a new battery technology involving "ultra-capacitors" or "super-capacitors". Unlike normal batteries, super-capacitors can be charged quickly but, as I understand it, cannot hold much energy. This new battery technology may have solved that problem. What the MIT researchers have created is an energy dense battery which can charge and discharge quickly. If it can be scaled up it will make electric cars much more practical.

Los Angeles, California (and London, UK) - They say that journalists write the first draft of history. That seems about right to me.

If we are very lucky we journalists can, occasionally, witness historic change as it happens. But our perspective is necessarily limited. The true significance of events is often only apparent long after they happen.

Over the last weeks I believe that I have witnessed an important change here in America. I believe that during the time the Ethical Man team has been travelling, the United States has begun to make tackling climate change one of its key policy objectives.

If I am right then shifting America - and the world - towards a low carbon economy will be a defining policy of the Obama Administration.

But, of course, that is a big "if". I could be wrong.

This weekend my wife gave me pause to question my judgement. I had flown back to London to see my family and to speak at a charity dinner on Saturday night.

As we ate, I told her about the inspiring people I have met and exciting things I have seen during my trip. I told her why my journey had made me much more optimistic that there might actually be a deal on climate at the Copenhagen summit in December.

I admit I was a little jet-lagged. I had had a couple of glasses of wine and was - how shall I put this? - perhaps a little "over-enthusiastic".

She certainly looked sceptical. "Are you sure you are not just seeing pregnant women?" she asked.

I knew what she meant. When Bee was pregnant with our first child, Eva, she would see pregnant women everywhere she went. It seemed like the whole world was pregnant.

She quickly realised that the number of pregnant women had not changed, it was just that now Bee had reason to take notice of them.

Read the rest of this entry

Here is a case in point. On Tuesday I met my first bona fide billionaire, the oil-man turned wind energy tycoon, T Boone Pickens.

I interviewed him in his Dallas office and, as we chatted afterwards, I mentioned we were heading off to Las Vegas. Boone, being a true Oklahoma gentleman, promptly offered us a lift... on his private plane!

My other attempt at hitch-hiking, back in Detroit, ended with me being stopped by the police. Boone was much more accommodating. He said he was going to Phoenix early Friday morning and would be happy to get his plane to drop us in Vegas.

What a dilemma! Two hours relaxing in the soft leather seats of a billionaire's private jet or 20 hours behind the wheel of a hire car (there is no connecting train and at 28 hours, we judged the Greyhound just too time consuming).

It should be a straightforward calculation: Boone was already going to Phoenix so it is the marginal increase in jet fuel against the emissions of the petrol consumed by a car making the 1,200 mile journey by road.

It is a much more glamorous version of the sort "ethical" dilemma I became far too familiar with during the year my family and I lived as Ethical Man. What I learned then is that these calculations are rarely as simple as they seem.

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Dallas, Texas - The idea that the world is warming as a result of man's activities is not something that most Texans worry about.

"We don't mention climate change in Texas," Trevor Lovell, a young Texan climate activist, told me at the green rally I covered in Washington.

The Lone Star State is the most polluting state in the Union. The world's large-scale oil industry began here and Texas still styles itself as the powerhouse of America.

Texas' petrochemical past is why, according to Trevor, so many Texans simply don't believe that the climate is changing, despite a long drought in the state. Even those who do believe, he says, don't think it has anything to do with man. But Trevor says he still manages to get a hearing for his arguments for developing an alternative energy industry in his home state.

Indeed, Texas has been quietly building a world-beating green energy industry right alongside its pump jacks and pipelines, as I explained in my last blog. One reason is the potential profits from low-carbon energy. But cash is not the only motivation.

The argument Trevor finds most persuasive in his home state is national security: here in Texas, green power is American power.

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Sweetwater, Texas - I have been out hunting rattlesnakes and jackalope in the fields around the West Texas town of Sweetwater. I have had some success too, as you will see, but I did not come here to hunt.

Sweetwater is famous for its rattlesnakes. Every year this sleepy Texas town holds a "rattlesnake roundup". The locals collect thousands of snakes from the fields and then host a huge party.

The town will be thick with tourists for the roundup this weekend. There will be Shiner Bock on tap and the best beef and ribs on the mesquite wood barbeque but the big attraction is the snakes.

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Sweetwater, Texas - The Jackalope is an extraordinary animal. Our cameraman, Pete Murtaugh, described it to me as we rode the Texas Eagle down to Dallas. He says the Jackalope is like a cross between a Jack rabbit and an antelope - a sort of giant bunny with horns.

I was pretty sceptical so I asked the other passengers about Jackalope. Elam and Joe, the two Amish men who taught me dominos (), had heard of them but said there were none in Indiana, where they are from. Joe gave me his address and told me to send him picture if I did manage to spot one.

