Feb 11 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Christopher D. Kirkpatrick The Charlotte Observer, N.C.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman told a crowd today that the country needs a "massive carbon tax" so energy companies would be forced to look to alternative and green energy to survive.

Carbon dioxide from vehicle exhaust, factory smokestacks, power plants and other manmade sources is blamed as a major cause of global warming, which scientists say is threatening the environment and mankind.

Without pain or a "price signal," being green will always be just fashion, he said. A so-called "green revolution" underway is really just a "green party," he said.

"Have you ever been to a revolution where no one got hurt," he told the crowd of about 1,000 today at the Emerging Issues Forum at N.C. State University. "If there's one thing we could use, it's a little, change or die."

Friedman, best selling author of "The World is Flat," was the Monday headliner at a two-day conference of leaders from the energy industry, including General Electric Corp. chief executive Jeffrey Immelt and Duke Energy Corp. chief executive Jim Rogers.

The conference is focused on how the state can or should economically benefit from global warming. Global warming and how to respond to the crisis has taken center stage in American politics. The Democratically controlled Congress has said carbon regulations are on the way. A carbon tax is one of the proposed ways to curb the emissions, economy-wide.

The morning began with a handful of protestors outside the McKimmon Center on campus. The small group held a banner and protested a Duke Energy coal-fired plant project at its Cliffside facility about 55 miles west of Charlotte.

Rogers was scheduled to speak at 11:30 a.m. and a further protest could happen inside the conference center.

Coal-fired power plants are among the largest sources of carbon dioxide. Opponents of the project and the use of fossil fuels say energy efficiency and renewable energy, such as wind and solar, are key and should replace old-fashioned power plants.

Friedman echoed the Cliffside opponents, saying the green revolution needed to look more like the information technology revolution, where companies died that didn't keep up or innovate. He mentioned Wang computer company.

Friedman said that fear of global warming, real or not, is good for America because the nation needs to shift from fossil fuels to energy efficiency for more reasons than just global warming.

To get there, innovation is the key. But the big idea hasn't happened, yet, he said. For the green revolution to take root and evolve, it must be about promoting growth, he said.

That's the only way the world will take it seriously and why it has, until recently, been viewed as a fringe movement from the far left.

Friedman said that he is taking a year away from the New York Times to work on a new book about the need for America to be become the leading power in green energy and green living.

"Green is how we get our groove back," he said. "This is the great project of our generation."