Energy and climate in the 2015 State of the Union

The 2015 State of the Union Address was two nights ago.  As I did last year in Energy and climate in the State of the Union, I present the portions of President Obama's speech that deal with those two topics, as compiled by Inside Climate News.

...And we are as free from the grip of foreign oil as we've been in almost 30 years.

...At this moment, with a growing economy, shrinking deficits, bustling industry, booming energy production, we have risen from recession freer to write our own future than any other nation on Earth. It’s now up to us to choose who we want to be over the next fifteen years, and for decades to come.

...We believed we could reduce our dependence on foreign oil and protect our planet. And today, America is number one in oil and gas. America is number one in wind power. Every three weeks, we bring online as much solar power as we did in all of 2008.

21st century businesses need 21st century infrastructure...So let's set our sights higher than a single oil pipeline; let’s pass a bipartisan infrastructure plan that could create more than 30 times as many jobs per year and make this country stronger for decades to come.

...And no challenge, no challenge, poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change.

2014 was the planet’s warmest year on record.

Now, one year doesn’t make a trend, but this does: 14 of the 15 warmest years on record have all fallen in the first 15 years of this century.

I’ve heard some folks try to dodge the evidence by saying they’re not scientists, that we don’t have enough information to act. Well, I’m not a scientist either. But you know what? I know a lot of really good scientists at NASA and at NOAA and at our major universities, and the best scientists in the world are all telling us that our activities are changing the climate, and if we don’t act forcefully, we’ll continue to see rising oceans, longer, hotter heat waves, dangerous droughts and floods, and massive disruptions that can trigger greater migration and conflict and hunger around the globe. The Pentagon says that climate change poses immediate risks to our national security. We should act like it.

As for how I feel about what the President said, I'll be a good environmentalist and recycle.

As I've mentioned multiple times, but most appropriately last year at this time in Obama loved science in the State of the Union, "President Obama really likes the idea of sustainable development packaged as making America competitive, and his State of the Union address reinforced that meme."  He did it again this year and I'm glad he did.