My Open Letter to My Congressman #1: Please take a Leadership Role on the Climate Crisis

Dear Representative Hultgren,

As a member of the Science, Space and Technology Committee, I urge you to support a task force addressing the ongoing Climate Change crisis. As a parent, I am quite sure you share my concern for our children's future. We both want them to enjoy the best that Life can offer them. We both want them to be healthy, find love, and raise a family, find a calling and follow it truthfully. This we share, I know it. What we do not share - yet - is a concern for our climate's health. I hope to convince you of this crisis that is threatening our children's future starting with this letter.

A few years ago, when you first took office as representative of our District 14, I called and was given a 15 minute interview with you to discuss my concern about climate change. We met in your local district office one afternoon. I delivered a copy of an article from Forbes describing the economic disaster that awaits us if we do not address this crisis in a timely way and a DVD that I felt strongly put the case forward that the crisis is now and needs to be addressed immediately. I was warned by friends and family that it was a fool's errand and not to bother as you could not be swayed, that you were firmly in the 'denier camp'. I thought, and still do, that we are both humans on a journey. We both hope the best for our country, we both are parents. And given enough information, that you would eventually see the truth and choose to act to address this crisis as our District's representative, as you, above all others in our District, have the power to talk about this in Congress and on the national stage and affect the change that needs to happen. I am asking you to take the lead on this on your committee and in your caucus for all of our sakes.

I was initially saddened to receive your letter a month after we met, a form letter that thanked me in a generic way for the unnamed concern I expressed about an unnamed topic and made no mention of the articles I gave you for review or that we even met face to face. Having recently been inspired to pursue this cause again, I thought I would again try to convince you that you do indeed need to take a leadership role on this issue. For your review, I would like to direct your attention to the recent opinion piece written by four former EPA directors who served during the four past Republican administrations titled A Republican Case for Climate Action. (See enclosed)

I will also be chronicling what I hope to be a discussion with you on my blog Exploring the Green Road to give hope to others who are writing their Congressional representatives who are not now actively addressing this most important crisis of our lifetimes.

Sincerely,

Monica Jenkins
Constituent of District 14

Pogo said it first.

 

Walt Kelly's Classic Cartoon for Earth Day, 1971

"Yep Son, we have met the enemy and he is us." ~ Pogo

 When Pogo originally said the above quote in Walt Kelly's iconic cartoon,  he was referring to the high levels of pollution tolerated at that time and generally taken as a 'natural' byproduct of progress. It was not long before that, in 1969, when Ohio's Cuyahoga River caught on fire due to all the flammable contaminants floating in it. I grew up in the 60's and 70's and remember the excessive litter in the streets and I also remember the PSAs telling us to put 'litter in it's place'. I learned my lesson so well that I still bristle when I see people throw their non-biodegradable cigarettes out the window of their cars! However, the litter problem now is nowhere near what I remember it being like then. We all learned where the trash cans sit and we have also learned how to recycle to reduce the amount of trash as well. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) was brought into being at that time by Richard Nixon's Republican administration in late 1970. Something needed to be done to address the toxins in our rivers and the acid rain falling on our people and other growing environmental concerns. Nixon set up a special agency to address all that. And they did.

For the past two years, there are some Republicans who have called for the abolishment of the EPA. Is it because there are no more environmental threats? No. If anything we have even more environmental threats than when the EPA was first established. Water is catching on fire in people's homes in areas where fracking methods have poisoned the wells and honeybees are on the decline possibly due to a multitude of factors related to pesticide use. Those are just two pollution-related issues that are looming at the moment. It is these Republicans 'concern for jobs', they say. 'Regulations are hurting the economy'.

Let's take that as a possibility for a minute as being true. Are we really a country of people who are 'ok' with some fellow Americans suffering or losing their homes so we or one of our family members can have a job for a few years? I don't think that's who we are and I think that is a false argument.

Could it have more to do with who is funding these politicians' next campaign - or who funded their last one? Let's ask them. You can also do a little research here to find out who funded their last campaign. Open Secrets lists who has received what from whom and is an excellent resource for learning more about who your representative may be really representing. Let's ask them to explain where they got their information on climate change? Who's research did they use and can you get a link to that? Is it a research firm or project funded by one of the oil, gas or coal companies?

And while you are talking with your representative, ask them if they have read the New York Times Opinion piece of August 1, 2013 written jointly by all four of the EPA agency heads appointed under Republican administrations of the past 43 years. It is titled A Republican Case for Climate Action and it states the following:

"There is no longer any credible scientific debate about the basic facts: our world continues to warm, with the last decade the hottest in modern records, and the deep ocean warming faster than the earth’s atmosphere. Sea level is rising. Arctic Sea ice is melting years faster than projected."

"The costs of inaction are undeniable. The lines of scientific evidence grow only stronger and more numerous. And the window of time remaining to act is growing smaller: delay could mean that warming becomes “locked in.”  

"... The only uncertainty about our warming world is how bad the changes will get, and how soon. What is most clear is that there is no time to waste."

 Ask your congressional representative, respectively, no matter what their political affiliation is, to reconsider their position on Climate Change for all our sakes.

The majority of all scientists and ALL academies of science throughout the world all concur that ...

Climate Change is happening.
It is happening now.
And we humans are creating this climate crisis.
We must act together. Now.
Because there ARE solutions to this crisis, IF we act together NOW.

We are a brave people – That’s who we are.
Taking action in crises is who we are as a nation.