environment Politics: Barack Obama National parks teddy roosevelt
by Warren
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Month 4, Day 17: National Park POTUS
RL Miller writes about President Obama’s approach to our national park system, and provides me with fodder for a letter. Too tired to write eloquently; I’m falling asleep at the keyboard.
Dear President Obama,
It was great to learn of your memorandum addressing “America’s Great Outdoors Initiative.” It is crucial that we as a nation learn to conserve our land and natural resources, integrating state, local, and tribal leadership with federal support and partnerships. Most important for those of us who pay attention to news on climate issues is your commitment to “use science-based management practices to restore and protect our lands and waters for future generations.” That’s good news; science-based management is reality-based management, something the previous administration could have used a lot more of.
While it’s absolutely crucial to build conservation initiatives from the local level up, the role of the federal government is crucial. Teddy Roosevelt, as you remarked, made America’s national park system into one of our greatest resources, and he did it through decisive use of the powers of the federal government; while his use of the Antiquities Act in creating national monuments was criticized as socialistic (sound familiar?), his bold vision preserved the Grand Canyon.
The input of local residents is important — but familiarity may breed contempt, leading locals to take a priceless national resource for granted. By all means, talk with local residents, but remember that they’re citizens of a nation. Bold and resolute action in the conservation of our natural resources is essential.
Most important for the long run is to restore a love of the land and the environment to the American people. We should expand our National Park system, increase hiking trails and allocate federal funds for schoolchildren’s field trips up the mountains. Many city dwellers have no access to our beautiful open spaces, and children especially suffer terribly from “nature deprivation syndrome.”
If we are to have a hope of addressing the terrible threat posed by global climate change, we must make it possible for every citizen to know and love our country’s natural resources. While they are vital for tourism, and for their own intrinsic beauty, our national parks and forests are also part of the struggle against climate change: they’re “carbon banks,” capturing carbon in the form of trees, keeping it from entering the atmosphere. Trees and forests are our first line of defense against global warming, which is why it’s crucial that all proposals for acquiring wilderness must be evaluated on the carbon absorption of the land — its carbon footprint.
The damage that has already been done by political pandering to crass anti-environment interests is incalculable. For the sake of our parks, our forests, our country, our citizens and our planet, I hope your words about “science-based management practices” are matched by your actions.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Barack Obama James Hansen Sophie Prize
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Month 4, Day 10: Saturday POTUS
I figured I’d send the President a letter urging him to take James Hansen more seriously. I mean, now that he’s won the Sophie Prize and all.
Dear President Obama,
I write to urge you to extend public recognition from your Administration to Dr. James Hansen, the eminent climatologist who has just been awarded the Sophie Prize. Especially given that Dr. Hansen was subjected to flagrant censorship by the Bush administration, it would be a significant gesture for you and your environmental experts to acknowledge the value and relevance of his work. It would be even more appropriate for you to offer Dr. Hansen a place in your administration’s climate-science team; his work is of the highest possible quality and the greatest possible significance.
The Bush Administration’s suppression of Dr. Hansen’s results is shocking and shameful (although it was a foregone conclusion that it would do no good, I wrote them letters at the time protesting this terrible behavior). The appalling fact is that our national politics has been infected with a virulent and pernicious form of stupidity; George W. Bush and his anti-science cohort were (and are) symptoms of this disease, and because his conclusions failed to fit their predetermined narrative, Dr. Hansen had to be censored.
While your administration is an enormous improvement on its predecessor, I am still waiting for signs that you can address global climate change with the degree of urgency that is needed. One such sign would be a public acknowledgment that Dr. Hansen was shamefully treated by the previous administration — and that he is a scientist of immense value to the fight against catastrophic climate change.
Such an acknowledgment would be both morally appropriate and scientifically sound. We need James Hansen’s voice, now more than ever.
Thank you.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment: Barack Obama oceanic acidification
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Month 4, Day 6: Horse, Horse, Tiger, Tiger
One day up, one day down. This is good news: President Obama has opened the door to potential regulation under the Clean Water Act (CWA) of CO2 that causes ocean acidification.
I’m now writing him twice a week, it seems.
Dear President Obama,
I am writing to applaud your initiative in considering using the Clean Water Act to regulate CO2. Oceanic acidification is one of the most pressing elements of the hugely complex conundrum that is global climate change, and it has not received as much attention as atmospheric greenhouse gas emissions.
Huge numbers of marine species depend on coral reefs for food and habitat, and the world’s corals are dying, killed by changes in the acidity of seawater as it absorbs more carbon dioxide. These changes have the potential to radically alter the food chain for much of life on earth; quite literally, the lives of billions of people depend on the sea. Furthermore, some species of phytoplankton will be unable to survive the increased oceanic acidity — and these tiny creatures are essential to the earth’s oxygen supply.
