Sunday 24 Nov 2013
Letter #241
Dear President Obama,
The NSA’s document from Feb 2012 outlining their 4-year strategy could be right out of an Orwell novel! http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/23/us/politics/nsa-report-outlined-goals-for-more-power.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0Â
They consider their mission to collect all data anywhere anytime – and they want to aggressively pursue the legal authority to do so! Thank you again Mr. Snowden for leaking these documents. Humans can be very persistent,  but it is a great shame that most of the time they use these skills for the wrong reasons. Just imagine how much we could achieve on carbon reduction if we were to pursue that goal with such verve and determination! Please say NO to the Keystone XL Pipeline. Send your statement to the world and start us on an aggressive path to a healthier planet. Let’s use all of our collective determination to stop burning fossil fuels. Let’s put all our energies into averting climate disaster.
Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, Determined to Cut Carbon
Thursday 28 Nov 2013
Letter #242
Dear President Obama,
Happy Thanksgiving. I like this holiday especially because it does not relate to either wars or religion. It is just a moment to reflect and be thankful.
I would ask you today to be thankful for the moderate climate we have gotten used to expecting. Unfortunately I think 10 years from now, it will be way less moderate. We will see all sorts of disruptions – not just storms, but big temperature swings, moisture swings disruptive to agriculture, causing human misery and wars. So please try to help us wreck the climate as little as possible. Please stop the Keystone XL Pipeline today and send a serious message that we need to quickly switch to renewables.
Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, Thankful for our wonderful climate
Friday 29 Nov 2013
Letter #243
Dear President Obama,
In mid-November the International Energy Agency issued its annual World Energy Outlook report. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/13/business/energy-environment/shales-effect-on-oil-supply-is-not-expected-to-last.html
This group was founded by oil-importing countries in the mid 1970s in response to the Arab oil embargo. I’m not sure who funds this group – whether it is governments or oil companies themselves, but every year they describe energy supplies and project out to 20 years or so expected world trends. Current projections go to 2035. Their assessment of world energy supplies is consistent with the other large data estimates made by the US EIA (Energy Information Administration).
These reports say renewable energy currently makes up 13% of world energy supply and will grow to 18% by 2035. But overall energy demand will grow so carbon output will rise 20% over today’s annual output by 2035. These predictions are based on:
more people on the planet
more middle class + affluent people using more energy
some modest efficiency improvements
more industrial growth to sell more stuff to people.
These are the patterns of energy use growth over the past 70 years. But we now have a carbon crisis. If we ignore it and carry on as these professionals predict, without dramatic change until 2035, our chances of curtailing worldwide climate crisis are very slim – maybe NIL.
We must prove these happy-talk predictions WRONG. We must move more quickly to renewable energy. Please stop the Keystone XL Pipeline – Stop it NOW – send a strong message.
Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, Prove the Predictors WRONG
Saturday 30 Nov 2013
Letter #244
Dear President Obama,
I’m happy to read that Taiwan is embracing recycling and has become a leader in improving the processes to extract added volume from trash.Â
But I am also dismayed that the luxury W hotel in Taipei uses / disposes 300,000 plastic water bottles every year. Why can’t we go back to water filters and crystal glassware for upscale locales? The hotel’s solution is to design + market cool useless items like key fobs from the recycled plastic – but this is a short term bandaid approach. The real solution is to cut our GHG emissions – please stop the Keystone XL Pipeline – stop it today. Plastic is “cheap” because oil is “cheap” – but we need to stop pumping more oil – and reusing many times the plastics we already have. Stop that pipeline – show you care.
Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, Use Fewer Single Serving Containers
Monday 2 Dec 2013
Letter #245
Dear President Obama,
Pets have become a very profitable business these past few decades. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/11/business/media/digital-ad-initiative-gives-pet-owners-moments-to-remember.htmlÂ
I don’t have a pet, but recently went to Petsmart with a friend. I saw aisles and aisles of pet toys and beds and accessories and treats and more kinds of food than you can imagine – and pictures of vegetables on dog food bags. Dogs don’t eat vegetables – we do! The picture is there for the health conscious owner with the WALLET! All the messages make me tired. We think we’re smarter than animals but sometimes I wonder when we let ourselves be tricked into buying more and more stuff we don’t need. And the messages to consume more stuff keep coming because they work! The Use and Throw culture is part of the increase in GHG emissions. Please stop the Keystone XL Pipeline. Show that you, at least, can rise above the clutter of messages and insist on doing the right thing. Reduce use of fossil fuels NOW. It’s what we need to do to save the climate and us. Otherwise things will go to the dogs! (sorry – couldn’t resist!)
Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, Don’t Need More Pet Toys
Tuesday 3 Dec 2013
Letter #246
Dear President Obama,
I’m writing about BEES again today.
