Public letters are in these days. The desmogblog has this cool project going, The 100 Year Letter Project, where various guests get to tell their version of the climate story. The latest one, by climate scientist Simon Donner was recently featured on DotEarth. Not wanting to be left out, I have my own version of a public letter. This one is to the future president of the United States.
To the Future President of the United States,
I am writing to ask that you please hear what I have to say as a concerned Green Girl Wannabe. See, there are all these talks in the media, about us, the people not being good green citizens
Not a day goes by, without us being accused of dumping more nasty gases into the air. We are told we drive too much, cars that are too big for our own good. We consume too much electricity. We are guilty of passively supporting coal mountaintop removal in the Appalachian Mountains. We fly too much. Our houses are too big. We don’t shut off our computers at night. We should be using public transportation more. We consume too much. We use too many plastic bags. We are responsible for a huge Garbage Patch in the midst of the Atlantic. We should recycle more. We should all have solar installations on our roofs. We should stop using our dryers and hang our clothes to dry on clotheslines. We should conserve water. We should plant more trees. We generate too much garbage. We eat too much red meat. We should stop our junk mail. We should weatherize our homes. We should switch to tankless water heaters. We should insulate. We should find jobs closer to home. We should stop procreating so much. We should . . .
Do you get it? I am overwhelmed with all that’s thrown at me. I have enough to deal with as it is. I’ve got family worries to deal with, teenagers rebelling, a mother going insane with Alzheimer’s, work to be done, the angst of midlife striking, a house to keep, and not enough hours in the day to keep it all together. And now, I am supposed to become a green citizen, on top of it all. Don’t get me wrong, I do want to be green. I am convinced the human race is heading towards catastrophe, unless we all start changing our ways, quick. I just can’t make these changes right now, the way things are set up. This is where you come into play.
I need you, Future President, to step up to the challenge, and lead us all with a vision to inspire, and a plan that will make it impossible for me and my fellow citizens to fail in our green wannabe efforts. The folks at the Presidential Climate Action Project already gave you a list of 300 concrete steps they want you to take as soon as we elect you. I also have a list, of 15 things I need from you:
- Make it harder for me to sin, and impose a carbon tax on all my bad habits
- Have standards in place that will let me know what is green and what is not
- Make it free for me to install solar on my roof
- Make it possible for me to trade in my old appliances for Energy Star appliances
- Make it hard for me to use my car, and set curfews.
- Set the example, and be a green citizen yourself
- Take the troops out of Irak, and train them as green soldiers to weatherize homes, do solar installs, and retrofit cars
- Ban bad plastics
- Impose limits on packaging
- Encourage telecommuting
- Cover the land with solar and wind farms, and more trees
- Lower the speed limit on freeways
- Build a national green transportation infrastructure of more trains, more buses, car share, bike routes, and no car zones.
- One day a month ask your people to do one green thing
- Sign the Basel Convention, so I can feel better about recycling my computer
These are all the things I need from you, Future President, if I am going to come through with my responsibilities as a green citizen.
La Marguerite 
I love the sentiment of this letter. It couples nicely with your piece a few days ago analyzing the psychological reasons that it is difficult to fully go green.
Those same barriers that make it hard for people like you and I to make green choices consistently make it *prohibitive* for people in my close personal circle to make the jump. Their conscience just isn’t as overdeveloped as mine, they can’t visualize the distant consequences, and so they can’t justify taking the action. It’s just too much.
So I think it’s incumbent on those of us willing to step up and make change to not just do it, but to propose and campaign for means that can make it trivial for everyone else.
Still, I wonder if I had a list of 15 things to ask for, if it would be the same ones. On the whole, I agree with most of them, but my personal wishlist would probably be a little different.
Would I set car curfews and speed limits, or would I demand sky high fuel and emissions standards? I might demand a system that makes it financially non-viable to create landfilled garbage, like they have in Belgium, to encourage great recycling habits. In the land of rain and apartments, I wouldn’t want free roof solar, but maybe free roof wind.
And my #1 ask would be to help the airline industry figure out how to slash or zero their carbon emissions. It makes it so much easier to want to save the world when you can get out there and experience it.
Thanks Brave New Leaf. I am totally with you on not just making personal changes, but also relating to the other folks who are not so green minded, and need some help and better solutions. This is largely the reason behind this blog.
How about you write your own letter, and you post it on your blog?
Not a bad idea – maybe I’ll give it a shot! It seems difficult to do right now, so early in my process. I’m not sure I’ll ask for the right things…the changes that will make a difference. But it would definitely be an interesting exercise… 🙂
I would not minimize your input, regardless of ‘where you are in the process’. The important thing is to state what you need from our future leader, as a regular citizen. Remembering that the majority of Americans is who we need to advocate for here.
you just may have started a serialized chain letter here.
my personal input would come in dry and precise terms.
i would not bother with detail, cut and ready for action.
i barely can contain my enthusiasm for such an idea.
fifteen wants for fifteen needs; splendid!
i’ll be back in a few days to show you what and in what order..
what a great discourse you are capable of engaging, you’re good and green!
Wonderful post, Marguerite. I’m just a bit too jaded by the LACK of political will, even by sitting democrats to pick up your challenge and make a list. To me, voting is putting more good energy into bad. Everytime I see an email come in that says, “Tell X in DC to vote for this common sense bill that any moron would know we need action on,” I’m miffed. THEY are supposably smarter than we are and yet THEY need to be prodded to do what’s right. Who’s leading whom?
Nadine, I can’t wait to read YOUR letter!
Mary, I agree with you, and still, I do sign all these email petitions that come my way. We’ve got to work both within and outside the system.
Regarding your leadership question, that’s the most puzzling thing to me. The lack of leadership. What do you think of Bobby Kennedy Jr.?
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