A guy transposing music on his computer at the back of the lounge car said he had actually seen one of these elusive beasts. He said there used to be a few Jackalope in the area of California he grew up, but that they are pretty rare now.

Even Pete has only ever seen a dead Jackalope mounted behind a bar in Texas. He says the Great Plains are now one of the few areas of America where there are still Jackalope in the wild.

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Sweetwater, Texas - Travelling by train was once the American way to travel. The railroads shaped and formed this country in a much more profound way than the car ever has.

In Europe railways were built between existing towns and cities. In America the railroads brought towns and cities into being. Tracks were laid out into the great open unpopulated spaces of this country and people poured along them, seeking their fortunes.

The vast westward movement of people that was fostered by the railroads led, in 1890, to the US Census Bureau declaring that the frontier (that great symbol of America's boundless potential) had ceased to exist. There was no longer a line that marked the end of civilisation and the beginning of the wilderness.

"The United States", says John Steele Gordon in his history of the American Economy, , "was now a continental nation in geopolitical reality as well as nominal geographic fact".

In that sense the railroads made America.

Farmers and ranchers followed the railroads out west, opening up huge tracts of new land and vastly increasing America's agricultural output. This, in turn, provided the industrial centres in the East with the cheap food they needed to keep on growing.

Gordon describes how what had been a patchwork of local markets was laced together by the railroads "into what was increasingly an economically cohesive whole".

It was the creation of a single market on a continental scale which allowed the great leap forward of American industry and finance.

In 1865 there were 30,000 miles (48,280 kilometres) of track and America was essentially an agricultural nation. By 1910, one generation later, the network covered 350,000 miles (563,270 kilometres) and the United States was the greatest and most modern industrial nation on earth.

I've been thinking about railways because, as the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ's Ethical Man, my producer Sara has ordered me to keep my environmental impact to an absolute minimum. We have been travelling to Texas and instead of flying we took the train.

It is a long journey, two whole days. We've rattled all the way from the snowy streets of Washington to the warm Dallas spring, stopping in at a wintery Chicago along the way.

People say that the problem with travelling by train is that it takes so much longer than flying, but actually that is the great pleasure of taking the train.

We have had time to relax and meet some interesting new people. Yes, that was Daryl Hannah in the photo in the last blog. She is worried about global warming and wants to reduce her impact on the environment. It was our good luck that she just happened to be on the same train as us.

Travelling by train gave me the time to read Gordon's book and as I read it struck me that the transformation of American society brought about by the railroads isn't that different in scale from the technological revolution that is needed to transform America and the world to a low carbon economy.

The scientific consensus is clear. We in developed nations need to cut carbon emissions by at least 80% by 2050. But, since the world really began to wake up to the dangers of global warming a decade ago carbon emissions have not fallen, they have risen. It does not encourage confidence in our ability as a species to deal with the problem.

In my last blog I discussed how the change in policy here in America has dramatically increased the chances of a global agreement to cut emissions.

But even if an agreement is reached some people argue that there is not enough time for our societies to make the profound and fundamental transformations needed to move to a low carbon economy.

But there is reason for optimism. We have come to Texas, the oil capital of America and the most polluting state in the Union, because an energy revolution has already begun here.

We have come to West Texas, what was once the great American frontier. This was Comanche territory. The vast open plains stretch from horizon to horizon and only buffalo hunters and a few intrepid ranchers would ever venture here. Until, that is, the railroads came.

The mighty Texas and Pacific Railroad pushed through West Texas in 1881 and along the way gave birth to the town of Sweetwater.

Sweetwater was a pretty wild place then. Saloons and bordellos lined the streets, serving the cowboys and later the oil men.

But the glory days of Sweetwater came to an end years ago, and the town went into a long, slow, decline. When the oil price collapsed in the mid-Eighties it looked like Sweetwater and the towns around it might actually shut down completely.

The Mayor of Sweetwater, Greg Wortham, described to me the terrible drought that almost bankrupted the last few ranching families here. Many had sold their cattle, their children had moved away and they were just about ready to call it a day.

Then, just a couple of years ago, Sweetwater discovered it was on the boundary of a new frontier, a new energy frontier.

In a decade the prospects of the town have been reversed. Billions of dollars have been invested here to create an energy industry that leads the world. The boom times are back for Sweetwater, but not the bordellos or saloons, this is strictly a clean energy revolution.

I've got to go out and take a look at what has been happening in Sweetwater now but I will write more about the energy revolution here in the next blog. Click on the funny orange "feed" button in the left hand column and the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ will tell you when it is posted up.

In the meantime tell me if you think I am right about the scale of the transformation that is needed and whether you think my comparison with the railroads a good one.

Please comment now.

Somewhere between Chicago and San Antonio - The policies of America under former President George Bush are regarded as having been one of the greatest obstacles to international progress on tackling global warming.

