Montana governor Brian Schweitzer's speech to the Democratic convention last night brought the crowd to its feet. Schweitzer's performance was excellent. He bobbed and weaved, stretched words like taffy, and had the audience hanging on his every word. There's a problem, however. It's this line: "Barack Obama understands the most important barrel of oil is the one you don’t use."

Anti-carbon activists may not like it, but the fact is the global economy runs on fossil fuels. It will be a long, long time before those fuels are replaced by alternative energy, government subsidies notwithstanding. Using fewer barrels of oil requires constraining human behavior. This is not a winning message for the Democratic party.