Renewable Quotes & Sayings

If we are going to start calling industrial corn sustainable, then we might as well say that petroleum is a renewable resource if you're willing to wait long enough. — Catherine Friend

Our oil-based society depends on non-renewable resources. It requires relentless probing into vast reaches of pristine land, sacrificing vital bioregions, and irreplaceable cultures. The possibility of catastrophic climate change is substantially increased by the 40 million barrels of oil burned every day by vehicles. We must all move shoulder to shoulder in a unified front to show this administration that the true majority of people are willing to vote for a cleaner environment and won't back down. — Leonardo DiCaprio

Promoting the use of sustainable and renewable rainforest products can help to stop rainforest devastation. The rainforests are much more valuable alive than cut or burned, providing a steady supply of medicinal plants, fruits, nuts and oils. — Chris Kilham

The future is green energy, sustainability, renewable energy. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

The enormous amount of financial resources and creative energy that nations have spent on wars and weapons could have been redirected to curing deadly diseases, feeding the hungry, eliminating poverty, promoting art and culture, investing in renewable clean energy, and solving a host of other important challenges facing humanity. — Newton Lee

I'm for ethanol, and I think it's a very important partial ingredient of the overall mix of alternative and renewable fuels we ought to commit to. — John F. Kerry

I think that the world is in the middle of a huge transition that we have to make to renewable energy. We have to transition away from fossil fuels very, very quickly. — Josh Fox

Hope is a renewable option:
If you run out of it at the end of the day, you get to start over in the morning. — Barbara Kingsolver

The books [poetry collections] may not sell, but neither are they given away or thrown away. They tend, more than other books, to fall apart in their owners' hands. Not I suppose good news in a culture and economy built on obsolescence. But for a book to be loved this way and turned to this way for consolation and intense renewable excitement seems to me a marvel. — Louise Gluck

But to truly transform our economy, protect our security, and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy. So I ask this Congress to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America. — Barack Obama

But reducing harmful emissions, abating our dependence on foreign oil and developing alternative renewable energy sources have benefits that go beyond environmental health, they improve personal health, enhance national security and encourage our nation's economic viability. — Jim Clyburn

If you're going to spend most of your time in your democracy figuring out how to get oil by intervening into other people's countries and insuring that you follow it with military might, we think there's an alternative. Which would be renewable energy. — Winona LaDuke

Creativity is an infinitely renewable resource - you are not going to run out of it - so don't be afraid to use it. — Biz Stone

Mainstream economists habitually treat asset depletion as income, while ignoring the value of the assets themselves. If the owner of an old-growth forest cuts it and sells the timber, the market may record a drop in the land's monetary value, but otherwise the ecological damage done is regarded as an externality. Irreplaceable biological assets, in this case, have been liquidated; thus the benefit of these assets to future generations is denied. From an ecosystem point of view, an economy that does not heavily tax the extraction of non-renewable resources is like a jobless person rapidly spending an inheritance. — Anonymous

I strongly agree with Vice President Gore that we cannot drill our way to energy independence, but must fast-track investments in renewable sources of energy like solar power, wind power and advanced biofuels. — Barack Obama

We've offered direct financial support for a range of renewable energy sources, whether it be large-scale solar, whether it be geothermal, whether it be wave power or wind power. — Denis Napthine

We rushed into renewable energy without any thought. The schemes are largely hopelessly inefficient and unpleasant. I personally can't stand windmills at any price. — James Lovelock

Some of our businesses use more energy than others, but our strategy everywhere is the same.. first, reduce our use of energy as much as possible. Then, switch to renewable sources of power where it makes economic sense. And, over time, as a last resort, offset the emissions we can't avoid. — Rupert Murdoch

The sooner we switch away from carbon-based fuel and start relying on renewable energy sources available in the United States, the sooner we will grow our economy by creating the millions of new jobs that will come from retrofitting homes and businesses, building smart grids, renewable energy systems and planting trees and all the rest. We need to create a lot of jobs that can't be outsourced. — Al Gore

