Greetings from Austin! Andrew and I are down here at Netroots Nation, mixing with some incredible fellow bloggers and online activists, including some real leaders in the climate movement. (If you're here at the conference, come visit the 1Sky table in the exhibit hall!)

Right now I'm at a panel discussion with Josh Hilgart (Friends of the Earth), David Roberts (Grist.org), Ilyse Hogue (MoveOn), Natasha Chart (MyDD), and Nwamaka Agbo (Ella Baker Center). The conversation was primarily about getting climate change out of the environmental and progressive box that it sometimes gets trapped in.

All of the panelists were great, but some of the more salient points came from Dave and Ilyse, and I think they're absolutely right about approaching the climate crisis from an energy and economy perspective. As any good organizer will tell you, it comes down to meeting people where they are, which is what Ilyse was speaking to.

Here's my best attempt to summarize:

Dave Roberts from Grist:

• "This isn't about green or polar bears or ice caps or species. I don't need those things to make a pitch for a common sense economic policy response to our current situation." We need to be talking about basic economic revitalization.
• The prices of food and gas are going up. Every country in the world is trying to find new sources of energy and drive down fossil fuel prices.
• We have low growth and high prices. Over next decade, we need to flip that. Many trillions of dollars at stake: enormous growth area.
• As a country, we have a choice over how much of that market growth happens here vs elsewhere. We need to get cutting edge businesses.
• We need to move from our current low-wage, high-waste economy to a high-wage, low-waste economy.

Ilyse Hogue from MoveOn -- Five point plan:

1. Tell a simple, positive story that people can understand (lesson from MoveOn)
2. Start now to elevate and congratulate our true leaders at all levels -- local, state, national (e.g. Markey)
3. Prepare for disappointment: even with great political victories on the horizon, fossil fuel industry won't simply walk away.
4. Work from places of convergence, not divergence -- we need to start talking about resurgent middle class, domestic energy, and other issues that connect some of the most critical issues of the day to the climate challenge.
5. We need to build alternative constituencies -- where are the farmers, labor, etc?

In short, I feel like many of the conversations I've had with smart bloggers and leaders over the past few days have highlighted one thing: As a community and movement, we're talking a lot less about ice caps and polar bears now and a lot more about building a new energy economy for all -- one that keeps our lights on just as reliably and as affordably as today and is as American as Apple pie.