But President Bush's central objection to regulation on carbon emissions was actually very sensible.

Mr Bush argued that regulation would make it more costly for businesses to operate in the United States and the result would be that production would move elsewhere. The effect, he argued, would be political suicide: American jobs would be exported abroad.

What is more, the policy would not succeed in reducing emissions. The polluting industries would simply have moved to countries with less stringent regulation.

The economic logic is straightforward and very persuasive, yet the Obama Administration is determined to introduce a limit to America's emissions of carbon dioxide, as I reported in my last blog.

So why does the White House believe it can reduce emissions without damaging American industry?

First off, the White House believes that imposing a cap-and-trade system will kick-start America's transition into a world-leading low carbon economy. The President believes that creating this green economy will be a key part of the country's efforts to lift itself out of its current economic torpor.

Second, this is not about economics alone. President Obama has said he believes action on climate change is imperative.

On Monday I followed a protest march on the coal and gas fired plant that powers the Capitol building. The Nasa climate scientist Dr James Hansen was one of the protestors.

Dr Hansen restated to me that unless the world takes action to reduce climate change within the next four years it is unlikely, in his view, that it will be possible to avoid catastrophic climate change.

But the clincher for President Obama and his advisors is that he believes the world is now ready to come together and agree to begin to stabilise and, in time, reduce the world's greenhouse gas emissions.

The reason America is the game-changer on climate is because it has not just put tackling climate change at the centre of his domestic agenda. It is also now at the centre of its foreign policy too.

When I spoke to , the man who headed President Obama's transition, he described climate issues as "at the heart of having the US be at the front and project a wholly different face to the world."

That became clear last month when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton undertook her first diplomatic mission abroad. Climate change was her primary issue as she travelled through Asia. She raised it at every stop along the way: Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and China.

The sense of urgency was evident.

"What we hope is that you won't make the same mistakes we made," Secretary of State Clinton said in China, "because I don't think China or the world can afford that."

And America's diplomatic effort is not just focused on China. While we have been in Washington the United Nation's top climate official, Yvo de Boer, has been in town. A team from Denmark has been discussing climate change at the White House and, of course, this week Gordon Brown rolled in too, accompanied by his climate change minister, Ed Miliband.

The climax of this flurry of international negotiation will be the where the successor to the Kyoto treaty will be drawn up.

If America has imposed a limit on its greenhouse gas emissions when it goes to Copenhagen it will be in a very strong position to begin to persuade other countries to begin to regulate their emissions.

Mr Podesta acknowledged that America will need to address former President Bush's objection to carbon regulation. It will need to try to ensure that no country seeks to profit from the rest of the world's attempt to tackle global warming by operating as a kind of off-shore high-carbon industrial centre.

"That's one of our thorniest problems," he told me, "to think about border adjustments so that we're not just 'off-shoring' our pollution to some other country, both weakening job growth in the US and not doing anything about climate change overall, and increasing pollution in those other countries, that's an issue that will have to be resolved at Copenhagen."

These will be tough negotiations, which is, perhaps, what America's climate change envoy Todd Stern meant when he said last week that he intended to be involved in the negotiation of a new treaty "in a robust way." But the change in America's approach gives real reason for hope.

I've been writing this blog on the Texas Eagle, the Amtrak train from Chicago to San Antonio. The two-day journey has given me time to think.

I left Britain pretty pessimistic about the prospects of an international agreement on climate. I've been in America for just over two weeks now, and already I feel much more optimistic. The changes we have been witnessing as we travel around the country really have transformed the global equation on climate change.

That is why America is the game-changer on climate. It is the only nation, which could conceivably get the world to agree to tackle global warming.

Do you agree or has all the Mexican food I've been eating gone to my head?

Join the debate, comment now!

And, as always, you can follow me on and continue the discussion on .

Washington, DC - The Obama administration will set a limit on the carbon emissions of the United States, whether or not the climate change bill the President proposed last week is passed by Congress and the Senate, I reported on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Newsnight yesterday.

Do not underestimate the importance of this.

If America imposes a limit on its carbon dioxide emissions it really is a "game-changer". It would send an absolutely unambiguous signal to the world that the Obama Administration is serious about climate issues, and means that an international agreement to tackle global warming might actually be possible.

I had spent the day watching the culmination of the Power Shift summit of young activists.

The climax was a rally outside the Capitol.

And then a separately organised march to the coal and gas fired station that generates heat and power for the congressional building itself.

Then I rushed across Washington to file my story.

It was the result of an exclusive interview with John Podesta, a key Obama administration insider. He is the man who oversaw President Obama's transition and is the President of the Center for American Progress.

He told me: "there is no question that a cap is coming."

Last week, President Obama proposed a climate bill which would establish cap-and-trade system for regulating carbon dioxide emissions. published last week said the cap would reduce America's carbon dioxide emissions by 14% below 2005 levels by 2020, and 83% below 2005 levels by 2050.

