Letter to President Obama and His Response

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

This is the first time I have ever written to an elected official. I am compelled to write by something akin to a sense of guilt -- guilt from knowing so much and having done, as of yet, so little. I refer to an awareness of the environmental -- and resulting political and social -- catastrophe that increasingly appears inevitable, unless one buries one's head in denial, ignorance, or a naive belief that somehow things will work themselves out.

About myself: I am a 32-year-old U.S. citizen who has spent 10 years living abroad in less developed countries, particularly Ukraine, Russia, and Slovakia. I am an avid student of the sciences, a lover of wilderness, backpacking, and simple living, and a self-employed developer of online information resources. I recently married and will be leaving Minnesota in two months with my wife to spend a few years in Ukraine before returning to pursue an advanced degree in geography. Like yourself, my experience traveling the world, living within different cultures, and speaking different languages has given me a broad perspective of life on Earth that precludes a conviction that one's native society is inherently better than others. My wife and I are excited that a person with this perspective has become President of the United States.

My wife and I live modestly and have vowed never to own a car, large home, lawnmower, and many other attributes of contemporary first-world life that today's Americans take for granted. When we move out of my parents' home shortly, we will be living in small rented apartments or, hopefully some day in the future, small dwellings that require little energy for maintenance and heating, are off the energy and utilities grid, and are furnished with dry composting toilets, efficient wood stoves, and a garden plot surrounding around the house. We expect to get around by foot, bicycle, and public transportation, as we do now. We believe that living close to nature -- as most people have for most of human history -- promotes greater health of body, mind, and spirit.

However, as you imagine, this kind of frugal, sustainable lifestyle is nearly impossible in the United States today, unless one decides to move to the far fringes of society. Housing and transportation infrastructure, zoning regulations, neighborhood rules, and even property and income taxes all work together to create a situation where one is forced to expend huge amounts of fossil fuel-derived energy on a daily basis, both directly through the purchase of gasoline, fuels, and utilities and indirectly through the purchase of mass-produced necessities -- even food! -- whose production is wholly dependent upon fossil fuels. Most Americans who are aware of the amount of nonrenewable energy being expended, and the global consequences of this expenditure, are nonetheless trapped in essentially the same lifestyle as everyone else, their minds hating what they do but their will not strong enough to buck the system alone. Yet more Americans are vaguely aware of the problems, but choose to do what everyone else is doing.

As you must know, we have reached, or will reach soon, Peak Oil. Modern agribusiness is dependent upon oil and natural gas for fertilizers, transportation, and storage. Inconceivably, roughly 10 times the amount of fossil fuel energy is invested in food production than the food itself contains! Modern medicine, water distribution, transportation, heating, manufacturing, mining, and national defense are dependent upon oil. We now know that burning extremely energy-dense fossil fuels contributes to global warming, whose effects will be devastating within our own lifetimes and the lifetimes of our children. Even if the climate were somehow not to change despite the profound rise in CO2 levels, we will still have to face the many other detrimental environmental effects of our fossil fuel-based industrial society. And even if we today choose to change nothing and simply hope for the best, these fossil fuels will still run out soon, causing enormous turmoil within one or two generations.

What will happen to us when fossil fuels become scarce? In light of this rapidly approaching fact, why are we not doing everything possible to localize food, water, energy, and resource production today? Why do we develop cities and agribusiness in marginal locations such as the desert Southwest, where water must be imported from afar? Why are we continuing to build up suburban infrastructure that will soon become useless? Why do we use "sustainability" as a catchphrase when it is simply the single possible economic model of long-lived and stable societies? Finally, why do we hear so little talk of population stabilization and reduction? Our politicians talk about economic recovery, healthcare, unemployment, the plight of the old and the poor, winning wars abroad, abortion and gay marriage... but all these social issues are meaningless in comparison to the existential menace of environmental degradation and resource depletion, of which scientific monitoring no longer gives us reason to doubt.

I and many other environmentally conscious Americans applaud your measures to invest in alternative energy sources and your resolve to tackle climate change issues. However, we want to see -- and hear -- much more than this. We want to hear about Peak Oil and how the country will respond to it, even if it means making collective sacrifices. We want not only to see widespread use of renewable energy, but also changes in infrastructure that allow us to live happy lives with a far lower expenditure of energy, and thus far less vulnerability to unforeseen change. We want to hear -- and see -- our elected representatives confound the growth-oriented corporate interests that have built the unsustainable society we now all live in, even if it means a substantial reduction in GDP. We want to see local communities encouraging homeowners to plant crops instead of lawns and to install self-sufficient utilities in their homes, even if it results in a drop in home values in the short term. We want to see measures to halt population growth worldwide and in our own country, even if it goes against some people's shortsighted view of ethics. We want to hear our leading politicians -- especially the President -- talking about the leading problems, even if other, less consequential issues are at the forefront of popular awareness. Wise leaders have a responsibility not only to acknowledge and address the local problems of their constituents, but also to inform the public about the global issues that their unique position at the center of information streams allows them to see.

While a corresponding bottom-up environmental movement is gaining speed and increasingly influencing popular culture, there are many changes that can only be instituted from the top down. Though our country was founded in an era of local self-sufficiency, we no longer live in such a world. Most of us depend on corporations for our livelihood and day-to-day necessities. Our contemporary society is complex and filled with procedures and regulations that make it impossible for one to take care only of oneself and produce nothing for society. We cannot make substantial progress against the environmental threats facing us unless everyone participates in the changes -- and sacrifices -- together. Only government can initiate the required changes in organization and infrastructure.

Small changes in the tax and regulatory policies of centralized governments can lead to large changes in citizens' and businesses' behavior. I believe -- along with many scientists -- that we cannot wait for a full awareness of environmental impacts to reach the public at large before taking aggressive measures to reduce this impact. The inertia of the oil-driven economy and of behaviors and values based on cheap energy is enormous, but central government has the power to change the direction of the machine. We also cannot expect that the law of supply and demand will automatically take care of the oil problem, because oil is not an elastic commodity. If oil prices rise, we will pay those prices because our infrastructure allows us no alternative. We will pay until it becomes impossible to pay any more, at which point our entire economy and society will collapse.

I and other educated and environmentally aware Americans want to hear and see these issues addressed publicly with a resolve that is adequate to the threats facing us. Anything that your administration does to turn our situation around today will be positively assessed by future generations, even if it incites the indignation of many of those living today. At the same time, let us realize that it is corporate interests that will suffer, not the interests of actual people! Most Americans, I am convinced, would be willing to change their lifestyle if everyone else did the same. Deep down, it is not possessions or economic growth that people wish for, but security, stability, freedom, health and happiness, and friendly relations one with another. If society can provide these things at a much lower environmental cost, the people will support the necessary changes.

Sincerely,

Rick DeLong