President Obama gets it.
"That bright blue ball rising over the moon's surface containing everything we hold dear - the laughter of children, a quiet sunset, all the hopes and dreams of posterity - that's what's at stake." -- President Barack Obama, June 25, 2013
On Tuesday, President Obama told us he gets it -- he's committed the U.S. to fighting climate change. He's putting the breaks on climate change. Obama is imagining a "cleaner, safer, more stable world," because he gets it. He gets that humans have created climate change by burning massive amounts of fossil fuels. He gets that these changes will have a devastating impact on people, ecosystems, and energy use. He gets that we must do something about it now.
"Sticking your head in the sand might make you feel safer, but it's not going to protect you from the coming storm."
"We have to all shoulder the responsibility for keeping the planet habitable, or we're going to suffer the consequences -- together."
"Our planet is changing in ways that will have profound impacts on all of humankind."
"We can't just drill our way out of the energy and climate challenge that we face."
"I urged Congress to come up with a bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change, like the one that Republican and Democratic senators worked on together a few years ago. And I still want to see that happen. I'm willing to work with anyone to make that happen."
"A low-carbon clean energy economy can be an engine of growth for decades to come."
"Those who are already feeling the effects of climate change don't have time to deny it - they're busy dealing with it."
"While we may not live to see the full realization of our ambition, we will have the satisfaction of knowing that the world we leave to our children will be better off for what we did."
"Someday, our children, and our children's children will look at us in the eye and they'll ask us, did we do all that we could when we had the chance to deal with this problem and leave them a cleaner, safer, more stable world?"
President Obama gets it.
Please join me in telling your representative to do everything in her or his power to support the president's plan HERE. Thank you.
Watch full speech here. For those visually-inclined (like me), here's an infographic.
Photo: Ben Scott for Bluerock Design