The problem for the administration is that it is not expected that the bill will pass both houses of Congress. The question has been whether that would derail its plans to limit emissions.

John Podesta says it will not. He told me that the Obama administration will use the existing powers of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set a limit on carbon dioxide emissions. And remember, this is the man who oversaw the planning of the new administration's policies.

"Failure is not an option", he said. "The President has tremendous authority under existing law to really move this country forward. Under the Clean Air Act in particular he can directly regulate power plant emissions, he can directly regulate tail pipe emissions from autos and so I think the Congress has to be aware that if they completely fail in their job, there's someone in the Oval Office who's going to get the job done for the American people."

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The series of Ethical Man films will begin on Newsnight in the UK and World News America across the globe when I get back.

But for now, here's a brief sneak preview of what we've been up to, including me getting my collar felt by Michigan's finest.

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Washington, DC - Twelve thousand students have gathered in the heart of Washington DC with their backpacks and sleeping bag rolls. Their aim is to create a movement that will battle for action on global warming across the United States.

On Monday, they will demonstrate outside the Capitol building. Then they plan what the organisation's leaders claim will be the largest mass civil disobedience on climate change the world has ever seen. They aim to break into and occupy the coal- and gas-fired power station that powers the congressional building itself.

America has a long history of protest movements - women's rights, civil rights, anti-war protests - but this one is unusual in a very significant way. This movement is supported by the President of the United States himself.

The first two speakers at the opening rally of on Friday night were senior administration members, Obama appointees. They sounded very similar to the young activists they were addressing.

First up was , the Administrator of the , the 17,000-strong body responsible for protecting human health and the environment in America. She was introduced to the crowd as "one of us". Here's a clip:

"I am so excited to be here tonight." She told the cheering audience, "As EPA administrator I am excited by your issues but I am more excited by your energy and your power."

Then came the Secretary of State for the Interior. "We must change the world," said to an ovation from the crowd, "we must tackle this issue of the new energy frontier... and tackle the challenge of global warming." (.)

The organiser of Power Shift '09, , was thrilled. "It is unbelievable for me to stand last night behind the stage with Administrator Jackson and Secretary Salazar", she says, "and to realise for the first time in my life as an activist that I had partners and allies inside government to work beside us. They literally said we need your help to make this happen, we need your 12,000 leaders."

So why is the Obama administration making such efforts to woo what many Americans would see as a rabble of student activists and hard-core greens?

There is real politics here. President Obama said that, once in power, he would draw on the millions of people who signed up to support his campaign. Here is a clear example of that in practice.

Last week the President asked Congress for legislation to establish a cap-and-trade system to limit greenhouse gas emissions in America. But he is expected to struggle to get his climate bill through Congress and the Senate.

The Obama administration is here to mobilise this army of green activists to agitate throughout America to help it get this legislation passed. That fact could not have been made more explicit.

"We need your help because we are living in some difficult and extraordinary times." Ken Salazar told the crowd. "I want you to be part of our energy and climate change department."

This is Lisa Jackson: "We will need your partnership and your support and experience."

The Power Shift organisers know the potential of the activists here. "These 12,000 young people have the potential to engage hundreds of thousands of their peers around this country", Jessy Tolkan says, "and we need a massive movement and very loud public demands in order to get our Congress to act."

These are not a bunch of anti-capitalist anarchists meeting in some community hall. This is a slickly managed, professional affair. Power Shift is being held in the Washington Convention Center, the largest conference centre in DC.

A glance at the list of sponsors brings home a sense of the breadth of support there is for this movement. and the are there, as you might expect, but there are other, less likely sponsors. This revolution comes courtesy of funding from , The and .

As you would expect, there are rallies and concerts, but the core of what Power Shift is about happens in the dozens of workshops and panel discussions held during the four days of what the organisers bill as America's "largest summit on climate and energy".

You can learn about lobbying, the media, campaign planning, "task design", video tactics, recruiting volunteers, the list goes on and on. The theme is very clear: this is about giving people the leadership and organisational skills they need to campaign for action on climate change.

"The idea here is to provide these leaders with the tools they need", says Tolkan, "to make that leadership in thousands of communities around this country." On Monday, they will enter the Capitol building to lobby their Senators and Congressmen and women face to face.

She is in no doubt about what is happening. "I think this is one of the most significant things that has ever happened in this country around the issue of climate change," she says. "For the first time we have an actual movement of politically powerful enough people to push for real legislation from Congress. We intend to force this Congress to pass climate legislation in 2009. We believe that the US has the ability to go to having sent the strongest signal possible to the World that we are ready to lead on climate change."

Don't forget to follow me on and - and there's a, very brief, sneak preview video here of what we've been up to so far.