They say that generals always fight the last war. We say the energy war is over.

Who's we? Your call: smart people? compelling data? the laws of nature?

Some people still argue about "peak oil," but as Sheikh Zaki Yamani (OPEC's oil minister during the early 1970s "energy crisis") observed, "The stone age didn't end because we ran out of rocks."

Recent events? Wind energy cost competitive with fossil electricity. The Chicago Climate Exchange open and trading. Some 95 investment groups (managing $10 trillion) asking CEOs of the FT500 about carbon risk.

Markets may move too slowly, and they're still skewed by corporate welfare that make fossil energy seem cheaper than renewables, but they're moving faster than the think of the laggards -- both business people and environmentalists -- who still believe that we should subsidize "green" because otherwise "we can't afford it." Tell that to Toyota, whose 624,000 square foot LEED Gold building cost not a dime more than a standard building.

The real challenge: internalize the externalities, and get the prices right. How: Tax shift. Kill the subsidies. Polluter pays. Free the "free market" -- to tell the truth.

My favorite quote of a very full week comes from Woody Tasch, Chair of Investors Circle:"To IRR is human. To ERR is divine."

Gil Friend, President & CEO of Natural Logic Inc., blogs at radio.weblogs.com/0109157/