Saturday 24 December, 2016
Letter #651
(2nd letter today)
Dear President Obama,
In 2014 in West Virginia, the Freedom Industries chemical company spilled coal-cleaning chemicals into the Elk River poisoning drinking water for 300,000 people in nine counties. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/18/us/owners-of-chemical-company-charged-in-elk-river-spill
After 10 days the water was considered safe to drink again – but what about poisoning to fish, wildlife, ecosystem damage? The Freedom Industries company was then FREE to declare bankruptcy while nine counties were TRAPPED with pollution!
In Feb 2016 a judge fined Freedom $900,000 (that’s $3 per resident per day …) that they will NEVER pay, being bankrupt. https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/legal_affairs/freedom-fined-900-000-for-elk-spill-but-unlikely-to-ever-pay/article_69eef868-93eb-53d5-8d81-6988b195d83d.html
What a messed up bankruptcy system we have – that lets polluters just walk away and pollute again! This pollution is yet another way we ALL pay too much for COAL and other fossil fuels. And yet the judge’s action is called, by some, part of a WAR on COAL! Wow – what contorted truth-twisting that phrase is! I feel so sorry for the people of West Virginia who have to live amid all that pollution. Clean renewable energy will let us all live FREE of pollution. Let’s cut carbon pollution QUICKLY. Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, W Va Trapped by Freedom Industries
Sunday 25 December, 2016
Letter #652
Dear President Obama,
At a protest rally recently we walked right by the Boston Public Library, an imposing old stone building. Our slow pace allowed me to look around, and I read the motto incised across the top of the building:
“The Commonwealth [of Mass.] Requires the Education of the People as the Safeguard of order and liberty.” That’s a good thought. Education should definitely lead to more liberty for ALL. I’m not sure that many educators think much about that these days – but we should keep it in mind. Another really important safeguard of liberty is curbing carbon pollution very quickly. If we can rein in the climate chaos, there will be far more liberty for all peoples across the planet. Please do all you can to KIITG! Keep it in the Ground. Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, Let’s Safeguard Liberty
Mon 26 December, 2016
Letter #653
Ousmane Sembène
Dear President Obama,
I want to recommend the movie Black Girl by Ousmane Sembène to you. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/18/movies/ousmane-sembenes-black-girl-turns-50.html
It was made in 1966 and has just been released on DVD. I think your whole family would like it. The story follows Diouarma, a Senegalese young woman come to France for a job as a nanny, in a white world – and Sembène’s statement is beautiful and full of humanity. Who am I, who is she, who is any of us? And yet we are each the same, wanting to be seen, to be appreciated, to be someone. In this year of so many immigrants, faceless, huddled masses, with no papers, no state, we need reminding more than ever that each is a person, not a number, or a problem. Aleppo has fallen – but I fear that just means the next siege will be Mosul. Where will it end? I really think that if we could quickly decrease carbon, we might be able to steady out the weird weather swings, the droughts, the floods that make wars so much more likely. And so, a movie like this encourages me to keep trying – to keep advocating for reducing carbon. And so, I hope, it will inspire you, as well, to do all you can to KIITG. Keep it in the Ground. Thank you for being so very active in these last final weeks.
Susan J. Ringler, Admire Ousmane Sambène
Mon 26 December, 2016
Letter #654
(2nd letter today)
Dear President Obama,
Alvin Toffler died this summer. He brought us the phrase “information overload” and correctly recognized that knowledge would become more valuable than labor or commodities. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/30/books/alvin-toffler-author-of-future-shock-dies-at-87.html
But something he didn’t anticipate is the huge mis-information overload. Brexit won because people thought there would be NO COST to leaving the EU. False “facts” blast through the Internet at an alarming pace. Toffler thought the overload would make us sick, but we have just gotten torpid. He thought the brain trying to process more and more would make us dizzy. But instead we just process less and less. Some leaders think so little, that a tweet of a few lines is all they can muster. But you, I know, hold steady with your long view, and I thank you for that. I just wish you could push a bit harder for faster action on reducing carbon pollution. We really don’t have any time to waste. If there is a window of opportunity it is very small. So please do all you can TODAY to reduce carbon pollution QUICKLY. Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, Perspective can Counteract Overload
Tues 27 December, 2016
Letter #655
Dear President Obama,
I write to you today to honor David Nott, an amazing British surgeon who has worked in many war zones, most recently Aleppo. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/06/27/syrias-war-on-doctors
He developed techniques for surgery in “austere environments” and taught them to many doctors. These people have seen horrific casualties in Syria – where hospitals have been specifically targeted time and again. And they still go back, trying to save lives. We live in barbaric times. 90% of the hospital bombings in Syria have been carried out by the Syrian government or their Russian allies. And what has the West done to stop that? We fix our eyes on ISIS, think we can eradicate that scourge, but how many individuals must die for that cause? Don’t these civilian deaths just add to the tribalism and hatred? And doesn’t hatred fuel ISIS? David Nott and his colleagues save lives one by one, toiling ever onwards. If you would act decisively to quickly end carbon pollution NOW, maybe we would need fewer David Notts. He would like that, his family would like that. His descendants and yours would like that. Please do all you can to KIITG.
Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, Admire David Nott
Tues 27 December, 2016
Letter #656
(2nd letter today)
Dear President Obama,
Thank you, thank you. I wrote and asked you to save the Senate Torture Report (letter #626) and within days you did just that! https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/12/opinion/preserve-the-senate-torture-report-dianne-feinstein.html
Little do I think my letter had much to do with it. But it does show that we think alike on many issues, and that you have been speeding up your action on some fronts in these last weeks.
Would that you could speed up our reduction in carbon pollution! The problem of climate disruption is so vast, that if we don’t alleviate it sufficiently, nothing else matters. Who cares about a torture report if 500,000 Bengali swarm the border with India fleeing horrific flooding? If war ensues, leading to more strain on resources and more wars? This is the world we will bequeath our children and grandchildren. Please do everything you can TODAY to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, to KIITG and to avoid the worst catastrophes of climate chaos. Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, Please Do More
Wed 28 December, 2016
Letter #657
Dear President Obama,
Beijing has terrible winter air pollution and so finally, in Dec 2015, the first Red Alert caused schools to shut, construction to halt and cars to be banned or limited. But that was too disruptive causing “high social and economic cost.” So within a couple of months, Beijing redefined a Red Alert, allowing higher pollution levels, so there would be less disruption! https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/23/world/asia/beijing-smog-alerts.html
The official Science Times denies that pollution comes from coal burning, factories, and cars, and yet a Red Alert limits coal burning, factories, and cars! Hmmmm. Who is fooled by that? Beijing will have to tackle air pollution because rich people want to breathe as much as poor people. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/15/world/asia/beijing-smog-pollution.html
But carbon pollution is a less immediate problem, causing climate chaos decades later. Will we humans act quickly enough to limit that? Or will our short term goals just get in our way? We laugh at China as a company with bad quality control. When the product doesn’t pass QC, just change the test! But we do this too. You pick 2005 carbon levels as baseline, but Europe picked 1995. Such tricks only fool ourselves. Please do all you can to KIITG! The rest is inconsequential. Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, QC Analyst
Wed 28 December, 2016
Letter #658
(2nd letter today)
Dear President Obama,
I mourn the loss of Ken Hechler, a long-lived, feisty W. Virginia politician and Appalachia advocate. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/11/us/politics/ken-hechler-dead.html
He fought the coal industrialists tooth and nail and I only wish he had had more allies. Yes, he got the Coal Mine Health and Safety Act passed in 1969, but he was unable to stop mountaintop removal mining. The grass and bushes planted on flat chopped-off mountains as “nature restoration,” he had the good sense to call “lipstick on a corpse.” On the same topic, you should watch the documentary “The Last Mountain” made by my friend Eric Grunebaum. You can stream it from www.linktv.org. Once again, coal is cheap because we do not account for the habitat destruction, water pollution, health costs that it causes. As long as the fossil fuel industry gets to do the math, coal is cheap. Future generations will pay the price. Hechler understood decades ago – and now we have much more science to prove him right. Why act so slowly to cut carbon? Please speed it up. Do all you can TODAY to cut carbon emissions quickly. Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, Admire Ken Hechler
Thurs 29 December, 2016
Letter #659
Sugar Blues by Billy Dee Williams, from NYTimes 1 July 2016
Dear President Obama,
This is a wonderful drawing by the actor Billy Dee Williams. Wow – what creativity! An artist, an actor, a jazz-lover. How many like him lived in Syria in the past decade? Who could do art when just staying alive was scarcely feasible? Art only flourishes in times of relative peace and plenty. Ah – plenty… for that you need a flourishing vibrant climate – but instead we have ever-mounting carbon levels in the atmosphere. So as carbon levels increase, climate disruption increases and plenty is less wide-spread. This leads to more wars over scarce resources, and so on and so on… We spiral down. So glance at this poignant sketch now and then and get inspired to act ever more quickly to limit carbon pollution. Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, Inspired by Art
Thurs 29 December, 2016
Letter #660
(2nd letter today)
1980
2010
Dear President Obama,
Oh my, look at how the oceans have been absorbing most of the heat from increased carbon in the atmosphere. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/09/12/science/earth/ocean-warming-climate-change.html
We have seen some alarming effects from ocean surface temperature rise, from rising sea levels, to coral bleaching and arctic ice melt. But we really don’t know very much about how all this works and what we can expect to happen to climate and weather from warming seas.
I guess climate deniers just say – hey the oceans are vast, they can handle it. But what effect will it have on human populations? No one really knows. Since we know GHG are causing all these problems, why don’t we just quickly switch to renewables? But short-term greed has somehow got the upper hand. Please please do all you can TODAY to cut carbon emissions quickly. Thank you.
Susan J. Ringler, Alarmed at Warming Seas
