Friday 3 June 2016
Letter #591
Dear President Obama,
Yesterday Green Cambridge gave a sustainability award to the retiring city manager and several department heads. Cambridge adopted a plan on how to get to net-zero carbon emissions for new buildings – much of which does not go into effect for 20 years. It was a long drawn-out compromise better than nothing. The various recipients said it was a difficult process and that it was the best that could be done – and now they go around telling other cities how to do the same. As an activist it just makes me tired. All the meetings I attended, all the public comment I gave, and we congratulate these city employees for their excellence and high achievement. If this is the fastest that we can possibly be moving, we are all doomed to pay enormous costs for our failures to cut carbon emissions sooner. So I tell them, and I tell you: Do MORE!! In your remaining months end new oil/gas permits on public land and at sea! This is really important more than anything else. We must KIITG!! Keep it in the ground. Use your remaining power to do everything you can. Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, Stop New Fossil Fuel Permits
Thursday 9 June 2016
Letter # 592
Dear President Obama,
There was a big article yesterday about Brazil’s president waiting for impeachment proceedings to wind along. But what about an update on the horrific TOXIC SLUDGE disaster last November? https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/06/world/americas/authorities-assess-toll-of-burst-dam-in-brazil.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/17/opinion/brazils-toxic-sludge.html
2.2 Billion cubic feet waste poured into the Doce River and spewed 400 miles downstream to the Atlantic ocean – 16 days later. There’s no update because nothing has been done! No clean up, no regulations so other such dams don’t burst. No study of ecosystem destruction, public health problems, no compensation for fishermen. Brazil is falling apart, and when that happens, protecting the environment falls even lower on the agenda. This was an iron ore mine disaster, not fossil fuels, but the scale of environmental damage going unpunished is mind boggling. It’s way past time for extractive industries to pay for the true cost of environmental damage they have caused. Let’s put a price on carbon and other pollution – let’s speed up our protections for air and water while we still have time to avert the WORST of climate change. Your job is really to do what’s best for the people – all the people – that’s protecting the CLIMATE! So please get BUSY – do even more! Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, Mourning the Doce River
Monday 13 June 2016
Letter #593
Dear President Obama,
I write today about the Zika virus and all the fear-generating stories in the media. As the media have become more-controlled by entertainment companies and ad-driven revenue, the CDC needs to make sure the public gets the facts.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/10/health/zika-virus-pregnancy-who.html
The most important statement about Zika recently was hidden in column 4 of a NY Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/15/health/zika-virus-pregnancy-delay-birth-defects-cdc.html
If women delay pregnancy for one season, and lots of people get zika, the virus is likely to disappear! So I say to my daughter – keep using birth control and get a few mosquito bites! Problem solved! Getting zika when you are not pregnant gives you antibodies for when you are! Instead of diverting money from Ebola research to Zika research we should be spending way more on slowing climate change! The biggest threat to women’s health and childrens’ health is climate change! Not zika. Brazil has 1500 cases of microcephaly so far this year- for 1.5m births, so 1 per thousand, that’s pretty small – and as zika antibodies spread widely through the population, microcephaly cases will plummet. Much more important for everyone is cutting carbon pollution! We desperately need to KIITG! Keep it in the ground. Please do everything you can! Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, Climate change Much Scarier than Zika!
Sunday 19 June 2016
Letter #594
Shamus Miller
Dear President Obama,
Today is my brother’s birthday – he would have been 65. He was a vibrant idealistic young man who became schizophrenic just after college and suffered delusions and paranoia for 39 years before dying – all tired out and thin. In his honor, I write to you today about 4 other idealistic teenagers: Isabel Kain, Shamus Miller, James Coakley, and Olivia Geiger who just won their lawsuit against the state of Massachusetts for not fulfilling its legal obligation to limit greenhouse gas emissions (SJC-11961). https://blog.mass.gov/masslawlib/new-cases/sjc-rules-for-environmental-global-warming-lawsuit/
Hats off to them! They took it to the state Supreme Court and WON! Now the state really needs to get busy cutting our emissions! What a pity these kids needed to sue! It demonstrates our collective failures as adults to recognize and ACT on the enormity of the climate crisis. (another lawsuit here: https://law.uoregon.edu/images/uploads/entries/No_Ordinary_Lawsuit.pdf)
Each needs to do what they can. You can DO lots MORE! Please STEP up your actions to combat climate change TODAY! It is urgent! We need to KIITG! Keep it in the ground. No more drilling permits on land or sea. Move quickly to put a price on carbon. Please use your status and energy for the greatest common good. Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, Honoring Kain, Miller, Coakley, and Geiger
Wednesday 6 July 2016
Letter # 595
Dear President Obama,
It was disturbing to read Robert Parkinson’s column on the 27 accusations against King George in the Declaration of Independence, especially the last one that speaks of “domestic insurrections” as euphemism of slave rebellions. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/opinion/did-a-fear-of-slave-revolts-drive-american-independence.html
The document that had been taught to me as a model of human rights, inalienable rights was actually a compromise soaked in racial fear and exclusion. White colonial fear and outrage was stoked by countless newspaper accounts of the British “using” slaves and native American against, “American”. Oh my, how sad – and how cowardly of us to allow children to be taught the happy happy story. We have racism in our past and our present and need to acknowledge it. One of the best ways I can think of to remedy our ingrained racial fear is to act quickly to KIITG! Keep fossil fuels in the ground! Climate change is already HERE and affecting the poorest and non-white humans the most. We must act quickly so that the most vulnerable do not, once again, pay with their lives! The moral obligation is clear. Moving slowly on cutting carbon emissions is racist and wrong. Please speed it up! Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, Eyes opened by Parkinson
Thursday 7 July 2016
Letter #596
Dear President Obama,
I read with interest the long article on cost-overruns and fraud of the “clean coal” Kemper Plant in Mississippi : billions of dollars wasted and only brought to light by whistle blower Brett Wingo. The plants owners, Southern Co., colluded with state officials, the governor passed a law saying rate payers could pay for the plant.
