"In reality, Republicans have long been at war with clean energy. They have ridiculed investments in solar and wind power, bashed energy-efficiency standards, attacked state moves to promote renewable energy and championed laws that would enshrine taxpayer subsidies for fossil fuels while stripping them from wind and solar."

"With nine degrees of warming, computer models project that Australia will look like a disaster movie. Habitats for most vertebrates will vanish. Water supply to the Murray-Darling Basin will fall by half, severely curtailing food production."

"Americans don't pay much attention to environmental issues, because they aren't sexy. I mean, cleaning up coal plants and reining in outlaw frackers is hugely important work, but it doesn't get anybody's pulse racing."

"Obama wants to be thought of as the president who freed us from foreign oil. But if he doesn't show some political courage, he may well be remembered as the president who cooked the planet."

"An idea is a delicate seed; water it with curiosity and protect it from cynicism. In this truth lies the bedrock of all virtue — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"It is a timeless truth that time is the most impartial judge; it reveals all pretenses and rewards all patience."

"It is a radiant truth that clear thinking requires courage even more than intellect."

"It is a essential truth that the richness of existence is found in simple harmonies, not superfluous splendors."