Dear Mr. President,
As we mark the ten-year anniversary of the most influential event in our short lifetimes, we write to you on behalf of the Millennial generation and urge you to chart a new course for the future of energy in our great nation. The events of September 11, 2001, have been seared into our collective memory and have defined who we are as a generation. We approach this anniversary with perplexed sadness, but continue to entertain a faint glimmer of hope you sparked inside of us that the world can be a better place.
Ten years ago we had the opportunity to take a deep and profound loss and turn it in to an opportunity to make the world more empathetic, more tolerant and above all, more secure. The past few years have been checkered by significant setbacks, but now you have the chance to set things right again.
You have the opportunity and power, without the approval of Congress, to prevent the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. Saying "no" to the pipeline is saying "no" to fossil fuels pollution, "no" to runaway greenhouse gas emissions, and "no" to climate change. In the same breath, you say "yes" to green jobs, "yes" to a new energy economy, and "yes" to a cleaner, brighter, safer future.
Keystone XL would accelerate the exploration of environmentally dangerous tar sands by constructing a 2,000 mile pipeline from Canada to Mexico, cutting across the United States. This will require the destruction of Canada's boreal forest (a carbon sink), it will threaten the Athabascan people, contaminate the Athabasca River, and contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. Approving Keystone XL would be, in the words of NASA scientist James Hansen, "game over for the climate."
On the same day the pipeline was approved by the State Department, Hurricane Irene raged across the eastern seaboard, becoming one of the 10 costliest storms ever to hit the US. In the past year alone we have seen more weather-related disasters than any other year in US history. Our generation may have been shaped by September 11th, but now we're branded by a new terrorist threat -- one which strikes blindly, violently and with complete oblivion: our own planet's changing climate. More people died worldwide in 2010 from natural disasters than have been killed from terrorist attacks over the past four decades.This threat is real and it is happening now.
When you accepted our nomination for president, you gave us your word that your presidency would mark "the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." And we believed you. We were hungry for change and with great tenacity we knocked on doors till our knuckles bled, made phone calls until we were blue in the face and didn't sleep for months because we believed you were our first, last, and only hope for the future.
We know there have been many demands made of you by people much more powerful than us, people with deeper pockets and more political influence. But the generation that elected you would like to remind you that the Obama we campaigned for-- Barack Obama, the king of cool and our number one rock star -- would never let politics take precedence over what is right. That Obama supported a transition to new, clean, safe forms of energy, and he condemned our addiction to fossil fuels. The Obama we worked so hard for would make a brave, courageous decision even if it was not the most popular. At the end of the day that Barack Obama would still have his integrity and our respect, and he would be a leader worth fighting for, yet again.
We have not asked for much since we voted you into office, but now we are asking you to prove to us that the last decade of oil spills, climate disasters and mindless wars have not been in vain. Three years ago we arrived here together and now, in a time of remembrance, we reflect on lost opportunities to reverse the trend towards environmental calamity. We are united in our love for this great nation, and we still long for the leadership that was so passionately demonstrated by our favorite candidate yesterday and our president today. Be brave. Be the Obama we voted for.
Mark Penn: Finding the American Spirit After 9/11
Michael Smerconish: Gaining Inspiration From Flight 93 Crash Site
You have written a good letter. I just wish your message to the President, was not prefaced by such crap--an injustice to all who have been injured, killed or live with catastrophic health issues. The war was started with lies over money, greed and oil. The same lies they are telling us, now. Let's not make that mistake again.
"Yes We Can Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline"
Our demand for oil HAS in fact declined over the past few years.
The oil obtained from the world's largest, filthiest money pit EVER, will be exported to Asia and Europe.
If given the go ahead, the Pipeline will likely cause a rise in prices at the American pumps.
The Mega-load trucks will destroy American roads and bridges.
The number of jobs created is vastly over-inflated...Green energy will make more jobs--also green.
The Pipeline WILL pollute and destroy our water and fresh water ecosystems that support all life.
The toxic waste and tons of carbon dioxide released into the air WILL destroy our atmosphere and contribute exponentially to climate change.
The completion of this pipeline would be the biggest environmental rape of the Earth EVER.
The economy has a sucking chest wound. The environment has a sore throat.
You can't attack any problem from a position of fiscal weakness.
Get over it. Build the pipeline and dig in ANWR. All these solar companies that Obama is slobbering over keep passing out faster than a democrat at a gun show because there's just no demand. The economy doesn't run on sun or wind or hope or change.
Hunger, homelessness, unemployment and contraction of production is still expanding. This situation must be reversed immediately or this nation is doomed and nothing will be done for the environment.
Globalization is an offensive against the population; the nation today is in shambles because 40% of the working age population is unemployed. Weather caused, flooding and drought, are not being treated by our scientific and engineering sectors as the tax base and national policies, perverted by the demands of the international monetary system, become a political tool at the expense of our national infrastructure, and standard of living. .
Elitists in and outside government are dedicated to the destruction of the US national economy, the nation state itself.
