Tell Obama: Don't Sell Out the Climate and the East Coast to Big Oil
In his State of the Union address President Obama declared: "No challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change."
Unfortunately, the president walked back his big talk on climate change recently announcing plans to open up the Atlantic Ocean to oil and gas drilling and offer more lease sales in the sensitive Arctic waters off Alaska.
The president wants to have it both ways on climate change and energy development, but the science is in: If we're going to avoid catastrophic, irreversible climate chaos, we have to leave most of the world's remaining fossil fuel reserves in the ground.
Opening up the Atlantic and the Arctic to drilling will threaten endangered wildlife like polar bears and Atlantic right whales and it will cast a long shadow over the president's promises to tackle the climate crisis.
Take action today—tell President Obama: Don't sell out our climate to Big Oil, our ocean waters should be off limits to oil drilling.
Dear President Obama,
In your State of the Union address you rightly declared: "No challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change."
Unfortunately your decision to open up the Atlantic Ocean and portions of the Arctic to oil drilling directly contradicts your promises to tackle the climate crisis.
[Your comment inserted here]
As you well know, climate scientists tell us we need to reduce carbon in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million to avoid catastrophic, irreversible impacts. Today, atmospheric carbon is hovering around 400 parts per million. Opening up these new areas to oil development will make it all but impossible to reduce atmospheric carbon to safe levels before we move past the tipping point.
I urge you to ban the expansion of offshore oil drilling by withholding any new leases. You can leave office leaving behind a powerful legacy of a livable climate, or you can sell out future generations and imperiled wildlife by caving to Big Oil.
Sincerely,
[Your name]