The main power of divestment is not that it financially harms Shell and Chevron in the short term but that it erodes the social license of fossil fuel companies and builds pressure on politicians to introduce across-the-board emission reductions. That pressure, in turn, increases suspicions in the investment community that fossil fuel stocks are overvalued. The benefit of an accompanying reinvestment strategy, or a visionary investment strategy from the start, is that it has the potential to turn the screws on the industry much tighter, strengthening the renewable energy sector so that it is better able to compete directly with fossil fuels, while bolstering the frontline land defenders who need to be able to offer real economic alternatives to their communities. — Naomi Klein

The handling of our forests as a continuous, renewable resource means permanent employment and stability to our country life. The forests are also needed for mitigating extreme climatic fluctuations, holding the soil on the slopes, retaining the moisture in the ground, and controlling the equable flow of water in our streams. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

Falling prices are driving renewable energy investment in India, which rose 13 per cent last year and is expected to surpass 10 billion dollars in 2015. Adoption of increasingly cost-effective renewables holds the genuine promise of a new age of socio-economic development, powered by clean, increasingly decentralised, and sustainable energy. The opportunity for India is tremendous. — Adnan

I'm the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity - using clean, renewable energy as the key - into coal country, because we're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business. — Hillary Clinton

If we truly want an innovative and creative renewable fuel industry, then it needs to be challenged. And if we create a set of protections that allow it to not be as creative and innovative as possible, then we aren't doing a service to the industry or to the people of this country. — Tom Vilsack

Poems are endlessly renewable resources. Whatever you bring to them, at whatever stage of life, gets mirrored back, refracted, reread in new ways. — Jonathan Galassi

Renewable biofuels are meanwhile making inroads in the transportation fuels market and are beginning to have a measurable impact on demand for petroleum fuels, contributing to a decline in oil consumption in the United States in particular starting in 2006 ... The 93 billion liters of biofuels produced worldwide in 2009 displaced the equivalent of an estimated 68 billion liters of gasoline, equal to about 5 percent of world gasoline production. — Christopher Flavin

As one of the nation's top agricultural states, Nebraska has a great opportunity to provide input that will help shape the 2007 Farm Bill, .. This legislation will help determine commodity price supports, priorities with regard to conservation programs, as well as rural development, renewable energy and beginning farmer initiatives for several years to come. — Dave Heineman

Electricity is derived from many non-renewable energy sources like oil, natural gas and coal. — Lamar S. Smith

We have been getting rich by depleting all our natural stocks - water, hydrocarbons, forests, rivers, fish and arable land - and not by generating renewable flows. — Joseph J. Romm

Because we are now running out of gas and oil, we must prepare quickly for a third change, to strict conservation and to the use of ... permanent renewable energy sources, like solar power. — Jimmy Carter

Where's Nadine?" "She went out for a walk the other day and didn't come back." "Really." I tried to sound surprised. "No sweat," he said. "Pussy may well be the only true renewable resource, Leo. I've got another one lined up for when I get back." I had to admire a man with that kind of insight and planning. — G.M. Ford

Things poll well, but people don't believe that politicians are telling the truth. Politicians might mention renewable energy, and the public will think, "That sounds good, but I don't believe they're going to do everything they can to build those towers." — Zephyr Teachout

Africa, in particular, has barely begun to exploit its renewable energy potential. Energy analysts say that solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, and biomass sources could more than supply the energy needs of every continent. The key is providing a favorable playing field, and that means financial aid, technology transfer, and training programs to assist developing nations, like the ones being advanced by the EU/AU partnership. — Jeremy Rifkin

The sunlight ... that strikes Earth's land surface in two hours is equivalent to total human energy use in a year. While much of that sunlight becomes heat, solar energy is also responsible for the energy embodied in wind, hydro, wave, and biomass, each with the potential to be harnessed for human use. Only a small portion of that enormous daily, renewable flux of energy will ever be needed by humanity. — Christopher Flavin

I suggest we take our heads out of the tar sands and look up to see the sun. We don't own it, but it provides us all with great, endless value. So, too, the wind. These free, renewable sources of 'energy currency' are perfect partners to what we own together. — William McDonough

The relationship between renewable energy sources and the communities we expect to host them must be appropriate and sustainable and, above all, acceptable to local people. — Owen Paterson

A distinction between renewable and not renewable energy is academic. — Carlo Rubbia

For decades, we've been told that it doesn't make economic sense to switch to renewable energy. Today, that's no longer true. — Barack Obama