Food and breathable air for the world’s population. That’s what’s at stake in this decision. You’d think it’d be obvious, even to the Republican party (I’m afraid you’d be wrong). Please use the power of your presidential “bully pulpit” to make the case for strong action on oceanic acidification, and for increasing the power of the EPA and its use of the Clean Water Act.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Barack Obama Medford Transcript offshore drilling
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Month 4, Day 2: Recycling is Important!
I took my letter to the POTUS from yesterday, did a bunch of tweaking, added a little dig about leaf-blowers and wars, and sent it off to my local paper, the Medford Transcript.
I’d love to believe that President Obama’s decision to encourage offshore oil drilling is only a part of a more sweeping political 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. Our national addiction to cheap fossil energy means that in order to power our SUVs, flatscreens, leafblowers and wars, we’re taking carbon out of the earth and putting it into the atmosphere, causing potentially catastrophic warming effects, of which the recent flood-level rains are just one example. The last thing we need is to further expand oil and coal use!
The surprise announcement of this component of an Obama energy policy reminds me of the build-up to the passage of health-care legislation, in which Democrats abandoned progressive positions before negotiations began, stripping out many of the reforms we needed most desperately. The problem with basing climate legislation on strategic exigencies is that we need a policy that’s based on climatic reality, not political gamesmanship. The window of opportunity for our species is rapidly closing; there is very little “later” available.
While I appreciate the complexity of President Obama’s dilemma, I am dismayed by the latest turn of events. The President needs to focus our national 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.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Barack Obama offshore drilling
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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
environment Politics: Barack Obama
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Month 3, Day 27: Another Saturday POTUS
The first post-healthcare letter to the President. Congratulations where congratulations are due, and all that.
Dear President Obama,
Congratulations on the passage of health care legislation. Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid have done yeoman service to America in bringing the bill forward and creating the circumstances for a “yes” vote. I have every hope that you will continue to advance your agenda over the next few months. Let’s keep the momentum going.
I understand that the next big legislative package will be on financial reform; this is sorely needed, and if the legislation is not unnecessarily diluted with too many giveaways to the financial criminals who broke the system in the first place, it will have an immediate and powerful effect on the country’s confidence in its economic system. And after financial reform, what?
This letter is to urge you to make the upcoming climate bill the next item on your agenda. We need meaningful legislation to be passed before the next round of climate talks. It is absolutely crucial that this bill be free of egregious concessions to major polluters. Big oil and big coal have no interest in making this bill better; their interest is in their own short-term bottom lines. In fact, strong climate legislation is analogous to strong financial reform. In both cases, the government needs to ensure that the people’s resources are not wasted and destroyed for the sake of a corporate profit margin — and that we as a society learn to live responsibly and within our means.
If a climate bill is passed soon, the fickle components of the electorate will have had ample time to forget it before November — while the environmentally aware Democratic base will be energized.
I know I will. Pass strong legislation on climate change and I’ll donate and volunteer double what I did in 2008. This is the most important thing we’ll ever do.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment Politics: ancient sunlight Barack Obama
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Month 3, Day 20: Wasting The Oldest Thing We Have
I was thinking about yesterday’s letter when I sat down to write, and then discovered that I had a philosophical point to make. I hope somebody reads this one.
Dear President Obama,
At the beginning of 2010, I made a resolution. Every day, I would write a letter to politicians, media outlets or important figures in our national discourse — focusing exclusively on climate change and related environmental issues. I’m proud to say I haven’t missed a day so far. And Saturdays are my day for a letter to you.
Today I’m writing/faxing/emailing to applaud your recent announcement that the U.S. Government will aim to cut its own emissions of greenhouse gases twenty-eight percent by the beginning of the next decade. That’s a great start.
But it’s just a start, and if we only get to 28 percent, it’s nowhere near enough. America needs to lead the world into a new energy equation, one where none of our energy needs are supplied by burning fossil fuels. A world without fossil fuels is as necessary to our long-term survival as a world without nuclear weapons.
We need to increase federal funding for all forms of energy research. I encourage research into so-called “clean coal” technology, but not because I think “clean coal” is technically feasible or economically sensible. I suspect that investigations of carbon capture and sequestration will yield other benefits that will positively impact our “footprint.” I would like to see funding for wind, solar and geothermal energy research increased geometrically. These sources rely on the energy our earth is receiving and generating right now — unlike oil and coal, which are ways of storing solar energy our earth received a very long time ago.
Taking carbon out of the ground and putting it in the atmosphere is irrefutably bad for the planet. There is no good side to an increase in GHG emissions; the possibility of a global climate catastrophe is a statistically significant risk. This alone should be enough to force us to drastically revise our energy usage. And yet, there is another and more philosophical element to this equation.
