MR. JONES: Hello. Well, first of all, I want to thank Gavin. He's been a great leader, a great inspiration and a great friend. I also want to thank you-all for getting up so early. Some of you-all are -- wake up. Stay up, man. You got here. Good to see you.

Well, I have a little bit of whiplash. 36 hours ago I was in the Arctic with Jimmy Carter.

(Laughter)

MR. JONES: And it's not a joke. It sounds like a joke, right?
(Laughter)

MR. JONES: Did you hear the one about the black guy in the Arctic with Jimmy Carter -- no. I was really --

(Laughter)

MR. JONES: -- in the Arctic, man. The Abominable Snow Negro. No, I was really there.

(Laughter)

MR. JONES: And the reason I -- so I'm a little bit -- I'm still a little bit jet-lagged. But I want you to know, if you didn't know, it was kind of kept quiet until it was over. But a number of people, huge dignitaries all got on a boat and went to the Arctic. We spent eight days. Jimmy Carter was there, Madeleine Albright, Tom Dashel, Larry Page from Google. But not just liberals and progressives. The head of Dupont was there. Eight days on a boat to look and see if what's happening with climate change is real. The head of Monsanto was there. We had Republicans and Democrats, young people, old people, faith leaders, Catholics, Evangelicals.

And I want you to know that after eight days of looking with our own eyes on what's going on, looking at the glaciers receding, looking at the animals and life up there that is suffering, watching the actual results and impacts of global warming that every single person who was a part of that delegation Left, Right and otherwise, agreed that Al Gore has been right the whole time, global warming is real.

(Audience applauding)

MR. JONES: We have to do something about it. Nobody who goes and looks at this thing has come to any other conclusion and you need to understand that. This is our moment. This is our opportunity.

Before I get to my -- my comments, though, since we're here, I want to tell you about my personal experience in the Arctic.

First of all, they had us on this boat, man. Black people have bad experiences with boats, man. You know, we -- it brought back memories, man. I was like I don't like this.

(Laughter)

MR. JONES: It was tough, man. And then boats are not big things. They're not like airplanes, you know, it's like, I guess, it's left over from the days of scurvy or something, they're small and -- okay, I busted my head open. Man, I'm serious, I busted my head open on a bulk head like the first day, which was not very impressive. So, you know, I was a little bit woozy.

The other thing that happened was we had this -- well, we had a meeting with them, we had a delegation -- a meeting of -- a delegation of polar bears and, you know, they were very polite, the polar bears. Us, talking to the polar bears. We didn't allow them on the boat. And, you know, they were very friendly and we tried to talk and whatever and obviously a lot of people go up there now to look at the thing. And I was surprised the polar bears were not as skinny and scrawny as I expected. They were definitely smaller than they were supposed to be, but they also looked -- some of them looked pretty healthy. And so I -- you know, I said what's going on, you guys look a lot healthier than I expected and nobody said anything, the polar bears they got quiet.

(Laughter)

MR. JONES: And the only polar bear that spoke up was the black one.

(Laughter)

MR. JONES: Oh, see you didn't know there were black polar bears and I'm telling you, man. Racism every where.

(Laughter)

MR. JONES: But the black polar bear was honest, man. He said, Look, tell you the truth, the seals, they are getting kind of scarce up here, but we've been snacking on these camera crews you-all keep sending. So tell Gore to keep giving the speeches, man, the camera crews are tasty.

So I say that because it's so important that we do more than just send delegations to the Arctic and talk about it and worry about it. It's time to take some real action. And I want to talk with you about our action plan. And I want to talk with you about the importance of it. Because one of the things that I saw when I was there was up close and personal with Jimmy Carter. And I think a lot of times in the progressive movement we kind of almost go along with the conservatives in making fun of Jimmy Carter, almost turning him into a punch line. But I want to say seeing him day after day he's one of the truly great human beings that's ever lived on this earth --

(Audience applauding)

MR. JONES: -- and we need to give him the respect that he's due.

(Audience applauding)

MR. JONES: Jimmy Carter -- Jimmy Carter was talking about the oil crisis, he was talking about solar power, he was talking about wind and energy 30 years ago. And if we had stayed with his program, if we had stayed with his policies, we wouldn't be where we are today. So he deserves the utmost respect from all of us. We need to rehabilitate Jimmy Carter. If -- if conservatives can rehabilitate Ronald Reagan, we can certainly rehabilitate Jimmy Carter.

And I want -- I want to say -- again, we're all friends here and it's early in the morning we may as well talk seriously, we have to learn the lessons, too, from his presidency, because we're about to go into a very similar situation.

