A large chunk of the reason we are in this current financial crisis is that investors were pouring money into the housing market, creating a bubble that inevitably burst. Investors put their money into sectors of the economy that are experiencing growth, and in the early years of this decade, the only sector that was experiencing consistent growth was housing.

The bailout being kicked around inside the beltway this week will do little more than maintain the liquidity of financial firms whose collapse could send devastating shockwaves around the global economy. Any regulation that is further imposed will serve to ensure that financial firms are a little more conservative in their leverage practices and their credit-swapping. However, in a sense, this only brings our economy back to square one.

The government could bring our economy beyond square one by creating growth through federal investment. Public investment in clean energy would expand an entire sector of the economy for private investors to direct their capital. If the government wants to see growth in the economy that creates wealth and jobs, it needs to invest in clean energy.

A clean energy sector has the potential to create wealth at all levels of the economy. It would create tons of creative class and white collar jobs for people innovating and researching new ways of creating cheap, abundant and clean energy profitably. As Andy Revkin put it yesterday, "my guess is that the next Google-style breakout success is likely to be an energy company."

But having a vibrant and strong clean energy sector would also create jobs at the blue collar and skilled labor level, people engaged in actually producing and building our Nation's clean energy system.

So, if we want to do more than just correct our current crisis, if we want more than to stumble from the verge of one meltdown to another, if we want a direction of beneficial, substantial, and real growth for America's economy that sees benefits in all areas of the country, than the best thing the federal government could do, after it fixes this crisis, is commit to investing in a new energy system for the country and the people who will build it.