Human beings are awed by ancient things, yet we easily forget that in burning oil and coal we are wasting one of the oldest resources we have: the stored sunlight that fell on our planet hundreds of millions of years ago. We would not think of chopping down a thousand-year-old sequoia to make toothpicks; we would not dismantle Stonehenge or the Great Pyramid and grind their stones into gravel, for to do so would be to disrespect their antiquity. This should be our attitude towards the consumption of fossil fuels.
To burn oil and coal is to spend our principal, to eat our seed corn. Solar, wind, hydroelectric and geothermal energy sources are the ecological equivalent of a “pay as you go” policy. Ultimately, the only way human beings can survive is to stop wasting our inheritance.
Twenty-eight percent by 2020? A good start. But just a start. We need our atmospheric CO2 to be at 350 ppm or below if our grandchildren are not to curse us for our prodigality and irresponsibility.
Yours sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Barack Obama Tongass National Forest
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Month 3, Day 13: Saturday POTUS — No Logging In The Tongass!
As usual, it’s Friday night and I’m hunting around for something on which to hang a letter to the President. And lo and behold, my old benefactor RL Miller provides the second piece in as many days: a bill enabling logging in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. It’s an interesting toss-up between Native American welfare issues and environmental issues — one that needs a new underlying conceptual structure for resolution.
Dear President Obama,
As the long-awaited climate bill makes its way through the Senate, I’m gratified to observe your administration’s support for many initiatives which will reduce our nation’s carbon emissions and lessen our grotesquely disproportionate contribution to anthropogenic global warming.
This letter is to register my distress at legislation currently under consideration in both the House and the Senate. S. 881 and H.R. 2099 both address usage considerations with regard to land that is currently part of the Tongass National Forest, the largest such forest in the country. The Tongass, according to a recent study by the Wilderness Society, is one of the country’s top “carbon banks” (carbon-storing forests). The bill will permit Sealaska, an Alaskan Native corporation, to log 80,000 acres of the Tongass National Forest.
If S.881 and H.R. 2099 are passed in Congress, the bill will arrive at your desk for signature. Before you take out your pen, please consider this: the thick, wet forests of the Pacific Northwest, including the Tongass, store as much carbon as this country burns in a year and a half. Allowing 80,000 acres of such a carbon bank to be logged off would be an act of profound environmental irresponsibility. If America is ready to pay Indonesia and Brazil not to cut down their rainforests, why can’t we do something similar in Alaska?
It is time for us to set a good example for future generations, by maintaining and expanding our national forests. Not only are they crucial carbon banks (and therefore one of our first lines of defense against CO2 emissions), they possess inherent value as places of beauty, peace and respect for the natural world. When our country learns to stop thinking of forests as commodities worth so much per board foot, we will have, perhaps, grown up a little.
Please veto any bill that provides for logging in the Tongass.
Thank you,
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Barack Obama energy efficiency John Doerr Time Magazine
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Month 3, Day 9: Time After Time
Time Magazine has a piece discussing the role of environmentally friendly industries in the formulation of the administration’s energy policy initiatives. The tone of the article attempts neutrality, but occasionally lapses into vague sorta-smears: the title is “How Fundraising Helped Shape Obama’s Green Agenda.” Think about that for a second; is it somehow a revelation that politicians will gravitate to people who’ll fund them as well as support their policies? The question is “which comes first, the money or the policy?”
Venture capitalist John Doerr, who helped develop the “Home Star” energy retrofitting program (see Obama describing it here), is profiled throughout the piece; the last paragraph reads:
Doerr, meanwhile, has continued to provide financial support to Democrats. On Dec. 21, just weeks after President Obama publicly embraced Home Star, Doerr and his wife Ann each wrote a $15,200 check to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Honestly, is this supposed to be indicative of chicanery? During the Bush years, the entire administration was run by the corrupt lackeys of big oil, big coal, big god and big guns, and the amounts of money involved absolutely dwarfed the Doerrs’ $30,400.
So I wrote Time a letter.
During the Bush Administration, representatives of the world’s biggest polluters took far more fundamental roles in policy development than is the case in the Obama White House. A program like “Home Star” will provide thousands of new jobs as well as help us break our national addiction to oil and coal. When I recall Dick Cheney sneering that conservation may be a “personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound comprehensive energy policy,” I am delighted to see his profoundly erroneous dictum repudiated; our nation needs an energy policy that penalizes waste and rewards efficiency. We currently lead the world in energy wasted per capita; it’s time for us to become global leaders in energy efficiency. The fact that representatives of “green” industries have a voice in the Obama Administration’s formulation of “morally virtuous” policy objectives is cause for rejoicing.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: arctic methane Barack Obama Fox News methane
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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