By Larry Schweiger

World Wildlife Fund released a report today that says we have until 2014 – five years – to initiate a low carbon economy before dangerous climate change tipping points and major economic disruptions are almost inevitable. The report also says that pricing carbon won’t be enough to bring about this transformation.

This report agrees with the thesis of my new book Last Chance: Preserving Life on Earth, that a transition of this speed will require the fastest industrial transformation in history but will reap economic and job benefits and enhance our national security and energy independence. As I say in my new book:

"The end of the carbon age is in view…Americans deserve safer energy choices and a rational energy policy that eliminates CO2 and other fossil fuel emissions from our skies. Most know that we must end our dangerous addiction to Middle Eastern oil controlled by dictators who hold the United States with disdain, but few Americans have fully grasped that we are running out of time to avoid a climate catastrophe. Since energy from the sun and wind are free, why do we continue to be addicted to expensive oil and dirty coal that are overheating our planet and cooling our economy?

"We must now move quickly to purge carbon emissions from every aspect of our economy and deploy creative ways to help nature remove excess CO2 from the atmosphere. The good news is that all of this vital work will create millions of high-tech and green-collar jobs in the United States, and it will spawn new corporations whose business model is green and black."

So what’s the biggest impediment to realizing this dream? We need to overcome the "entrenched and dirty carbon industry and their allies, who are blinded, brainwashed or too threatened to see the wondrous transformation ahead."