Mexico holds the fifth-largest shale gas reserve in the world, in addition to large deep-water oil reserves and a tremendous potential in renewable energy. — Enrique Pena Nieto

Do you know what my favorite renewable fuel is? An ecosystem for innovation. — Thomas Friedman

In my current work on global warming, I argue that the only apparent solution to the deep problem of climate change would require very large transfers of wealth from rich nations to poor nations, so that the entire world can make the transition to renewable forms of energy as fast as possible. — Philip Kitcher

We have for the first time an economy based on a key resource [Information] that is not only renewable, but self- generating. Running out of it is not a problem, but drowning in it is. — John Naisbitt

Turkey's energy bill due to imports will fall with the increase in use of renewable energy sources. We have no control over the prices of petroleum and natural gas. — Ali Babacan

We should see the leadership from the White House setting dates certain for certain goals of achieving greater alliance on alternative and renewable energy sources, but we are not. — Ron Kind

I have a dream that in the not-too-distant future, Visy Tumut will spend around $100 m to expand our clean energy generation here and take in additional waste forest wood to generate clean renewable energy and sell it into the power grid. — Anthony Pratt

Renewable ethanol represents a clear opportunity to grow a significant portion of our own fuel locally and begin to break the hold imported fuels have on us. — Mike May

Allow intelligent design into science textbooks, lecture halls, and laboratories, and the cost to the frontier of scientific discovery - the frontier that drives the economies of the future - would be incalculable. I don't want students who could make the next major breakthrough in renewable energy sources or space travel to have been taught that anything they don't understand, and that nobody yet understands, is divinely constructed and therefore beyond their intellectual capacity. The day that happens, Americans will just sit in awe of what we don't understand, while we watch the rest of the world boldly go where no mortal has gone before. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Nuclear power and fossil fuels are the choices of the past. Renewable energy is the choice of the future that is here today. — Hermann Scheer

With leading research universities, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and private companies like Blue Sun working on developing alternative fuels, Colorado is poised to become an international leader in clean energy. — Ken Salazar

In nature the only source of energy is from the sun. So in ecological systems everything comes from the sun through the process of photosynthesis whereas now in human built environment our source of energy is from fossil fuels, renewable, wood energy or hydro-energy but it is not from the sun. So until we are able to operate and run a human built environment by imitating photosynthesis it will be a long while before we can have a true eco-system. — Ken Yeang

I am grateful to the fossil fuel industry for bringing us the concentrated carbon that took us through the Industrial Revolution and through the technological revolution and brought us to the gateway of the renewable energy revolution, or what I call the sunlight revolution. But that is where we must part ways. It's the natural order. — Mark Ruffalo

They will also tell you how far along we are along the depletion curve; the optimists among them will even claim that there is nothing to worry about, because we have two or three decades of production left at the current level. It is to be expected that we will run out of fossil fuels before we run out of optimists, who are, along with fools and madmen, a renewable resource. — Dmitry Orlov

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. — Jeff Goodell

The technology is available to us today to begin the transition to 100 percent renewable energy. What is keeping us from making that transition is nothing more than misinformation, a lack of knowledge by most people of what is available, and an unwillingness on the part of many of our politicians for either ideological slavishness or something more self-serving, like major campaign contributions from the oil and gas corporations or from utilities who enjoy the monopoly they have on our energy systems. — Mark Ruffalo

Teaching is a great complement to writing. It's very social and gets you out of your own head. It's also very optimistic. It renews itself every year - it's a renewable resource. — Eleanor Catton

Our own time is not a renewable resource. — Ben Tolosa

One of the ugly secrets of the renewable-energy industry is that its products make no economic sense unless they are highly subsidized. — Nathan Myhrvold

Although it was created with the best of intentions, the federal government's Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program has become one of the worst and most costly boondoggles ever foisted on the American public. — Bob Beauprez

During my travels in Iraq, Israel, Gaza, Brazil, Indonesia, Japan, Europe and all over the United States, I have seen and heard the voices of people who want change. They want the stabilization of the economy, education and healthcare for all, renewable energy and an environmental vision with an eye on generations to come. — Michael Franti

You possess a non-renewable resource, which is headed toward total depletion and that resource is time. You can either invest your life or let it dribble through your fingers like sand in an hour glass. If there is ever a time to redeem every second, every minute it is now. You may never have tomorrow. You can't count your days, but with the Lord as your Savior you can make your days count. — Billy Graham

With the help of folks like you and me, Heifer International tackles the problem of hunger one family at a time with gifts of renewable resources - farm animals that are ongoing sources of food and income. — Susan Sarandon

If we can stay awake when our lives are changing, secrets will be revealed to us-secrets about ourselves, about the nature of life, and about the eternal source of happiness and peace that is always available, always renewable, already within us. — Elizabeth Lesser

It is true that renewable energy is expensive and can't be done without public sector support, it is an important investment in the future. — Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero

By the year 2000, such renewable energy sources could provide 40 percent of the global energy budget; by 2025, humanity could obtain 75 percent of its energy from solar resources. — Denis Hayes

Under [Tim] Cook's leadership, Apple is now using 100 percent renewable energy in the U.S. and China, and it's worked to improve conditions at its manufacturing plants in China. — Laura Sydell

Ultimate success for a carbon tax would mean so complete a shift to renewable energy that the tax would stop raising much revenue at all. — Timothy Noah

Today's energy mix is the result of yesterday's consumer habits, considerable investment, and various political decisions. The potential of renewable energies, now a well-established fact, is undeniable if given the time to arrive at the technical and economic maturity that will free them from subsidization policies. — Christophe De Margerie

Just as fossil fuels from conventional sources are finite and are becoming depleted, those from difficult sources will also run out. If we put all our energy and resources into continued fossil fuel extraction, we will have lost an opportunity to have invested in renewable energy. — David Suzuki

China attaches great importance to the utilization of renewable resources, making it one of the important moves to promote economic and social development — Hu Jintao

The revolution here is from hierarchical to lateral power. That's the power shift. So increasingly a younger generation that's grown up on the internet and now increasingly distributing renewable energies, they're measuring politics in terms of a struggle between centralized, hierarchical, top-down and closed and proprietary, versus distributed, open, collaborative, transparent. This shift, from hierarchical to lateral power, is going to change the way we live, the way we educate our children, and the way we govern the world. — Jeremy Rifkin

In a sense, the fossil fuels are a onetime gift that lifted us up from subsistence agriculture and eventually should lead us to a future based on renewable resources. — Kenneth S. Deffeyes

The 1,230 gigawatts (GW) of renewable power generating capacity in place at the end of 2009 now constitutes just over 25 percent of total generating capacity worldwide. This is over three times nuclear generating capacity and roughly 38 percent of the capacity of fossil fuel-burning power plants worldwide. — Christopher Flavin

So on the demand side [for energy], there have been a variety of policies that globally have been way over $50 billion a year of tax credits, raising the price of electricity through things like renewable portfolio standards, so the total amount of money that's gone into sending a price signal to push up demand versus what would happen without it has been gigantic. — Bill Gates

The notion that moving toward renewable energy will kill jobs is an absurdity on its face. The notion that we have to live smaller lifestyles; not have the American way of life or give up the American Dream is just ridiculous. It is the opposite of the case; a new energy paradigm will create opportunity. — Marshall Herskovitz

I think we need an American jobs agenda for the climate challenge which means American renewable grid, more renewable energy. — Martin O'Malley

Because personal revelation is a constantly renewable source of strength, it is possible to feel bathed in help even during turbulent times. — Julie B. Beck

Revelation is everything, not for its own sake, because most self-revelation is just garbage
oop!
yes, but we have to purge the garbage, toss it out, throw it into a bunker and burn it, because it is fuel. It's fossil fuel. And what do we do with fossil fuel? Why, we dump it into a bunker and burn it, of course. No, we don't do that. But you get my meaning. It's endlessly renewable, usable without diminishing one's capacity to create more. — Dave Eggers

A pen and a notebook and a reasonable amount of discrimination will change a journey from a mere annual into a perennial, its pleasures and pains renewable at will. — Freya Stark

My fellow Americans, people all over the world, we need to solve the climate crisis, it's not a political issue, it's a moral issue. We have everything we need to get started, with the possible exception of the will to act, that's a renewable resource, let's renew it. — Al Gore

The chief moral obligation of the 21st Century is to build a green economy that is strong enough to lift people out of poverty. Those communities that were locked out of the last century's pollution-based economy must be locked into the new, clean and renewable economy. Our youth need green-collar jobs, not jails. — Van Jones

When I studied graphic design, I learned a valuable lesson: There's no perfect answer to the puzzle, and creativity is a renewable resource. — Biz Stone

We've taken bold action at home by making historic investments in renewable energy, by putting our people to work increasing efficiency in our homes and buildings, and by pursuing comprehensive legislation to transform to a clean energy economy. — Barack Obama

We take a lot of things for granted in our lives, such as gravity, air, daylight and time. Yet time is one of God's most precious gifts to us. It is the most significant non-renewable resource at our disposal. We have less of it remaining with each passing day. When God gave this gift, He intended for us to use it carefully; intentionally, wisely and productively. — Tommy Barnett

In the case of European towns, the passing of centuries provides an enhancement; in the case of American towns, the passing of years brings degeneration. It is not simply that they have been newly built; they were built so as to be renewable as quickly as they were put up, that is, badly. — Claude Levi-Strauss

People worry that gas prices are high and how they are affecting their pocket book. But they want to know about renewable energy. People are really starting to question things, and that's made people look to the future in a positive way. — Michael Franti

Solar power is clean, renewable and cost effective, but it also needs time to develop. — J. D. Hayworth

As mayor of Anchorage, with 43 percent of the state's population, we have worked on a variety of projects from road projects to renewable energy to a variety of things. — Mark Begich

We are in the process of finding out what filling billions of acres with huge wind turbines does to the global environment. — Steven Magee

If you have a carbon cap and trade system, there'd be an agreed-to limit the amount of carbon we emit. That changes the economic picture for fossil technologies and for the renewable technologies. It makes the renewable technologies more attractive and the fossils less attractive. — Vinod Khosla

In the 21st century, hundreds of millions-and eventually billions-of human beings will transform their buildings into power plants to harvest renewable energies on site, store those energies in the form of hydrogen and share electricity, peer-to-peer, across local, regional, national and continental inter-grids that act much like the Internet. — Jeremy Rifkin

Every day I get to 'Think' and work on everything from digitizing electric grids so they can accommodate renewable energy and enable mass adoption of electric cars, helping major cities reduce congestion and pollution, to developing new micro-finance programs that help tiny businesses get started in markets such as Brazil, India, Africa. — Ginni Rometty

I've been told that I have a lot of energy. The secret is that I use renewable resources. Some days I'm solar powered. Some days I'm wind powered. And some people in this room might think I'm hybrid gas-powered. You'll just have to guess which it is today. — Bill Richardson

It's not going to help the country to be subsidizing uneconomical forms of energy - whether you call them 'green,' 'renewable' or whatever. In that case, the cure is worse than the disease. — Charles Koch

If a technology is elegant, biodegradable, made from renewable materials and employs a minimum of muscular, water or wind energy, is responsive, beautiful in its way, and challenging to the user in that it develops the user's senses and strength - it may comport with nature. — Stephanie Mills

By increasing the use of renewable fuels such as ethanol and bio-diesel, and providing the Department of Energy with a budget to create more energy efficiency options, agriculture can be the backbone of our energy supply as well. — John Salazar

Nonrenewable resources should be exploited, but at a rate equal to the creation of renewable substitutes. — Herman E. Daly

Natural gas is a bridge fuel. But it's not a bridge - it's a gangplank. It's either a bridge in space or a bridge in time. The bridge in time we don't need. We have renewable technology right now. — Josh Fox

One of the reasons I think the population question is important, if we want to be as green as possible, any of our energy that is truly renewable is limited. Solar and wind are intermittent and they're so diffuse, it's difficult to harness them in a significant way. But one thing we could be doing is making it a law (like it is in Israel and Cyprus) to take every building eight stories or under and heat all of the water in those buildings with solar energy. It's absolutely simple and cheap technology. — Alan Weisman

I think there's a really great amount of potential for Hawaii to become an example of what's possible with renewable energy because there are so many renewable resources here: energy, solar energy, and wind energy. There's so much potential here. — Jack Johnson

We ought to be using nuclear power. It's a renewable source of energy. — George W. Bush