oo often, debates about future cars are framed only in terms of technological choices -- diesel versus hybrid, for example, or short-term gains in gasoline efficiency versus long-term bets on hydrogen. These arguments are misguided. It is widely accepted that no one power train or fuel will solve the problem by itself. To curb the upward trajectory of greenhouse gases we will need to make significant progress across the board: with conventional and hybrid technologies that already exist and with advanced technologies like hydrogen. But we do not need a technology breakthrough so much as we need a breakthrough in desire -- in our desire to set goals and actually meet them.

We have spent $120 billion and counting on our entanglement in Iraq, a war fought, in good part, over oil. "For that same amount of money," says Hwang, "you could rebuild all of our factories to make the most fuel-efficient vehicles out there."

That's not big spending; it's big investment. "If Detroit doesn't retool, it's not going to be able to compete globally," says Hwang, who notes that one in ten American jobs flows from the auto industry. "Will it cost a lot? Yes. But how can we afford not to spend when it comes to protecting U.S. jobs? Let's not be too shortsighted or too narrow in our accounting."

How do we pay for this? Industry and environmentalists have suggested a gas tax at various times: Start with a dime per gallon, then add a dime a year for a decade. Twelve billion dollars could be raised in the first year -- lots of new money, most of which could be invested in transportation research, development, and retooling. The problem is that most folks consider this idea, politically speaking, a nonstarter. Straight-up governmental regulation would certainly assure progress, but this approach (take the CAFE debates, for example) has proven so politically divisive, not to mention unsuccessful, for the last 20 years that a new strategy is needed.

"If you want industry to do the right thing, look at their financial incentives and figure out how they can make money doing it," says Ashok Gupta at NRDC. "How can you expect them to do something that's not in their shareholders' interest? Government needs to set very clear goals in terms of what needs to be achieved, and then help industry retool to meet those goals."

Gupta and others support a creative array of manufacturer incentives. "The technology exists, so why isn't the industry doing it? Their response is that consumers don't want the product," he explains. "You could provide consumers with an incentive -- here's a $3,000 rebate -- but the problem for the auto industry is they still have to invest billions of dollars retooling their factories in hopes that the incentive will work. Will consumers show up? Risk is still on the auto industry side." Instead, Gupta believes incentives such as tax credits and investment write-offs could allow manufacturers to bring new and emerging technologies -- whether hybrid or hydrogen fuel cells -- to market so that consumers could see new products without a higher price tag.

However these incentives are structured, Gupta says there is a pretty broad consensus that they should be linked to a real improvement in fuel economy standards. By resisting the very principle of an average, industry-wide fuel economy, automakers are preventing the development of a much needed market for the efficient vehicles they are promising to deliver.

Perhaps the most encouraging progress has been the beginnings of a collaboration among industry, labor, government, and environmentalists to hammer out a functional, bipartisan plan. The National Commission on Energy Policy, a privately funded project whose diverse membership includes the chairman of ConocoPhillips, the president of the United Steelworkers of America, the chairman of the board of the Consumers Union, a former Ford executive, former heads of the Environmental Protection Administration and the Central Intelligence Agency, and a codirector of the NRDC's energy program, was to issue a report early next year. Disconcerted by the low profile of energy policy during the presidential campaign, the group accelerated its work to get a proposal on the table soon after the election. The commission was still at work when this issue went to press, but some attempt to resolve the fuel economy impasse is expected to be a significant component of its plan.

"That's where the hope is -- environmental groups, labor, and industry finally working together and presenting a solution to the political leadership rather than a problem," says Gupta. "If we can't get together and solve this, we can't expect our elected officials to do it. The hope is we will be able to hand them a solution and something will actually happen this time."

Which would be a good thing, since time is running out -- whether it's measured in terms of climate change, our dependence on foreign oil, or the national security risks inherent in that dependence. Meanwhile, the benefits of such a solution -- cleaner air, lower fuel prices, energy independence -- are immeasurable. We could do this. And the road ahead -- for us, for Detroit even -- would be bright indeed at the wheel of our shiny new automobiles.