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President William J. Clinton
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
I am writing to urge to you to keep your pledge to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and to reject staff suggestions that you renege on that pledge.
I understand that your staff have prepared several draft proposals for the U.S. position in upcoming global warming negotiations later this year in Kyoto, Japan. None of these options commit the U.S. to reduce emissions below 1990 levels, all of them postpone action to 2010 or beyond, and all of them include a "cap-busting" provision that could make even modest reductions illusory as companies continue to increase emissions beyond 1990 levels by simply paying a fee to the U.S. Treasury.
As recently as this Monday, you reiterated your support for mandatory commitments to bind the U.S. to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, all of these proposals would abandon that commitment by allowing the U.S. to continue to emit greenhouse gases well above 1990 levels if costs get too high. Companies will simply sit back and pay fees to the Treasury, while the U.S. contribution to global warming continues to soar.
Mr. President, I strongly urge you to reject the staff options presented to you and to insist that the U.S. make binding commitments to reduce emissions WELL below 1990 levels, to do so WELL BEFORE 2010 and to make sure that you drop any "cap-busting" escape clause that will destroy the incentives for U.S. companies to make innovations to reduce emissions.
More specifically, I would like you to consider the following information, which I discussed personally with Vice President Gore early in 1992. He said to me that he was very familiar with, and agreed with this material and the author, David Suzuki, of the Harvard University-published book from which I was first apprised of this material. The book's title is, "It's A Matter of Survival," coauthored by Anita Gordon and Suzuki. In the book, they cite reports by the U.S. EPA, the U.N. IPCC, and the Woods Hole Research Center, which indicated the need for 50-80% reductions of Greenhouse Gasses from 1990 levels by the year 2000 or 2005! The book also showed that reports from the energy departments of the U.S., Canada, and Great Britain at the same time projected 40-45% INCREASES in the emission of these gasses over this same period. Today, seven years after the reports were authored, we are indeed emitting more Greenhouse Gasses than ever before! This is a crime of VIOLENCE against our communities and murder of those citizens killed by Greenhouse Gas-induced/exacerbated weather disasters! It is your most fundamental and overarching duty to protect American citizens and their property! And so far, I can't see anything you have done to fulfill that obligation.
Cambridge University published a book a few years back, "Confronting Climate Change: Risks, Implications and Responses," edited by Irving M. Mintzer, which discusses the question of increasing weather extremes leading to larger disasters. I quote from page 144: "Some analysts are concerned that persistent, multi-year droughts may increase the likelihood of large brush and timber fires. The 1991 fire near Oakland, California (which caused more than $3 billion in damages) is indicative of the kind of events that could occur with increasing frequency as a result of accelerated greenhouse warming." Well, Mr. President, I went through that fire. I lost everything I own during that horror from Hell. Our house was turned into four inches of powder by temperatures which reached 2000 degrees!. My life (and my brain) have been forever changed by that horrific event, because I now suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, which is a permanent change in brain chemistry, the same condition which has produced more Vietnam veteran deaths by suicide, than the total number of US soldiers killed during the entire Vietnam conflict itself.
This traumatic ailment, which causes me to have weekly hallucinations, and which has destroyed my ability to rejoin the work force, was caused by the firestorm, and, as I now believe, the firestorm was caused by Global Warming and those traitorous government leaders and corporate executives who made sure we would do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to reduce the sales of petroleum and the profits of the oil and automotive industry (according to Tim Wirth and other officials in your administration, we have yet to pass a single law to assure emissions reductions) . Many studies now indicate that Greenhouse-Gas-induced climate change began around 1976. If that is in fact the case, then I think it is quite reasonable to believe that the Oakland Firestorm holocaust itself was caused by Global Warming. So, for me, I look upon Global Warming as a National Security issue of the highest and most urgent concern. And the traitors are still in power. Are you one of them? Is Vice President Gore? As Commander-in-Chief it is your duty to call for an immediate war effort, an effort to defend the property and lives of all Americans, to pursue the goal of achieving the reduction targets of the three reports mentioned in Gordon and Suzuki's book.
To do anything less would be an act of treason against the American People, and especially to the inevitable climate casualties which are NOW piling up around us. As you look at Acapulco, please contemplate on the parallel threat to OUR nation's people, farms and wildlands. Anything from you less than a call for sustained, emergency action would be evidence that you are cavorting with the enemy, those who become wealthy from the continued burning of fossil fuels-in four words, I mean the OIL INDUSTRY and the AUTO INDUSTRY (of course, they have too many allies to list).
As far as I'm concerned, inaction would be equivalent to our patriot founders allowing British spies unimpeded access to our towns, forests and farmlands to commit acts of arson. The effect is the same. As you travel this winter to the locations of the upcoming flood, hurricane, and blizzard disasters of the coming months, and look into the eyes of the ravaged victims of these subversive Oil Industry weather conspiracies, I hope you will reflect upon the fact that these people's lives will have tragically changed forever, no matter how much "disaster relief" you can drag out of Congress. For there is no such thing as disaster "relief." These disasters are acts of insidious torture, which will scar their victims forever. These people are the climate change POWs and MIAs of your era. Don't be a Benedict Arnold, Mr. President. Do your duty. As the late, great Edward Abbey wrote, "Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul."
Terrified of American Acapulcos,
Andy Caffrey, director Climate Action NOW!
P.O. Box 324
Redway, CA 95560
cc:
Robert Rubin, Secretary of the Treasury
William Daley, Secretary of Commerce
Gene Sperling, National Economic Council
Katherine McGinty, Council on Environmental Quality
Todd Stern, White House Staff Secretary
President Bill Clinton
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
phone: 202-456-1111
via fax: 202-456-2461
president@whitehouse.gov
The Honorable Kathleen A. McGinty, Chair
Council on Environmental Quality
Old Executive Office Building Suite 360
Washington DC 20502
phone: 202-456-6224
via fax: 202-456-2710
