Month 4, Day 1: April Fools!

Yesterday’s news that our President wants to allow offshore drilling motivated me to generate a mid-week blast.

Dear President Obama – I certainly hope that your decision to encourage offshore drilling is part of a larger political strategy that will culminate in a vastly expanded program of investment in alternative and renewable energy.

I’m willing to accept that an energy program can include increased extraction of oil resources, but those resources won’t last for long. If humanity is to have a chance of surviving the coming climate crisis, we must find ways to meet our energy needs that do not involve taking carbon out of the earth and putting it into the atmosphere. We are already killing our planet. Burning oil and coal is accelerating the process.

Perhaps this component of your energy program is part of a strategy which will confuse the Republican opposition, leaving them no choice but to support policy initiatives which will ultimately focus much more on alternative and renewable energy sources. I certainly hope so. I am afraid, however, that it is a repeat of some of the worst things that happened during the build-up to the passage of your health-care legislation — giving away a progressive negotiating position before negotiations have begun, whittling away at what’s left until hardly anything remains, then passing legislation that’s been gutted of almost everything we need with enormous ballyhoo.

Sound cynical? I’m afraid I am. While passing health legislation was an enormous triumph, the fact is that many of the reforms we needed most desperately were stripped out well in advance. When this happened to health-care legislation, we (your progressive supporters) were able to adjust, saying, “we’ll fix it later.”

But Mr. President, the problem with climate legislation is that there is not much “later” for us to work within. The window of opportunity for our species is rapidly closing.

Please focus more of your attention on the requirements of sustainable energy, conservation, and the urgency of reducing our individual and national carbon footprints. There is no time to lose, and none to waste.

Yours Sincerely,

Warren Senders