Last week I had the great fortune of joining actor and UN goodwill ambassador Don Cheadle as a guest on MSNBC’s Morning Joe to discuss business and the environment. Hosts Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist posed some important questions and Don and I waxed poetic in our responses (or something like that).  There is only so much you can accomplish in a seven minute segment but I was pleased that Geist asked me to address Washington leaders directly. Willie stated that a lot of Washington leaders watch the show and then asked: “If you were to address them this morning what would you ask of them to help move this forward?” My response was simple: “Talk about it”.

These issues are not going away and we will pay dearly if we keep pretending that they do not exist. In an election year with the economy and US competitiveness the central issue, it is disappointing to see subjects like clean energy and smart infrastructure being ignored when addressing these issues could put so many Americans back to work. Cheadle drove this point home when he said “If we just contribute a small percentage of GDP toward this problem and try to find solutions for it, we can really jumpstart the economy.”

Joe Scarborough is an influential conservative voice in this country, and while he does not agree with a lot of the proposed solutions to deal with the environment, he is at least willing to talk about them. On the show he said he would like to have me back in the future to discuss further…I look forward to continuing the conversation.

You can watch the full Morning Joe segment here: