The environment is the most important, the most fundamental, civil-rights issue.... Four out of every five toxic-waste dumps in America is in a black neighborhood.

Industrial agriculture now accounts for over half of America's water pollution. Two years ago, Pfiesteria outbreaks connected with wastes from industrial chicken factories forced the closure of two major tributaries of the Chesapeake and threatened Maryland's vital shellfish industry. Tyson Foods has polluted half of all streams in northwestern Arkansas with so much fecal bacteria that swimming is prohibited. Drugs and hormones needed to keep confined animals alive and growing are mainly excreted with the wastes and saturate local waterways.

I think we as Americans know there's a much better alternative than the 17th century practice of burning rocks to power our economy.

The journalists in America are no longer covering critical stories. Investigative journalism is gone. Foreign-news coverage is gone. The press is owned by five giant corporations.

There are two reforms that we need to restore our democracy. The first is campaign finance. We need to get the corporate money out of the election process. And second, we need to resolve the dysfunction in the environment. Looters are running agencies that are supposed to be protecting us from pollution.

If we don't cut carbon's money pipeline, we will pay for their gasoline with floods, droughts, fires, super storms, drowned cities, mass extinctions, wars, and collapsing civilizations.

The most patriotic thing you can do is to take care of the environment and try to live sustainably.