When it comes to climate and energy, Gates is a radical consumerist. In his view, energy consumption is good - it just needs to be clean energy.

In reality, studies show that investments to spur renewable energy and boost energy efficiency generate far more jobs than oil and coal.

The biggest tab the public picks up for fossil fuels has to do with what economists call 'external costs,' like the health effects of air and water pollution.

Ethanol doesn't burn cleaner than gasoline, nor is it cheaper.

But Big Oil and Big Coal have always been as skilled at propaganda as they are at mining and drilling. Like the tobacco industry before them, their success depends on keeping Americans stupid.

Extracting oil from the tar sands is a nasty, polluting, energy-intensive business.

So if you want to know how Exxon Mobil can make $10 billion profit in 90 days, just look around. The whole world was built for them.

Coal boosters like to tout coal as cheap and plentiful - well, not anymore. At least not in China.

When it comes to global warming, coal is the gorilla in the room.

If we drill the hell out of everything, including protected public lands and fragile regions like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, America can emerge as an 'energy superpower.'

The coal industry is an even larger part of the Australian economy than it is of the American, and it has an enormous amount of political power.

The mind is created when the universal consciousness conforms to societal consciousness.

You have a history of starving yourself, " he says gently.I lift my head. I meet his gaze. "I have a history that I don't like to talk about.

Never give up. If you don’t give up, you will get there in the end.

What I made depended on what I found on the street. At least in the beginning, my materials came from the street.

The man who claims he's never done anything courageous doesn't understand what courage really is.

Ever since I watched 'Roots,' I've dreamed of tracing my African ancestry and helping other people do the same.

We are all are equal, but some pay higher tax rates than others.

Last time I was sober, man I felt bad, Worst hangover that I ever had. It took six hamburgers, Scotch all night, Nicotine for breakfast just to put me right.

I didn't really have an act per se - a theatrical performance, as opposed to just: here I am, folks, and you're all supposed to be dead quiet while I sing eight or nine songs, then get off the stage.

In a world that is in chaos politically, socially and environmentally, how can the human race sustain another 100 years?