Month 3, Day 6: POTUS Every Saturday

Yesterday’s letter was a disjointed ramble. I still want to find some Rapture-seeking Dominionists to smite in print, so if you’ve got some suggestions I will welcome them.

In the meantime, I took that letter, stripped out all the crazy, and recast it as a missive to our sober, thoughtful and reasonable CiC.

Dear President Obama,

I write as a concerned citizen and as a scientifically literate layperson to urge you to initiate international action on a previously under-reported and very disturbing component of the global climate crisis. According to a just-published article in the journal Science (and reported in the London Times) the sub-sea permafrost that has kept gigatonnes of CH4 (methane) locked in for millennia is now melting. Because methane is 25 times as powerful as carbon dioxide in trapping heat, this will accelerate the greenhouse effect even further.

The effects of this huge infusion of a potent greenhouse gas into the atmosphere have not yet been factored into climatologists’ prediction models. In other words, our current “worst-case” scenarios are hopelessly optimistic.

The news of Arctic methane release is sure to trigger a round of fart jokes from Sean Hannity and his colleagues at Fox News. It is a sad fact that while some of us strive to ensure a safe and sustainable future for all humanity, a significant sector of the media and our corporate sector is heavily invested in denying the nature of the threat, and in persuading our political culture not to take it seriously.

Please, Mr. President: do not let them decide our future. There are millions of people in this country and around the world who are aware of our ongoing climaticide, and who take it very seriously indeed.

We would like to see an international effort to deal with the methane release (and other elements of the climate crisis) before it is too late. We would like to see all the nations of the world form a unified response to this common threat, combining our resources, skills and innovations to keep our planet safe for our children and their children and their children’s children after them. We would like to see the United States of America leading this effort, earning the gratitude of generations to come.

But we can no longer allow this process to be stalled by our dysfunctional Senate and our corrupt media. I urge you to continue to educate the public about the dangers we face: hold a “Climate Summit” where denialists like Senator Inhofe are finally shown to be the empty vessels they are — and where Americans can learn for themselves about a potentially devastating crisis. If we don’t do this, we are all going to learn the hard way, and it’s not going to be pretty.

There is no time to lose.

Thank you for your attention.

Yours Sincerely,

Warren Senders