Many of you are excited about the Democratic nominee. Many of you are excited about having a Democrat back in the White House and think that you're efforts may lend a hand toward getting him elected. I want to say to you you're excitement is understandable and your ability to get him elected is not in doubt. You probably can get this nominee elected. You probably cannot get him re-elected. I'm going to say it again. You can probably get him elected but you probably cannot get him re-elected unless we are very intelligent starting right now.

Now is the time to think about the re-election of this president not just the election. And the last time we had a Democrat in the White House, Democrats controlling the Senate, Democrats controlling the House, energy prices through the roof, jobs going down was Jimmy Carter. And we had four years of that and 12 years of Reagan-Bush. If we are not careful, if we are not smart, this could be four years as a precursor to the kind of right-wing backlash that will make us miss John McCain. Make us miss George W. Bush. Don't think it's not possible. There are dragons on the Right who in their anti-immigrant hatred, in their war mongering jingleism, in their commitment to drill and burn their way out of our energy crisis will make you miss John McCain.

So it is serious now that we have to figure out what is the set of policies and the program and the plan from the bottom up as well as the top down to insure that we have four years, eight years, 12 years, 24 years, a hundred years to fix the past eight; that's what we need. We need a -- a strategy for that.

(Audience applauding)

MR. JONES: Let me suggest to you that the term that we most must address as we talk about energy and climate is not a term about polar bears. It's not a term about polar bears. It's not a term about ice caps. It's a term from deep in the bowels of economics. The worst, scariest, most frightening, the most horrific term in all of economics, the term that killed the presidency of Jimmy Carter, the term that could turn this country over to the far Right in a very short period of time and that term is "stagflation." Stagflation. And it's something that we haven't had to talk about for 30 years, but it is a term that sends shivers down the -- the spine of anybody involved in politics.

What is stagflation? Stagflation is a -- is the worse possible outcome in market economics. Energy prices go up. And when they go up, they push up all prices because it takes energy to make everything, but there's a particularly pernicious effect on energy prices going up. It's that the prices of everything go up but jobs go down. Prices go up but jobs go down.

People buy less, they hire less. And over time society gets stretched on the rack of the pain of prices continuing to rise and jobs continuing to fall and good people get voted out of office. That's what happened to Jimmy Carter and it can happen to your nominee. There's only one way out of stagflation and that is to get energy prices down and stable.

Here is our problem. The right-wing has a strategy for getting energy prices down and stable, they want to drill and burn their way out of the problem. And you've heard it now for months. Drill now pay less. That is their strategy and they continue to beat the drum on that and now the Democrats are starting to get weak on the point and we cannot drill and burn our way out of this crisis, if we do we will bake this planet. That is a non-starter. It has to be off the table. We cannot drill and burn our way out.

But here's what we can do. We can say no, we aren't going to drill and burn our way out, but we can invent and invest our way out. We can invent and invest our way out. That's our strategy. That's our strategy. And why is it a good strategy? It's a good strategy because you only have to do two things. Cut demand for energy and diversify supply. Why is that good for us? Because both of those things create jobs.

Cutting demand creates jobs. Why? Cutting demand means conservation. It means weatherizing millions and millions of buildings across the country. Millions of buildings have to be weatherized so they don't leak so much energy. What does that mean? That creates thousands of contracts, millions of jobs, billions of dollars of economic stimulus. We're not building any more houses but we can begin to rebuild the ones that we have right now to save on energy costs. See, that's a way out. And it puts people to work. Cutting demand means a massive investment in public transportation, rail, clean buses, that's -- that's a way out. You cut demand for energy. And you create jobs doing it.

On the supply side diversifying our supply means wind. It means solar. It means all the things that Gavin was just talking about, but that also means jobs. Why? Many of you are going to get on airplanes right now. All of you-all concerned about carbon, you better put a whole bunch up. Me, too.

When you are flying over this country, look down. You'll see house after house after house, no solar panels. Go to sleep and wake up in an hour, you'll still be flying, look down. More houses without solar panels.

The next president of the United States should say we're going to have a World War II level mobilization, a crash program to weatherize and solarize America, put up millions of solar panels on every surface we can find and put people to work doing it. That's a way out. We have the technology. We have not had the political will to unleash that technology. And I'm proud to be part of an organization Green For All, that is in partnership with 1Sky, that is in partnership with Al Gore's Climate Alliance and other organizations to bring this into being.

And so I want to tell you the three things that we're going to be doing this fall and we need your active support and attention on, and then I want to talk to you about your role under this new administration.

