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The following are some famous environmental quotes centered on the theme of Renewable Energy (Wind, Solar, Hydro, Geothermal, Biomass, and Tidal) as well as Conventional Energy (Nuclear, Coal, Oil, and Natural Gas). If you would like to go to the online environmental forum Click Here.
“Not only will atomic power be released, but someday we will harness the rise and fall of the tides and imprison the rays of the sun.”
- Thomas Edison
“How can you possibly talk about alternative energy sources without nuclear power? It can have a real impact on decreasing greenhouse gases.”
- John McCain
“I have no doubt that we will be successful in harnessing the sun’s energy…. If sunbeams were weapons of war, we should have had solar energy centuries ago.”
- Sir George Porter
“The solar industry is the poor counsin of the microchip industry.”
- Sass Peress
“First, there is the power of the Wind, constantly exerted over the globe.... Here is an almost incalculable power at our disposal, yet how trifling the use we make of it! It only serves to turn a few mills, blow a few vessels across the ocean, and a few trivial ends besides. What a poor compliment do we pay to our indefatigable and energetic servant!”
- Henry David Thoreau
“For this generation, climate change is our space race. The climate crisis is also one of the greatest economic opportunities in the history of our country. It will unleash a wave of innovation, create millions of new jobs, enhance our security and lead the world to a revolution in how we produce and use energy.”
- Hillary Clinton
“In 1973, America imported 30 percent of its crude oil needs. Today, that number has doubled to more than 60 percent. Gas prices are as high as they are now in part because we've had no comprehensive national energy policy for the past few decades.”
- Gary Miller
“I have a comprehensive energy plan. It does not rely on nuclear power. We should not be siting any more coal-powered plants unless they can have the most modern, clean technology. And I want big demonstration projects to figure out how we would capture and sequester carbon. This is going to take a massive effort. This should be our Apollo moon shot.”
- Hillary Clinton
“By furthering the use of ethanol, farmers are presented with the opportunity to produce a cash crop by collecting their agricultural wastes.”
- Richard Lugar
“The metabolism of the economy basing on fossil fuels is now on a collision course clearly with the metabolism of our planet.”
- Tim Flannery
“We need to reduce or at least limit U.S. demand for oil as quickly as possible, and we need to develop new technologies that can further help address our addiction to oil in the future.”
- Sherwood Boehlert
“Electric power is everywhere present in unlimited quantities and can drive the world's machinery without the need of coal, oil, gas, or any other fuels.”
- Nikola Tesla
“Energy is fundamental to U.S. domestic prosperity and national security. In fact, the complex ties between energy and U.S. national interests have drawn tighter over time. The advent of globalization, the growing gap between rich and poor, the war on terrorism, and the need to safeguard the earth's environment are all intertwined with energy concerns. Yet the current debate about U.S. energy policy is mainly about tax breaks for expanded production, access to public lands, and nuances of electricity regulation -- difficult issues all, but inadequate for the larger challenges. The staleness of the policy dialogue reflects a failure to recognize the importance of energy to the issues it affects. What is needed is a purposeful, strategic energy policy, not a grab bag drawn from interest-group wish lists.”
- Timothy Wirth
“What of solar? Ninety five percent of the tax dollars and subsidies in current energy legislation are slated for the polluters while only five percent goes to energy efficiency and renewable technologies like geothermal and solar power. Big Business plunders while the people sleep.”
- Ralph Nader
“Keep in mind that it was the American government that put a man on the moon. It was the American government that built the interstate highway system. And it was the American government that invented the Internet and created the electronics revolution. American companies are the best in the world at finding solutions to problems. The energy issue is one where the American government must step up to the plate.”
- Michael Shellenberger
“No one really wants to send their kids off to die for oil.”
- Daryl Hannah
“We consume about 25 percent of the world's oil every year, but we only have reserves, including that which has not been pumped, of about 3 percent of the oil reserves in the world.”
- Jay Inslee
“The reason I voted for it, the energy bill, was because it was the single largest investment in clean energy — solar, wind, biodiesel — that we had ever seen. If we are going to deal with our dependence on foreign oil, then we’re going to have to ramp up how we’re producing energy here in the United States.”
- Barack Obama
“A variety of factors contribute to the price of gasoline in the United States. These factors include worldwide supply, demand and competition for crude oil, taxes, regional differences in access to gasoline supplies and environmental regulations.”
- Gary Miller
“Nuclear power is not a solution for climate change.
It is a cynical gambit on the part of the global nuclear power industry to save itself from being phased out.
In addition to the risk of catastrophic accidents, nuclear power is hazardous because of pollution from day-to-day operations.
All stages of the nuclear fuel chain, including uranium mining, processing, refining, fuel fabrication, reactor operations and nuclear waste handling, emit radioactive, carcinogenic pollutants.”
- Irene Kock
“I have been consistently against Yucca Mountain. I held a hearing in the Environment Committee, the first that we’ve had in some time, looking at all the reasons why Yucca Mountain is not workable. The science does not support it. We do have to figure out what to do with nuclear waste”
- Hillary Clinton
“The US economy, because it's so energy wasteful, is much less efficient than either the European or Japanese economies. It takes us twice as much energy to produce a unit of GDP as it does in Europe and Japan. So, we're fundamentally less efficient and therefore less competitive, and the sooner we being to tighten up, the better it will be for our economy and society.”
- Hazel Henderson
“Here is a natural process powered by the sun that converts water from the soil and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into glucose and oxygen. The result is wood, civilization’s most versatile raw material – a material that is environmentally benign, renewable, recyclable and biodegradable. I know of no other earthly process that uses so little energy to create so many life-giving benefits. So long as harvesting is done sustainably in an environmentally responsible manner, there are no downsides to the continuing use of wood. The world should be using more wood, not less.”
- W.R.J. Sutton
“And when these advances are made, hydrogen can fill critical energy needs beyond transportation. Hydrogen can also be used to heat and generate electricity for our homes. The future possibilities of this energy source are enormous.”
- Dan Lipinski
“There is a reason it is called fossil fuel. It is an outdated method of getting power.”
- Alexandra Paul
“Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter.”
- Lewis L. Strauss
“I tell my environmental friends that they have won. Every issue we look at from an energy perspective is now also looked at from an environmental perspective.”
- Joe Barton
“We need an energy bill that encourages consumption.”
- George W. Bush
“That 2005 energy bill was big step backwards on the path to clean, renewable energy. That’s why I voted against it. That’s why I’m standing for the proposition — let’s take away the giveaways that were given to gas and oil, put them to work on solar and wind and geothermal and biofuels and all the rest that we need for a new energy future.”
- Hillary Clinton
“The price of crude oil accounts for 55 percent of the price of a gallon of gasoline, driven by global supply and demand. The United States depends on foreign sources of oil for 62 percent of our nation's supply. By 2010, this is projected to jump to 75 percent.”
- Gary Miller