Quotes from Frances Beinecke

Strong limits on carbon pollution will save Americans money, create jobs, improve our health, and help defuse climate change.

The U.S. limits mercury, arsenic, and soot from power plants. Yet, astonishingly, there are no national limits on how much carbon pollution these plants can dump into our atmosphere.

Green roofs, roadside plantings, porous pavement, and sidewalk gardens have been proven to reduce flooding. They absorb rainwater before it swamps the streets and sewage systems.

I have talked to people across the country struggling in the face of an altered climate. New Jersey homeowners are trying to rebuild after Superstorm Sandy. Miami government officials are trying to plan for rising seas and flooded streets. California farmers are trying to make it through the state's worst drought on record.

Americans welcome carbon limits because they want to protect their families from harm.

Many environmental battles are won by delaying a destructive project long enough to change the conversation - to allow new economic, political and social dynamics to emerge.

The U.S. has a proud history of cleaning up our air through technological innovation. We did it with leaded gas, acid rain and countless other pollutants, and we can do it with carbon pollution, too.

Safer chemicals and more energy-efficient technologies can provide cooling without severe climate implications. Shifting to these alternatives could avoid the equivalent of 12 times the current annual carbon pollution of the United States by 2050.

Countries have made impressive pledges to cut carbon pollution, but we have to ensure these promises become actions.

Climate change deniers would have us believe that oil, gas, and coal are the only ways to power a modern, industrialized society. They are wrong, and the proof is all around us.

Back when the EPA proposed phasing out ozone-depleting CFCs, the chemical industry howled that refrigerators would fail in America's supermarkets, hospitals and schools.

We look back at the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments, where people screamed and hollered it's going to be too expensive, they couldn't afford it, and it wouldn't work. And it worked. It worked faster than people expected, at much less cost.

Opening up Atlantic and Arctic waters to drilling would lock the next generation into burning oil and gas in a way that only makes climate change that much worse, fueling ever rising seas, widening deserts, withering drought, blistering heat, raging storms, wildfires, floods and other hallmarks of climate chaos.

Once a landscape is industrialized, its wild character is lost for good. You can't recreate untouched tundra, mountain meadows, crystal clear streams, and animals that have never encountered toxic waste.

We can power our economy without despoiling our wild places.

Declaring the San Gabriel Mountains a national monument will make this natural wonder more accessible. It will welcome people from all walks of life and maintain the mountains' wild character at the same time.

All Americans have benefited from the dedicated service of Representative Henry Waxman. In every battle and in every moment that mattered most, Rep. Waxman stood up for the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the wild places we cherish.

Every year, tens of millions of salmon return to the pristine shores of Bristol Bay in Alaska. They linger in the bay's cool, shallow waters before charging up nearby streams to spawn and create another generation of wild salmon.

Shell has poured billions of dollars into offshore Arctic drilling, but no matter how much it spends, it cannot make the effort anything but a terrifying gamble. And if Shell, the most profitable company on Earth, can't buy its way to safety in Alaska, nobody can.

As heat rises, so does the number of people trying to cool down homes, schools, hospitals and businesses. This isn't just about comfort; it's a matter of public health.

Whether it is salt farmers in India embracing solar power or wind companies creating tens of thousands of jobs in America, people are providing a vision for the clean energy future.

I have visited people whose health has been endangered by tar sands oil. I have watched neighbors struggle to recover from Superstorm Sandy. I have seen solar panels and wind turbines become an increasingly familiar part of the landscape.

Striking a balance between wildlife conservation and wind energy development starts with understanding threats to eagle populations and how our actions, including operating wind farms, are affecting them.

In the end, the market will decide which is the better performer: dirty coal-fired power or clean wind and solar. Market-based competition. That doesn't sound like communism to me.