Today is the first day of my Marshall Fellowship... sort of. We arrived in DC last night to begin orientation today. Yesterday, upon arrival, I was treated to a rainbow. Today, in DC, I wandered through a beautiful, quasi-Greek alley in DC. This is an auspicious beginning.

As many know, I was chosen l last year as a 2010 Marshall Fellow. It is quite an honor; the people with whom I'll be traveling are incredible, and I feel honored to be in their company. The premise of the fellowship is to build the Trans-Atlantic relationship.

We began today with an orientation in DC, our nation's capitol. We discussed energy policy, governing trends, and European vs American perceptions of leadership, Obama, and governance. I loved it. I find myself eager to again engage in political debate, in conversations around policy and governance and philosophy, a set of things easily left aside in daily life, as one trundles along through work and etc. Talking with a group of very bright, motivated individuals from both the US and Europe is inspiring, invigorating. A key takeaway for me: as one thinks about the US's inability to move toward a lower-carbon economy, I am often stumped; why can we not, as a society, internalize the reality of climate change? Today, a European colleague helped me see a possible explanation: culture. For some reason, our society (American) requires catalytic events for change. The example he used was 9/11: for Americans, that was the beginning of the possibility of terrorism. Our European counterparts have been living with the threat of terrorism in one guise or another for decades (this particular commentator was from Spain, where terrorism has been all too common (due to internal civil dispute), but terrorism in general has been far more common in Europe than in the US. As such, terrorism has been normalized (not a state to which I'd aspire, to be sure); they do not see the same urgency as the US vis-a-vis the "war on terror." However (and here is the dichotomy around which I've yet to wrap my head), the Europeans, if this group is to be believed, have accepted the scary reality of climate change, and are willing to preemptively take action to avert that danger. They've had no catalytic event, but have accepted the reality of the situation, and are working to avert it.

In the US, we reduce our driving when gas prices rise, but resume our old habits when they fall; we replace light bulbs, but refuse to accept the larger, long-term reality. I've never understood why - we are so eager to apply the precautionary principle in other areas, but for some reason, around climate change... nothing. Perhaps it's culture. Perhaps we need a catalytic event. I don't want such a thing to come to pass and yet... is that the only way?

After our afternoon of orientation, we reconvened at a great local restaurant, Fire Fly, which featured local farm-produced bounty. Dinner was great, and the conversation stimulating - with topics ranging from the coming mid-term elections to the great museums of Turkey.

More to come....