3/2/2023

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            Do you think most Americans understand the difference between debt & deficit? Do you think they realize that a balanced budget means we either have to spend less or tax more? I don’t think so.

            Americans want it all. We want to cut taxes, raise defense spending & ameliorate climate change. We want to keep consuming, growing & exploiting resources, while we conserve our environment.

            We can’t have it all & I wish you would start sending the message that if we are to stabilize the climate & promote peace, we’ve got to change our lifestyles.

            Take teak, for example. I just read about how folks who build decks for yachts are advertising themselves as “socially responsible” when they are importing Burmese teak. They are fooling their customers into thinking that cutting down trees in monsoon rainforests is somehow “sustainable.” Moreover, they are pretending that their teak purchases are NOT benefitting the junta. This self-deception harms us all.

            I understand that you are in the process of deciding whether ConocoPhillips can drill 2 or 3 wells in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska & according to the WP, “the politics are thorny,” because you are going to either disappoint “trade unions, many Alaska Natives & 2 key Alaskan politicians, who say the project will boost the economy in a region that needs it” or the young voters who believed you when you “campaigned on a pledge to end new oil drilling on federal land.”

            This situation provides you with the opportunity to educate the population that we have to CHANGE. We are not going to continue destroying habitats so we can keep flying everywhere & building fancy yachts.

            At the Senate Democratic Caucus Lunch today, please speak with Sen. Whitehouse (RI). I think he’ll agree with me on this & can help you think about how to say no to ConocoPhillips.

            BYBS,