I last wrote to you about bees in one of my first letters #14. That was back in March 2013. Well the EPA is still stalling about banning neonicotinoids – We can’t wait for 5 years for conclusive proof – because by then all the bees could be dead and WE NEED BEES! So please get the EPA to do the right thing. As another very important piece to the environmental web of interdependencies, please stop the Keystone XL Pipeline. Stop it NOW. It is getting more and more urgent that we quickly cut our carbon emissions.
Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, Bees are Important
Wednesday 4 Dec 2013
Letter #247
Dear President Obama,
Mountain pine beetles have killed tens of millions of acres of forests in the US and Canada and the Southern pine beetle has killed about 20,000 acres of trees in New Jersey in the last 10 years. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/02/science/earth/in-new-jersey-pines-trouble-arrives-on-six-legs.html?pagewanted=all Â
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/04/science/earth/panel-says-global-warming-risks-sudden-deep-changes.html
A few cold nights per decade kept the beetles away from New Jersey up until 1996 – and the beetles showed up enough to be noticed about 5 years later. These are species die-offs that we probably can’t check and that can bring on a widespread habitat loss and cause a domino effect of other plant and animal extinctions.
We continue warming the planet at our peril – and the sooner we cut back on fossil fuels the better. Please stop the Keystone XL Pipeline – stop it right now! We are on a path to destruction and need to slow climate changes as quickly as possible. The scientists on the National Research Council are worried and you should be too! Let’s get off fossil fuels as quickly as possible.
Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, Worried by Pine Beetles
Wednesday 4 Dec 2013
Letter #248 (2nd letter)
Dear President Obama,
Today I go back to the case of Steven Donziger vs. Chevron (letter #147). http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/14/business/energy-environment/lawyer-concedes-mistakes-in-chevron-case.html?pagewanted=allÂ
Chevron polluted the Amazon, though perhaps did not break Ecuador laws (because they have few). Donziger won a huge damages award for the Ecuadorean people. Chevron went into attack-mode and claims Donziger is a fraud and a cheat. But what this article on 14 Nov really proves is that it is OK for Chevron to “use” the Ecuador judicial system to pollute, but not OK for Donziger to use the same system to make them pay.
Instead of blackening Donziger, we need journalists to emphasize more the David vs. Goliath aspects of this case. Donziger is not out for personal gain and should be admired. Chevron has hired legions of top attorneys to attack the Ecuador settlement. Follow the money. Clearly Chevron is trying to not pay the damages. They should pay up and move on. And you President Obama should stop the Keystone XL Pipeline. You could be the David (the one) against the oil giants Goliath (the many). WE need more individual heroes today. Here is your chance. Please stop the pipeline today.
Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, David Wins, Not Goliath
Thursday 5 Dec 2013
Letter #249
Dear President Obama,
The Gulf of Maine 2014 shrimp season has been cancelled.Â
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/04/us/maine-shrimp-season-is-called-off.html
The shrimp are at historic lows due to overfishing and warming sea water. As recently as 2010, the northern shrimp harvest was worth $10 million. 3 years later in 2013 it has shrunk more than 85% to $1.2 million. That is a very rapid decline and was enough to even scare the pro-business, pro-fishing regulators!
Who knows whether the shrimp will come back and who knows what other ecological damage their demise causes to other sea creatures that eat them. The oceans are a complex web that we really know very little about. It is one of the scariest parts of global warming that we know so little about the oceans we really can’t predict what’s going to happen to them! Please stop the Keystone XL Pipeline. Stop it now! That is one quick fix to carbon emissions that you can make. Let’s try to slow global warming so we can stand a chance of surviving it. We need to do more NOW.
Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, Saddened by Loss of Northern Shrimp
Friday 6 Dec 2013
Letter #250
Dear President Obama,
I liked Paul Krugman today highlighting this sentence from your inequality speech:
“A relentlessly growing deficit of opportunity is a bigger threat to our future than our rapidly shrinking fiscal deficit.” http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/06/opinion/krugman-obama-gets-real.html?
Social injustice and inequality is an increasing problem in America today and I am happy to hear you bring it into the spotlight. But if we step back and look at the larger global picture, we see that climate change will have devastating effects on all the world’s poor and so I ask you to look at the confluence of these two problems.
When Germany was faced with integrating East Germany with West, the government funded a huge infrastructure project of replacing windows and increasing the energy efficiency of old buildings. It took unemployed Germans and trained them and put them to work all across the land fixing up old buildings. The energy needs of the nation were reduced and opportunities created. Could America do something similar? Could we boost home insulation and solar residential installations and all sorts of other small widespread improvements? It would create jobs and position us better to deal with impending climate disruptions.
Perhaps you have already thought of this, but are limited by the politics of the current Congress on what you can achieve. If so, I ask you to please stop the Keystone XL Pipeline because that is something you can do NOW today! And to continue doing everything you can to help reduce our carbon emissions quickly – so that income inequality can be held in check and carbon emissions held down. Both of these problems can be tackled at once. The only thing holding us back is a deficit of vision. Please act NOW.
Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, Let’s Staunch the Deficit of Opportunity
