There would be a cost for dumping carbon into our atmosphere and a cap on total emissions. The government must make a clear and firm decision - terminating the idea in our society it is free to pump infinite amounts of carbon into the air. Once that happens, private capital will flow even more aggressively into developing and deploying the alternative, less-polluting technologies.

Deep patriots don't just sing the song, 'America the Beautiful' and then go home. We actually stick around to defend America’s beauty -- from the oil spillers, the clear-cutters and the mountaintop removers. Deep patriots don't just visit the Statue of Liberty and send a postcard home to grandma. We defend the principles upon which that great monument was founded -- 'give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.'

There's the God within and the God without, and you have to attend to the alignment of the two of them.

After all, we are not promoting welfare. We are promoting work. We are not pushing for more entitlement programs. We are pushing for more enterprise. We are not trying re-distribute existing wealth.

Progressives always like clean energy ideas. But conservatives should like this agenda, too.

I want to be remembered as one of the great innovators among social justice advocates of the 21st Century.

We should stop calling ourselves environmentalists - and just call ourselves patriots.