Brett Wingo
They all wanted the federal subsidies. But I am writing to you because the ETA and the federal Energy Dept. granted those subsidies even though the owners started construction with only 15% of the project designed! They rushed to break ground to get the subsidies and you let them! The whole purpose of federal government is to provide checks on crazy local behavior. You failed miserably! Carbon capture will never be cost effective. Stop wasting money on CCS: my tax money. Make Southern Co. pay the tuition hike a the Univ. of Southern Mississippi- not the students! Better education for Miss. residents would get them to push back against unfair utility rate hikes like we are doing in Massachusetts! (Not on my bill, Charlie!).
So forget “clean coal”, it’s a lie! And please KIITG. Keep it in the ground. Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, Thank you Brett Wingo
Saturday 9 July 2016
Letter # 597
Naji JERF
Dear President Obama,
I write to you today to honor journalists who have been assassinated because they bring us the news. They were all part of a citizens journalist group “Raqqa is being slaughtered silently”, and for that they were targeted by ISIS.
Naji JERF, killed 28 Dec 2015, a Syrian film maker assassinated in Turkey the day before he was to flee to France for asylum.
Ahmed Mohamed al-Mousa, killed 16 Dec 2015 in Idlib Syria.
Ruqia Hassan, disappeared July 2015 in Syria, later killed.
Ibrahim Quader + Faes Hammadi, killed 30 October 2015. In Turkey.
Bashin Abduladhim as-Salem and Faisal Hussain al-Habib, aged 20 and 21, killed 5 July 2015.
And thank you to Kyle Orton for reporting on these mostly unsung heroes. I have written to you before about journalists killed in war zones, but these were murdered to silence them and to keep us from seeing and reading their internet posts. The least we can try to do is remember their names.
Climate change is increasing the sectarian violence in the parched Middle East. So please, do everything you can to KIITG! Keep it in the ground. Do it for the unsung heroes. Do it for your daughters. Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, Honoring murdered journalists of Raqqa
Monday 11 July 2016
Letter # 598
Hokusai, Barrelmaker
Dear President Obama,
I haven’t sent you art in a long time – an unfortunate result of my writing less frequently. This image soothes me. I love the interplay of curvy bumpy nature and the huge round barrel, the straight lines of the staves and rice paddies against the curves of the barrel, the simple tools, the diligent man all give a calming sense of an orderly world. We need images like this precisely because our world is becoming more chaotic as the climate warms and we face more and more frequent climate disruptions. The huge fire near Tar Sands in Alberta, Canada that wiped out a town, and then just moved on across the Boreal forest. Lake Kariba shrinking in Zambia, Lake Poopo almost completely gone in Bolivia. So feast your eyes, breathe deeply and then get to work invigorated. Please KIITG! Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, Art soothes + Energizes
Saturday 16 July 2016
Letter # 599
Dear President Obama,
I’m part of a citizens group in Cambridge trying to limit city light pollution. The skies all across the US are vastly brighter now than 40 years ago- and although this is clearly less important than climate change, I think our human predilection for stuff and showing off, lighting up our buildings needlessly- encourages us to think we can ‘tame’ nature, instead of living in synergy and harmony with it. When I was growing up in Chicago, even city kids knew the Big Dipper and now you can scarcely make it out. Darker skies help us remember we are small and remind us to be grateful to be part of a wonderful and complex material world. They remind us that we don’t want to mess up the climate and imbalance the complex web of life that lets us flourish. So I wrote some haiku. Here is one:
Lights loom, pollute urban sky.
Ancient Big Dipper craves more Dark.
Now! Soon!
Light pollution, carbon pollution. They’re connected, they are caused by our callous lack of concern, our hubris. Please work harder to KIITG keep in the ground! It is the most important work you can do. Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, Fighting light pollution
Monday 18 July 2016
Letter #600
Dear President Obama,
Well, here were are– 600 letters in about 1200 days! I hope you have found some of them entertaining and others thought-provoking. But most of all I hope they have spurred you to ever more effort to cut carbon emissions quickly so that we don’t ruin the planet for future generations. Yesterday I marched with a few hundred others to tell our state government to stop building pipelines we don’t need. We called it People over Pipelines– a 4 day march that I also took part in on Thursday. I’m hopeful that we got some attention and nudged our politicians along, but I am sad that the fossil fuel industry is so powerful, even in a Democratic state, that we had to march at all! So please please put people over pipelines, protect our climate for future generations. There is no more important work you can do. Stop all new drilling leases on land and sea. KIITG! Keep it in the ground. You’ll be happy to know that we had speakers from Black Lives Matter and prison reform groups at our rallies. We know that the most vulnerable get hurt first. I’m also happy to report there were tons of young people. They are ready to fight for their world their tomorrow. Please join us. Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, People over Pipelines
