# Interviews with EDF President Fred Krupp

*Published:* 2008-03-18
*Author:* Sheryl Canter

![Sheryl Canter](https://blogs.edf.org/climate411/wp-content/blogs.dir/7/files/2008/02/sheryl_canter.jpg)*This post is by Sheryl Canter, an Online Writer and Editorial Manager at Environmental Defense Fund.*

Last week I wrote about the [TreeHugger interview](http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/03/the-th-interview-earth-the-sequel.php) with EDF President [Fred Krupp](http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=870) and Miriam Horn about their new book. *[Earth: The Sequel](http://earththesequel.edf.org/)* is an engaging look at emerging technology in the fight to stop global warming.

Fred has been getting around quite a bit lately. This week he also was interviewed by *[Forbes](http://www.forbes.com/business/2008/03/11/krupp-climate-carbon-environment-biz-beltway-cx_bw_0311earth.html)*, *[Newsweek](http://www.newsweek.com/id/123021)*, and *[Mercury News](http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_8592181)*. Each had a slightly different focus. Here are some excerpts:

On **why a carbon tax won’t work**, from the *[Forbes](http://www.forbes.com/business/2008/03/11/krupp-climate-carbon-environment-biz-beltway-cx_bw_0311earth.html)* interview:

> There’s no example of an air pollution problem anywhere in the world that has been solved without a cap or legal limit on how much of that pollution can be dumped into the sky. A cap gives you that legal limit, where a tax allows people to potentially keep on paying a modest amount and keep on polluting.

On **biofuels**, from the *[Newsweek](http://www.newsweek.com/id/123021)* interview:

> I think we’ve come to understand that the current generation of biofuels has problems and that we need a whole new generation. In the short-term, turning sugar into fuels other than ethanol would have many advantages, given the infrastructure problems ethanol creates. In the long-term, we are much better off when entrepreneurs develop ways to turn wood and fiber, not food, into energy.

On **the power of markets**, from the *[Mercury News](http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_8592181)* interview:

> Last night, we were up on Sand Hill Road. Somebody told me he had been walking around in a kind of funk, a depression. But, he said, now that he’s seen this future, he’s already starting to feel better. It’s not a message that we can disengage. It’s not a message that technology can solve it. It is a message that if government does the right thing, and if we put that entrepreneurism to work in service of a new profit motive that’s been designed to create the very things we need to have a future, wow, watch what happens, such as a $1.9 billion order for Applied Materials to make solar cells.