My conviction is that those fights need to be fought right now and can be won. And if in fact we have finite political capital, energy, resources, we need to win those fights. Barack Obama More Quotes by Barack Obama More Quotes From Barack Obama If there's one thing I would like to see, it'd be for us to be able to price the cost of carbon emissions. Barack Obama carbon-emissions climate cost We need scientists to design new fuels. We need farmers to help grow them. We need engineers to invent new technologies. We need entrepreneurs to sell those technologies. We need workers to operate assembly lines that hum with high-tech, zero-carbon components. We need builders to hammer into place the foundations for a clean energy age. We need diplomats and businessmen and women, and Peace Corps volunteers to help developing nations skip past the dirty phase of development and transition to sustainable sources of energy. In other words, we need you. Barack Obama zero past dirty Today, about 40 percent of America's carbon pollution comes from our power plants. There are no federal limits to the amount those plants can pump into the air. None. We limit the amount of toxic chemicals like mercury, and sulfur, and arsenic in our air and water, but power plants can dump as much carbon pollution into our atmosphere as they want. It's not smart, it's not right, it's not safe, and I determined it needs to stop. Barack Obama smart air america Yes, this is hard. But there should be no question that the United States of America is stepping up to the plate. We recognize our role in creating this problem; we embrace our responsibility to combat it. We will do our part, and we will help developing nations do theirs. But we can only succeed in combating climate change if we are joined in this effort by every nation - developed and developing alike. Nobody gets a pass. Barack Obama creating responsibility america We're showing that there's no excuse for other nations to come together, both developed and developing, to achieve a strong global climate agreement next year. Barack Obama strong agreement years Many of you know that I got my name, Barack, from my father. What you may not know is Barack is actually Swahili for 'That One.' And I got my middle name from somebody who obviously didn't think I'd ever run for president. Barack Obama running father thinking If we want America to stay on the cutting edge, we need young Americans to master the tools and technology that will change the way we do just about everything. Barack Obama cutting technology america We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before. Barack Obama oil alternatives survival Environmentalism is not an upper-income issue, it's not a white issue, it's not a black issue, it's not a South or a North or an East or a West issue. It's an issue that all of us have a stake in. And if I can do anything to make sure that not just my daughter but every child in America has green pastures to run in and clean air to breathe and clean water to swim in, then that is something I'm going to work my hardest to make happen. Barack Obama daughter running children America is a land of big dreamers and big hopes. It is this hope that has sustained us through revolution and civil war, depression and world war, a struggle for civil and social rights and the brink of nuclear crisis. And it is because our dreamers dreamed that we have emerged from each challenge more united, more prosperous, and more admired than before. Barack Obama struggle depression war Only a handful of men and women leave an imprint on the conscience of a nation and on the history that they helped shape. Barack Obama shapes hero men Libraries remind us that truth isn't about who yells the loudest, but who has the right information. Because even as we're the most religious of people, America's innovative genius has always been preserved because we also have a deep faith in facts. Barack Obama religious america people The actions of those in power can have enormous consequences - a price that they themselves almost never have to pay. Barack Obama authority action pay There are so many errors and misstatements in that list that I won't even begin to name them. Obama was right about one thing, though - Islam has always been a part of America's story. Barack Obama errors names america Specifically, the part where in the early 19th century America reconstituted the U.S. Marine Corps to battle the Islamic Barbary Pirates, though I don't think that's what Obama meant. Barack Obama islamic marine thinking From Obama's book, "The Audacity of Hope:" "I am not willing to have the state deny American citizens a civil union that confers equivalent rights on such basic matters as hospital visitation or health insurance coverage simply because the people they love are of the same sex - nor am I willing to accept a reading of the Bible that considers an obscure line in Romans to be more defining of Christianity than the Sermon on the Mount." Barack Obama reading book sex I've been to 57 states. Barack Obama politics states Tonight, somewhere in America, a young person, let's say a young man, will struggle to fall to sleep, wrestling alone with a secret he's held as long as he can remember. Soon, perhaps, he will decide it's time to let that secret out. What happens next depends on him, his family, as well as his friends and his teachers and his community. But it also depends on us - on the kind of society we engender, the kind of future we build. Barack Obama struggle teacher fall My advice to African leaders is to make sure that if, in fact, China is putting in roads and bridges, number one, that they are hiring African workers; number two, that the roads don't just lead from the mine to the port to Shanghai. Barack Obama bridges numbers two Washington is a place where good ideas go to die. Barack Obama politics america ideas
