The Breakthrough Institute has a knack for summing things up succinctly
The reason Obama’s plan for economic renewal through clean energy came up empty cannot be blamed on Republicans and global-warming deniers. In truth, the president’s strategy was flawed from the start. Cap-and-trade would not have birthed a domestic clean-energy economy — indeed, it wasn’t designed to. The idea that public works programs retrofitting buildings for energy efficiency could revitalize the inner-city was always far-fetched. A new industrial economy requires large, sustained investments in innovation and manufacturing like the kinds that built America’s information technology and biomedical industries. Too bad President Obama, Democrats and neoliberal greens still don’t seem to get it.