Barack Obama was elected in the hope that he would bring fundamental change to our nation’s policies. The most important change we need is to shift the basic structure of our economy away from burning fossil fuels, to renewable energies. This would solve a number of problems at the same time: climate change, dependence on foreign oil, the trade and payments deficits, economic renewal, unemployment, infrastructure maintenance. Unfortunately, President Obama has decided – or been coerced – to be a “centrist,” which basically means defending the status quo. That was all too evident in this week’s conference in Boston on mass transit, "Next Stop: A Summit on the Future of Transit."