Number one, we have to change the terms of debate going through the fall. We have been getting our butts whooped by this drill, drill, drill mantra and it's time for us to seize the terms of debate and show that we have the answers and we have solutions. That is going to be primarily up to you.

We've seen that the mainstream media is willing to follow the right wing down the hell hole of increasing carbon emissions for short-term potential gains and on gas prices. It's going to be up to you to tell a different story.

What is actually happening on our side that's not being covered? Three things: No. 1, we have legislation right now in front of Congress, the Green Jobs Act of 2007 and the Green Block Grant. What would they do? They would put enough money into the Department of Labor to send out to community colleges, vocational schools all around the country, enough money to train 30,000 people a year in green jobs in green trades. That is now being beat up and held up in Congress. We need your help to get the Green Jobs Act fully funded. No. 2, the mayors, the US Conference of Mayors has gotten this Green Block grant. It's called the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant. It is -- was authorized at two billion dollars. That's also being held up and beat up in Congress. That would be two billion dollars with a "B" so mayors like Gavin Newsom could get money to begin this program of weatherization and solarization in every city in America. That should be the number one priority for the entire country instead it's being held up. You can do something about that. You can do something about that.

Number Two, this fall we are going to launch a massive campaign to accelerate, be embraced by people in this country with green jobs.

If you look on your -- your tables there should be a sign-in sheet. Do you see it? Somebody hold it up -- everybody at the table touch your signs, hold it up. Hold it up so you can see it. We need you to sign up to be aware of this campaign on September 27th.

What date?

AUDIENCE: September 27th.

MR. JONES: What date?

AUDIENCE: September 27th.

MR. JONES: September 27th, which is a Saturday. All right. What day?

AUDIENCE: September 27th.

MR. JONES: Saturday. We're going to have the biggest national mobilization for green jobs in the history of the country. We're going to have thousands of rallies, thousands of house meetings all across the country calling for green jobs now. We would love for you to know about it. The only way for you to be fully informed about it is to sign up but that is going to launch this campaign to begin to change the terms of the debate.

This is not -- this movement for climate solutions is not just a solution -- a movement about the crisis. We know about the crisis. We know about the bad stuff. We now need to start talking about the good stuff. That is going to be the key.

Once people in the United States of America understand that this movement that we're trying to build is not just a movement to prevent something bad from happening, this is the movement that will finally get the good things happening. We think that we will be able to build the majority. Why? We want to be able to tell people for the first time guess what? This movement for climate solution is the movement that you have been waiting for your whole life. Why? Because we want to tell your child who might be standing on the street corner right now with no future, your child whose probably gone to more funerals this year if you live in urban America than he's ever going to graduations or proms. Or tell your child, guess what, we want to retrofit, reboot, repower, a nation and we need your help to do it.

We want to give you the tools and the training and the technology to rescue this country. We want to put the green hard hat on you, tool belt, work boots. We want to put you up on a rooftop where you can install solar panels, bring your grandmamma's light bill down. We're tired of your grandmamma sending checks to the PG&E and power companies. We want them to write her a check. See, that's what we want.

(Audience applauding)

MR. JONES: That's what this movement is about. We want them to write her a check. We want to take the asthma inhaler out of your little sister's pocket by closing down these dirty pollution power plants and --

(Audience applauding)

MR. JONES: -- letting her run and play again. We want to let you in on the ground floor of something that's going somewhere. This is not a dead-end job at Wal-Mart. See, once you get in on the ground floor as a solar panel installer doing green retrofits, this is going to be a growing industry and in a couple of years you can be a manager, an owner yourself and help to rebuild your community.

We want to be able to go door to door in America and tell people that this is the movement that will create new work, new wealth, new help, new investments. You see cities as Gavin said, 75 percent of our green house gas emission, there is no way to beat global warming without greening the cities. You can't save the polar bear without saving the poor children, too. It's one movement. It's one movement because it's one solution. That's the opportunity that we have.

The opportunity that we have is to say for the first time we have all this work that needs to be done. We have to build wind farms, we have to build wave farms, we have to build solar farms, we have to weatherize buildings, we have to put up solar panels, we have to plant trees, millions of them and take care of them, thousands of jobs, millions of jobs, billions of dollars of economic investment. This is the work that most needs to be done.

We have the opportunity to connect the people who most need work with the work that needs -- most needs to be done and fight pollution and poverty at the same time and bring this country together and bring the energy prices down. Bring the jobs up.

