Heartsease

Carmel, Indiana’s Mayor James Brainard, has been appointed to President Obama’s Task Force on Climate Change. Below is the letter I wrote and sent to the Mayor earlier today.  I invite everyone reading this to take a few minutes to write, not only to Mayor Brainard, but each member of the Task Force on Climate Change encouraging them to take decisive and meaningful action on climate change issues.   It only takes ten percent of the population to come together in one mind and one accord in order for a whole society to change how they think and what they do. We can effect positive and lasting change, as I tell the Mayor in my letter our children and grandchildren’s future is worth sacrificing for. http://tinyurl.com/ny3knm8 is a link to an article which lists each member of the Climate Change Task force and where they are from. If you don’t know what to tell the members of the task force feel free to use my letter as a template.

Cheers,

Laurie-Ann

Dear Mayor Brainard,

I was pleased to read a fellow Hoosier had been appointed to the President’s task force on climate change, congratulations on your appointment. As a trained Climate Reality Leader, environmental educator, and some one engaged in public service, I cannot stress enough how important taking strong action to curb anthropogenic climate change is to our children and grandchildren’s future.

I responded to a post by climate denier John Crimmins, who posted at IndyStar.com (http://tinyurl.com/kngwnhy) in the comments on the article the Indianapolis Star wrote announcing your appointment.

“Mr. Crimmins, I’m a native born Hoosier, I have spent the last several years doing contract work across the country. Indiana is one of the states which is located in a very special water abundant area. I spent a year in Alaska, followed by a year in Nebraska, six months in Maine, and this past six months in Far West Texas; areas where climate change and water issues are far more visible to the eye than back home. John, climate change has always occurred and will continue to do so, but this change has happened GRADUALLY in geological time. Human beings have altered the equation -speeding up a natural process by highly unnatural means. We forget the holocene was a very unique moment in planetary history. a very rare moment. Human beings are the most plastic, no pun intended, species on the planet which means we have been able to exploit highly marginal areas/niches. The majority of the worlds population resides in in these marginal areas and will continue to bear the brunt of accelerated climate change’s costs. Again, 97% of all climate scientists agree climate change is occurring and that the unnatural acceleration is anthropogenic in nature. 19 oncologists say you have stage 3 colon cancer, 1 says you don’t; tell me, who are you going to believe? 97% is consensus”

Mayor Brainard, I have spent the last six months watching towns in Far West Texas and Southeastern New Mexico drain every drop of water from their wells, their towns are bone dry; they have to have water trucked in. Farmers and land owners who see this with their own eyes but still have water in their aquifer are choosing to sell their precious, precious fresh water to the frackers to be used in extracting oil in the most unsustainable way possible. Black Water Draw, New Mexico used to be home to a lake, irrigation drained the last drop of water from the lake in 1974 but few paid attention to the warning sign.

Here at Guadalupe Mountains National Park, where I serve as the Community Outreach & Public Relations specialist, eight of Texas ten tallest mountains can be found raising majestically up from the floor of the Chihuahuan Desert. Guadalupe Mountains is a hiking park, there’s no road wending through the mountains and canyons, if you climb your way up the mountain trails to the top of this ancient Permian reef you can experience first hand what the Chihuahuan desert was like twelve thousand years ago. There is a forest up there, mountain lions, black bears, and other forest dwellers live in this sky island. It’s hard to wrap your head around the fact just a few thousand years ago much of the Chihuahuan Desert looked like our mountain top oasis.

When I served at Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park in 2011 I was shocked to see the retreat of Alaska’s glaciers. I nearly fell over when I read a news article in which a climate denier stated boldly “there are more glaciers in Alaska now than ever before”. You see, it simply isn’t true, what has happened is the massive ice sheets have retreated back up the valleys so far that they leave little pockets of snow and ancient ice, remnants which are quickly disappearing themselves. If you ride the White Pass & Yukon train from Skagway up to the top of the mountain you might experience a short stop while hikers disembark so they can hike up to Laughton Glacier. A two mile or so hike is required from the tracks to the glacier’s edge; most folks don’t make it to the glacier itself as it is a rather daunting hike but most of those who do don’t recognize the dirty, debris filled, nearly black snow as a glacier. Roughly one hundred years ago Laughton Glacier flowed under the railroad track, now it’s a memory.

When I first came to Guadalupe Mountains National Park in June of this year I couldn’t figure out what town I was seeing at night from the park housing compound. Highway 62/180 curves around the Guadalupe Mountains hiding the lights of Carlsbad, New Mexico from view; It was possible I was seeing Black Water Village or Loving but I didn’t realize they were so good sized, in fact they’re not. The thousands of lights flickering down the valley are the flares of fracking wells hidden from view in the draws and arroyos of Far West Texas during the day. Fracking flares are lights the desert darkness doesn’t comprehend and are an incredible danger to a already fragile ecosystem.

Mayor Brainard, big oil, big business, men and women like the Koch’s, cannot be trusted to police themselves. These people and entities have spoken, it has been their money and their influence which has done the talking; talking which has cost the rest of us dearly. President Obama, yourself, and the other members of the Climate Task Force, have what is perhaps the most important job in the history of humanity. Framing the war on climate change in terms of a David and Goliath scenario is not hyberbole. I have seen with my own eyes ranchers sell their children’s future in the form of a water station for frackers, when the town ten miles over is bone dry. I’ve watched Nebraska farmers cry because the Platte’s trickle wasn’t enough to irrigate their fields. I’ve watched lawsuits over water rights in Nebraska be sent back east for a fair trial and when I was in Maine those lawsuits, which will eventually effect every single American at the grocery, never raise an eyebrow or receive more than the obligatory legal notice in the paper.

Big oil and other traditional energy providers have essentially been allowed to run amok, it will be no easy task to rein them in. You are one of twenty six elected officials who are in the unique position of being able to fell Goliath. Do well by us, do not be intimidated or bought off by these so called “captains of industry”. I hope and pray that this climate task force will be the men and women my grandchildren need you to be in order for them to have a future which is positive and bright. Writing this letter to you publicly is enough to cost me my job and any future employment with a government agency. My children and my grandchildren are worth that sacrifice, and so many more. Mayor Brainard, be the David the world needs you to be.

Sincerely,

Laurie-Ann Curry