We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now we can control our future instead of letting the future control us.

Good evening. Tonight I want to have an unpleasant talk with you about a problem that is unprecedented in our history. With the exception of preventing war, this is the greatest challenge that our country will face during our lifetime. The energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us, but it will if we do not act quickly. It's a problem that we will not be able to solve in the next few years, and it's likely to get progressively worse through the rest of this century. We must not be selfish or timid if we hope to have a decent world for our children and our grandchildren. We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now we can control our future instead of letting the future control us.

Imagine what we can do next, Four more years. Pause.

Power corrupts, but we want energy.

You won't have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what, it will be fixed, it will be fine, you won't have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians...I love you Christians. I'm a Christian. I love you, get out, you gotta get out and vote. In four years, you don't have to vote again, we'll have it fixed so good you're not going to have to vote.

What is needed now is a long-term solution so we don’t go through this drama every few months.

The problem is not scarcity; the problem is power.

I wouldn’t advise making a four-year commitment to eventually land an $8.00/hour job. Skip college. Read Wikipedia for free instead.

Now is the time for change. We cannot drill our way out of the energy crisis. The era of fossil fuels is over. We must invest in renewable energy. And we must not delay.

Look, I'm at the start of my administration. One nice thing about the situation I find myself in is that I will be held accountable. You know, I've got four years. A year from now I think people are going to see that we're starting to make some progress. But there's still going to be some pain out there. If I don't have this done in three years, then there's going to be a one-term proposition.

Clearly, our number one priority at home -- now and in the years ahead -- is the strength of the national economy. It makes no sense for anyone in Congress or the Administration to try to blur the very obvious difference between the short run and the long run. Both are essential for our economic security, and we face major challenges on each. The most urgent short-run need is economic recovery. I strongly support Senator Daschle's plan. I believe Democrats are ready to work with the President for the kind of immediate, temporary, and fair stimulus that is essential to end this lingering recession and put our national economy back on the path of solid growth for the future. Neither side will get all it wants if we work together here. But surely we can agree to focus on the large number of laid-off workers and their families who are hurting, and who deserve help the most while they look for new jobs. Surely we can agree on the tax incentives that will actually encourage business investment now, without letting them become a transparent pretext for unaffordable longer-term tax giveaways or special interest bonanzas that the country can't afford.

Power is the near neighbour of necessity.

We cannot defer this responsibility to posterity. Time will not wait. Democracy, civilization itself, is at stake. Within the next few years we must change the basic structure of our global community from the present anarchic system of war and ever more destructive weaponry to a new system governed by a democratic UN federation.

I am desperate for change — now — not in 8 years or 12 years, but right now. We don’t have time to wait. We need big change — not just the shifting of power among insiders. We need to change the game, because the game is broken. When I think about the country I want to give my children, it’s not the world we have now. All I have to do is look into the faces of my children, and I realize how much work we need to do.