End forever the need for oil wars and resource wars and bring this country together. That's a promise of this green jobs movement. And we need your active support to evangelize this as a solution. It's not just going to save the polar bears. It's not just going to save the poor kids. It's the only way to save the presidency of the United States. We cannot afford to have two back to back failed presidencies in this country, the world can't afford it.

And the only way to save this new coming president -- people keep talking about his middle name is a problem. We worried about his middle name. Barack Hussein Obama. His middle name is not going to be Hussein if he wins this election. His middle name is going to be "Pinata." He will be Barack "Pinata" Obama. Trust me.

You are going to have the right-wing not in the White House, not running anything in the White House, not running anything in the Senate, not running anything in the House. They are going to have nothing to do but run their mouths against this president and they will ally themselves -- they will try to create a backlash alliance against anything he does on the environment, a backlash alliance between polluters and poor people, to say that the green revolution is nothing but an eco-elite movement trying to put green taxes on poor people to pay for their hybrid revolution. And it will be up to us to stand firm and proud and say no, no, no, this is not a movement we're going to do to poor people, it's not something we're going to do to vulnerable people, we're going to do it for and with poor and vulnerable people to bring them up.

(Audience applauding)

MR. JONES: You left them behind, we didn't. You put them down, we didn't.

(Audience applauding)

MR. JONES: That's what this movement is about. See, what you have to understand is that the fate of the world, the fate of the republic, the fate of the next president, the fate of the polar bears, the fate --the fate of low income people in rural and urban America and around the world is not dependent on a technological breakthrough. We already have the technology.

Enough sunlight falls on the earth in an hour to power everything in human civilization for a year. We already have the technology. It's not a policy question. We already know the right policies; you got to put a price on carbon, either with cap-and-trade or with carbon taxes, you have to move the government from being on the side of the problem makers in the economy to the problem solvers. But we know the policies, there are reams and reams of policies. It's not a policy breakthrough that is required. It's not a technological breakthrough that's required. It's not a business breakthrough that's required. It's a political breakthrough that's required. That's what's -- that's what's required.

(Audience applauding)

MR. JONES: We've got to get our politics right. How do we do that? When was the last time we had to do it?

Last time the government was this far off track and the people were hurting this much there was a new president named F.D.R., and he proposed this new deal but he wasn't alone. He represented the New Deal Coalition. Check that. He represented the New Deal Coalition. It was farmers, union workers, it was progressive business people and bankers, it was minorities, it was students, it was intellectuals. There was a coalition. And that coalition picked up the government that had been on the side of the problem makers and dumped it out and put it down on the side of the people. That's what this whole Netroots movement is ultimately going to be about.

Everything you've done up until now has just been prologue, it's just been the preface. You proven that you can beat the opposition. You can't have successful opposition movement without opposition media. And you've proven that you can in a very short period of time you built an absolute counterweight to FOX and to Rush Limbaugh, the -- everything the Conservatives built up in 20 years, you were able to match and checkmate and four. It's a huge achievement in the history of human civilization. You did that. You did that. If the republic will be saved, it's because of your efforts, that's true.

But now you done messed up. Now you got a problem. Because you-all are about to win. And I feel sorry for you. Because now you have to prove that your ideas aren't just good for protesting, they're good for governing. See this movement --

(Audience applauding)

MR. JONES: -- represents a hope that this country isn't just waiting for a movement they can critique it, the country's waiting for a movement that can inspire it. And that's your opportunity now and your obligation. See, we've got to now figure out how we govern.

And what I want to say to you is that there is a green new deal coalition. There is a green growth alliance out there waiting to be pulled together but it can't see itself.

The best of our progressive leaders are out there on their own. They're having to scratch and beg for a little tax credit extension for one year. They go year to year begging our wind energy -- industry, our solar industry, they have to beg every year just for a little bit of an extension just trying to keep alive their little companies. Meanwhile we send billions of dollars to oil and coal while they are making hand over fists. They need a movement. They've got the ideas. They need a political movement that can say stop this government from being on the side of the problem makers, the polluters, the war mongers, the Pentagon, the people who get all the money. The government needs to put on the side of the problem solvers but they can't do it by themselves.

The young people in our country in the rural areas, isolated, alone doing meth, committing suicide, the only option is to join the military and they don't want to go. They don't know what to do. The same suicide epidemic that's killing our rural and suburban children -- we have a homicide epidemic in urban America. They need somebody to tell them that there's a role for them and a need for them, that they can be the heroes of this new solar age but they can't figure out how to do that by themselves.

Our labor leaders see their regs dwindling and aging. There's a future out there for them, a labor movement that's browner, that's greener, that's bigger but they can't get there by themselves.

