February 28, 2020
To:
Frank Pallone, Jr., NJ; Committee on Energy and Commerce, Chair
Bobby L. Rush, IL; Energy subcommittee, Chair
Kathy Castor, FL; Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, Chair
Paul Tonko, NY; Environment and Climate Change subcommittee, Chair
and Debra A. Haaland, NM; National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands subcommittee, Chair
Attachment: Extinguishing the Social License to Burn Fossils Act (ELBA)
Dear Chairmen and Chairwomen,
I am writing to ask you to consider the attached bill because my representative, John Curtis, will not. If necessary, I hope to introduce this legislation myself in the 117th Congress.
As you are well aware, we must transition to 100% clean, safe energy to end reliance on fossil carbons as fuel. I recognize the limited carbon budget that responsible accounting clearly demonstrates is compatible with a limit of 1.5°C. That budget and the principle of equity together clearly indicate that the U.S. must reach net zero emissions by 2030. Existing products, equipment, and infrastructure that burn fossil hydrocarbons must be replaced and retired before their end of useful life. There are only around 340GtCO2 — or 8 years of current emissions — remaining, that can be emitted before the world passes 1.5°C warming and my daughter will live in a 1.5°C warmer world before graduating college. …
The discursive construction of race is a tool of rationalizing and excusing dehumanization. Use of this tool is as much about the hegemony’s rhetorical construction of their own racial identity as it is about assigning a racial taxonomy on others. White supremacy, antisemitism, and manifest destiny, for example, are all discursive constructions of racial hegemony by those believing themselves to be White. This tool is used to defend appropriation of Indigenous lands, chattel slavery, Jim Crow segregation, Cherokee removal, Lakota starvation, Shoshone massacre, police brutality and militarization — among many other violations of human rights.
In 1879, German journalist Wilhelm Adolf Marr, attempting to use science to identify Jews as a distinct race, founded the Anti-Semitic League. Othering through the discursive construction of race, a practice contemporarily popular among the hegemony who believed themselves to be White, Marr’s rhetoric aimed for the creation of a biologically distinct ‘lower race’ through a study of the outward appearance of humans. …
My life is fueled by the cheap energy supplied by burning fossils as fuel. I bet yours is to, and that’s The Problem. Unless you’ve won the lottery and can a build fortress of sustainable solitude, it’s impossible to escape this carbon footprint without turning to homelessness. These are the options placed in front of us by They, the builders of the nation.
I don’t know about you, but I have bills to pay. I need health care, a home, and food for my family. I recognize that, at this moment, I’m more fortunate than most; I manage a large enough cash flow that I’ve saved for a rainy day and could pay my bills for a few months without income; but I need a job just as much as most anyone does. …