The Stabilization of the United States is the only imperative, the only power on earth that can save humanity.
America, through its labor and brain power, must commit itself to the creation of the power-dynamic economy platform, NAWAPA, the mission to redevelop North America. New Nuclear Fueled Energy facilities, the construction of the interstate mag-lev rail system, will support this mission. Expanding NASA space exploration, the source of America's strength, will accelerate scientific research in Sun solar flares and other Galactic phenomena that impacts earth's weather.
Brave, courageous, humanity has a great future, do not be afraid.
Oil is a drug, you can't stop users from getting their fix. You have to cure users, reduce demand.
This is a legitimate debate and the pipeline can and must be halted. Sound bites are quaint but lack resolve or purpose, but here's one just the same:
If you want to live, stop the Keystone XL pipeline.
Jobs are what will determine next President and Congress. We lost when we told Obama jobs are #1 issue. Business say regulations cost jobs. Any regulations Obama enforces will be seen as costing jobs, whether true or not. Business hire people, not environmentalists. Obama "caves" on environment or Repubs take over in 2012. Since laws come and go but only SCOTUS appointees last a lifetime, I want a Dem President.
Instead of blackmailing Obama over Keystone XL, how about some self-sacrifice?
I enjoyed your piece; it's a heartfelt and wide-ranging argument. Nonetheless, you're leaving something important out of your analysis in my view, and that is that trying to get Americans to use less power is going to be a massive loser at the ballot box. People simply don't want to do that.
It's not that we don't want to conserve, or don't want to protect the planet, or don't want to get out of the Middle East, or even that we want the tar sands goop flowing across our country.
It's that we want our garages to be well lit and dehumidified when we arrive home in our cars after a long day. We want our TVs to work. We want to have a cold drink in our air-conditioned homes; we want to put our feet up and charge our smartphones. Maybe we want to queue up our favorite comedy on Netflix because it was a hard day, and our friend got fired today, we learned on Facebook. So maybe we Google a bit for a gift or something we can send our friend as an encouragement.
All of that takes power - from the gas in our car, to the power adapter to charge our smartphone, to our wireless router, to the massive racks of servers kept at a constant temperature so that the content we want on demand can be served to us.
part one
That is unlikely to sell well.
So, the question becomes: how do we get the massive amounts of energy America demands (I won't say 'needs' - we don't need it all) for a trade-off we are willing to make?
Are we willing to emit more CO2 for it? What are we willing to accept in order to get that energy?
I think you need to decide more than what you are against. You need to decide what you are *for*.
EDIT: To be clear, I also oppose the Keystone XL. I just want to know from the people reading this:
What are you FOR?
Yes, I am suggesting a world without oil. And yes, I accept and acknowledge all the little scenarios you suggest. And yes, I realize that billions of people will perish as a result of losing our ability to wield stored sunlight in our battle to overpopulate the planet.
And....just to be clear....it's not really a "choice" thing. The oil is peaked; the atmosphere is damaged; the oceans are collapsing; the viability of living in infinite growth capitalism on a finite resources planet is showing it's absurdity.
Favorite: "That is unlikely to sell well." It's not an infomercial, Maslin, it's a question of global collapse.
So, I hope you aren't confused anymore about what people opposed to this are *for*.
No wonder he's thrown us under the bus, he's got a whole bunch of you not even protesting a little bit as he does it.
Oh, well... Maybe if you say "pretty please" he'll consider it.
Yeah. That's true of my generation too. (Much older.) Only we've had a lot more disappointment in that area, so we should be able to rally, but it gets harder and harder to do so every time.
But it IS time for the millennium generation to do serious petitioning to our government for their lack of a coherent energy policy. Americans - 5% of the worlds' population - uses 25% of the world's oil. That was an abomination when oil was plentiful and the total "advanced" population living a consumptive lifestyle was 1 billion people or so (mainly North America, Western Europe, Russia, Japan, etc). But what's going to happen when China, India and Brazil fully develop and that number becomes 2.5 billion? If the US is still using 25% of the world's oil, that doesn't mean global warming: That means global warfare over resources.
In the movie, “Apollo 13â€, all the engineers were arguing about how many days they needed to get the spacecraft back home, when an electrical engineer said, “You don’t have days worth of power, you have about 16 hours worth. You have to turn everything off. Now.†If America doesn’t cut its oil use by 50% soon, global warming will be the least of our problems.
That is Ground Zero for CO2. This is important, but coal is bigger.
It does'nt cost anything and we lend our voices to democracy
http://signon.org/sign/increase-government-support.fb1?source=c.fb&r_by=548645
That should work.
And we already know how to do it.
Despite.. (or..because of!) my own cynical mind-set of late.
It's tough when so many institutions and "leaders" ...are so disappointing.
Nice to still be able to have a little faith in the next generation.
On a lighter note:....... Thank GOD for Google!...
I can pretend that I already knew what "Cri de Coeur" meant
tm