(Audience applauding)

MR. JONES: It's a young people's movement for climate solutions on the campuses but they can't change the country from the campuses alone.

How can we find each other? How can we help each other? How can we hear each other? How can we become a progressive governing majority to build a green new deal that will put this country back to work? Only if somebody can help us connect the dots on a daily basis and keep us from fighting each other and falling out and that's your job. That's your calling. That's your mission.

So as I move to my close I just want to say that there's been a lot of talk about your need to hold the new president accountable. I agree with that.

Frankly, I think we have been putting too much faith and confidence in our president. Frankly --

(Audience applauding)

MR. JONES: -- I never agreed with that. My basic view is we don't need the president to fix everything, we just need the president to stop breaking everything, that would be my first order of business.

(Audience applauding)

MR. JONES: But the challenge here for you is that you have to figure out a way now as you go from opposition to proposition, from protest to governance, how to hold somebody accountable in a way that doesn't mean beating them accountable, kicking them accountable, spitting on them accountable.

At some point we need to learn as a movement how we hold each other and keep each other accountable. See, that's our moral challenge. How do we hold each other and keep each other accountable? I don't know how we do that, but at some point as we enter this solar age we've got to move from diesel to solar in our own movement.

At some point it's got to not be just about pushing people and trying to force them to do the right thing, at some point we've got to pull people forward by the beauty of our own vision, the clarity of our ideas, the power of our own positive agenda, that's our opportunity.

And so I want to say to you that we can afford now to think like that and talk like that because it's our turn now. It's our turn now.

The people who told us they could bomb and torture our way to a peaceful world has had their turn. It's our turn now.

The people who said we can drill and burn our way to a good environmental and energy outcome have had their turn. It's our turn now.

The people who said they can borrow and spend their way to a healthy economy, they had their turn. It's our turn now and I am so proud of Gavin Newsom.

The people who said that we have to discriminate, the homophobes and the bigots who said we have to discriminate people based on who they love, who said that we had to accept second and first class marriages. Some people can be married, other people just have to settle for a union, you see. Those people have had their turn. And all they did was divide our families.

All they did was drive up suicide rates among our lesbian-gay questioning youth. All they did was create outcast in the neighborhood. Those people have had their turn. They did it all in the name of family values. Well, let me tell you something, we've got family values. And in our -- in our family values --

(Audience applauding)

MR. JONES: -- are very, very clear. Everybody in the family has value and we're not going to mistreat people and disrespect people any more.

(Audience applauding)

MR. JONES: They've had their turn.

(Audience applauding)

MR. JONES: It's our turn now.

(Audience applauding)

MR. JONES: It's our turn now.

(Audience applauding)

MR. JONES: It's our turn now.

(Audience applauding)

MR. JONES: We're tired of it.

(Audience applauding)

MR. JONES: We're tired of people spreading hate in our community, dividing our families.

(Audience applauding)

MR. JONES: We love our families.

(Audience applauding, cheering)

MR. JONES: We love everybody, and it's our turn now.

(Audience applauding)

MR. JONES: It's our turn. And if we're just proud enough we don't have to back down from nobody, they had their turn and they messed it up. And we're going to spend 50 years cleaning up their mess.

I feel sorry -- Barack Obama, whoever is going to be the next president, assuming it's your nominee, is going to have to go in the White House and it's going to be cleaning out a barn with a straw, you know --

(Laughter)

MR. JONES: -- just -- (sounds indicated).

(Laughter)

MR. JONES: I don't know why he even wants the job.

(Laughter)

MR. JONES: But we're going to clean it up and we're going to fix it up. Forty years ago this year Bobby Kennedy is gunned down sticking up for your agenda, peace and justice and opportunity. Forty years ago this year Dr. King was killed. Forty years. I was born that year. 1968. Something died in this country. Still you can feel a heartbreak in the country 40 years later. People stopped believing, gave up hope, but not everybody. And many of you in this room have kept alive the candle of hope for all that time and when it was most important these last eight years, you relit the flame.

Now as we go forward sisters and brothers a new day is coming to this country. It didn't come automatically. You forced the new dawn with your own efforts. And if we do our work right and well now, if we stand together, if we combine causes and look for shared solutions and common ground, we do our work right and well we're going to do a lot more than we said we were going to do in 2004-2006 when we said we were going to take back America. If we stand together, we hold everybody, help everybody move forward this movement when we look back will be the movement that did more than take American back. For the first time in 40 years your movement will be able to take America forward.

Thank you very much.