You Disappoint Me, Mr. President

This morning I received an email from Obama for America, the organizing group for President Obama's 2012 campaign, with the headline "This Email Will Offend You."

Here's how the email began:

Adam --

Here's something you and I weren't supposed to find out:

At a private function at a Colorado resort, oil billionaire Charles Koch stood in front of hundreds of conservative millionaires and said the 2012 election will be, in the words of Saddam Hussein -- yes, he decided to quote Saddam Hussein -- "the mother of all wars."

He then read through a list of 32 contributors who gave more than a million dollars each to bankroll the network of corporate special-interest groups that aim to tear down President Obama.

If that offends you, it absolutely should. But it should also motivate you, because you are the only thing that can stop them.

Sure, it offends me that one of the biggest oil barons of our time, responsible for more environmental destruction and climate change than maybe any other American (I admit I'm not sure if this is true, but just think of all of that oil...) would quote a vile dictator in reference to the 2012 presidential race. But this email seemed out of touch with something I've been thinking for a little while now -- that Obama himself is alienating his base by disregarding the values that got him elected. Obama the president could not be more different than Obama the candidate. Plus I could think of something that offends me more -- his recent cave on improved ozone standards. As Adrianna Quintero writes on NRDC's Switchboard:

Passing a stronger standard would save (yes, SAVE!) as much as $37 billion per year in health benefits at a cost of roughly $20 billion by:

• saving up to 4,300 lives;
• preventing up to 23,000 cases of aggravated asthma;
• avoiding almost 7,000 hospital visits; and
• 2.6 million days of work or school that people otherwise would miss due to air pollution.

She continues, sharing my frustration with Obama's compromise or inaction on these important issues:

It seems that none of these very obvious questions matter to them [politicians] anymore. Knee-jerk reactions to overblown claims by political rivals are what rule the day and motivate action in Congress and in the Administration. Reason and facts are looked down upon. Thoughtfulness is viewed as pretentious. And protecting our country, our children, MY children, equals political poison.

With this sentiment and that of being arrested at the White House taking nonviolent direct action for climate fresh in my mind, I responded to the initial email with this message:

"You know what really offends me? That the man I voted into office in 2008 (my first ever presidential election vote, by the way) on the platform of hope and change has done little on the subject of climate change. His cave on ozone regulation makes me sick, literally and figuratively. I was arrested in front of the White House two weeks ago when I engaged in civil disobedience against the Keystone XL pipeline, which would bring tar sands, the dirtiest fuel on the planet, from Canada to US refineries along the Gulf Coast. If President Obama approves this pipeline, and continues his track record of caving on and not actively pursuing stricter climate policy, I will not vote for him in 2012. I know many of my friends, family members, and fellow concerned Americans feel the same way, and I hope you can somehow relay this message to him."

A group of Keystone XL pipeline opponents recently gathered at an Obama campaign office in Seattle to share this same message with the staff there. They bring up the point that not only are their votes at stake, but also their willingness to donate and volunteer for the campaign and defend Obama to their friends and colleagues.



Obama clearly has some explaining to do or I fear he'll have a tough time of it next November. I never thought Obama would ever be the lesser-of-two-evils candidate, but if he doesn't start proving his commitment to climate and the other core values that so endeared him to us in 2008 he will face that fate and risk being a one-term president.

Stop the Tar Sands: Stand Tall Generation Y

This post originally appeared last week in a Daily Kos blogathon featuring responses to the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. If this were to be approved, the pipeline would bring tar sands oil from Canada to the US Gulf Coast and serve as the fuse to one of the largest carbon bombs on the planet. If we are to have any hope of mitigating the catastrophic consequences of climate change, this carbon must stay in the ground. Here's why I'm participating in civil disobedience against the Keystone XL this week.

I've always balked a little at the notion that we should take action on climate change for the sake of our children, and for our children's children. This idea rubs me the wrong way because it creates a temporal disconnect with the immediacy of these issues, reinforcing the misconception that climate change is something that isn't happening while giving those suspicious of doing good for the environment another reason not to care. That, and of course it's not true. We need to take action on climate to save ourselves too.

Whenever I hear someone reference future generations in relation to climate change I can't help but think, "They're talking about me. These adults are talking about me." See, I was born in the late nineteen eighties which means that if US life expectancy is anywhere near accurate I will still be alive well after 2050. To put it simply, if I don't take action on climate then I'm not only jeopardizing my branch of the family tree but my own existence entirely. I don't have the luxury of playing wait and see. None of us do. Of course I'm an adult too now and as we charge further into the 21st Century an idea that may be a vestige of environmental messages of old becomes less and less relevant as more climate-passionate young people join the cause and conversation.

Climate must be a priority now. Our current greenhouse gas trajectory exceeds even the worst-case fossil fuel intensive projections made in 2007 for emissions over the next 100 years. The following video depicts a message Bill McKibben articulated beautifully in a Washington Post op-ed in May: Connect the dots. The destructive consequences of a changing climate are happening all around us.



When I first heard about the two weeks of civil disobedience in Washington I thought this is an incredible and unique opportunity. Through our participation we can show the one man responsible for approving or rejecting the pipeline, President Barack Obama, that we mean business. The groundswell of support for this action and the satellite protests that have cropped up across the country for those who cannot make it to DC prove that we've grown tired of our leaders' inability to make significant progress on climate change. Oftentimes when I think about direct actions I can take to have a positive impact on the environment my mind wanders to behavior changes in my personal life. But participating in civil disobedience is a whole different animal, and for me a no-brainer. Let's get this country's attention and convince the Commander in Chief to stop one of the most destructive projects in discussion today.

I recently came across a passage of a speech Obama gave back in 2006. He said:

"The issue of climate change is one that we ignore at our own peril. There may still be disputes about exactly how much we're contributing to the warming of the earth's atmosphere and how much is naturally occurring, but what we can be scientifically certain of is that our continued use of fossil fuels is pushing us to a point of no return. And unless we free ourselves from a dependence on these fossil fuels and chart a new course on energy in this country, we are condemning future generations to global catastrophe."

Without a doubt President Obama has diverged from this message. Sure, he may not think he has enough remaining political capital to craft meaningful climate legislation, especially when current members of Congress advocate abolishing the EPA and recently rejected a measure that would have admitted the climate is changing and human activities are the cause. In the midst of such an obstructionist political setting it's up to us to show him he's not alone. Further action simply cannot wait. He needs to understand that approving the Keystone XL pipeline would be a direct affront to those who elected him.

Therefore this post is a call to all members of Generation Y to come out in strength and stand tall outside the White House starting this weekend. The votes of the 18- to 25-year-old demographic were essential to Obama's victory in 2008 and we need to hold him accountable. We’ve inherited quite the complex global problem and it’s up to us to solve it, or perish. We ARE the future generation we’ve heard so much about. The clock is ticking.

I remember in the very first announcement on Grist about the plans for the civil disobedience there was a portion which read: "We don’t want college-age kids to be the only cannon fodder in this fight.... Now it’s time for people who’ve spent their lives pouring carbon into the atmosphere (and whose careers won’t be as damaged by an arrest record) to step up too." Fellow Gen-Yers, will we get arrested? It's entirely possible. We're not supposed to stand still in the location where we'll be gathering outside the White House. But this space offers President Obama such a prime view of us we simply can't pass it up. Should we let the threat of tainting our personal records deter us from showing our support for this cause? Never. Would we want to work somewhere that couldn't understand and accept the type of thoughtful and principled action we'll be engaging in? I don't think so. I will be outside the White House a week from today, on Tuesday August 23rd, and I hope you will join me.