President Trump Email.docx

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James R. Meyer
1530 S. 6th. Street
Apt. C806
Minneapolis, MN. 55454
03-04-2017

President Donald J. Trump
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.
Washington, D.C 20500

Dear Mr. President,
Thank you for receiving my email. I have been wanting to write you for several weeks now and finally am able. I want to add that you and I have something in common; we come from the same generation of the 60s. A decade of protest, demonstrations and civil disobedience for the purpose of enlightening and civilizing our society in general. People needed to be heard and exercised their Constitutional right as American citizens to speak out against injustice. Whether it be the Vietnam War, Women's Rights, Civil Rights, Voting Rights it was important to turn the country around and be more humanized, enlightened and educated. University campuses, professors and young men and women, from all spheres of life, felt a responsibility to participate in a democratic fashion to be heard and refused to be marginalized. Now, today, we live in another vexing time with economic austerity and insecurity, intolerance of others and an attack on personal freedoms, as well as political dissonance not seen before in my lifetime, which has become progressively vociferous, aggressive and ultimately dangerous. The citizenry, especially the bottom 70%, are marginalized or put aside while corporate America and their hand-picked politicians make decisions that directly impact our lives. Oscar Wilde wrote aptly that: "democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people, by the people, and for the people." Emma Goldman said during the early 20th century that: "the worst tyranny is the tyranny of the majority". I think that's a fair statement; the only thing unique with a democracy is that the majority happens to be a larger minority than the other minority. Finally, James Madison, the architect of the Constitution, made sure that "[Rich white] [l]andholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent [rich white landholders] against the majority [poor peasant class]". So, there we have it from the beginning; an ongoing class struggle since the founding of this country.
I should say before continuing that I did not vote for or against you. I identify with the bottom 70% that are clearly living in obfuscation and oblivion; not represented by either political party. 'Of the people, by the people and for the people' is clearly white noise meant only to placate the disenfranchised. I am neither Democrat, Independent or Republican. Labels mean little to me as issues are vital. Once elected the politician is unbounded to any position he or she took with the citizens and can rely heavily on corporate interest and money as well as multi-billionaire families. Personally, we both know we neither live or work in a democracy. I use to rent myself to corporate power in exchange for my labor; what was called 'wage slavery' during the Lincoln administration. It all functions as a tyranny from the top down; that's what corporations are, tyrannical. Unlike you, I am not a wealthy man, but I do have an opinion and insight into the fears and injustices I see and a desire to speak for some of my fellow citizens and for this reason I write you. It is here that I want to address two of my concerns.
It's not an irrelevant matter to say that corporate power continues to nurture and develop the two most sinister and menacing forces against our very existence, each in their own way; one in a nuclear instant and the other over a few climatic years that will destroy human life as we know it. That should be a dismal prospect for us all to consider carefully.
Today we live on a planet were the experiment of the human species is deeply in doubt, one reason because of the dangers of nuclear weapons spreading unhindered. The impression of nuclear weapons on world order is existential. Nine countries collectively possess over 15,000 nuclear weapons with the United States and Russia having about 14,000. The record of the U.S. nuclear arsenal alone remains large enough to destroy all human life, animal and vegetation several times over again, perhaps leaving the next species to rule the planet as bacteria, cockroaches and beetles. The modernization of this nuclear arsenal, an enormous 30-year Obama project, is estimated to cost at minimum, a trillion dollars and your latest addition of 58 billion dollars to the 'military industrial complex' will have a devastating impact on discretionary spending, with services to the citizen majority being cut back or out entirely. With the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the entire underpinning of human affairs and humankind itself will be positioned in an impossible juxtaposition, both incalculable and burdened with apprehension and doom. With the proliferation of nuclear weapons, such will continue as an incongruous part of the fabric of humanity for the inevitable future. In the interim, new weapons systems will be researched and manufactured: precision weapons with smaller yields, thus increasing the possibility of a 'nuclear winter'.
For this reason, I simply do not understand your position of increasing the number of countries having nuclear weapons. It's completely insane. Mr. President, nuclear weaponry is the most devastating, sadistic and undiscriminating weapons ever conceived of and invented. With the massive scale of the destruction and waste they create and their innate destructive radioactive fallout, they are without question unlike any other weapons. The radioactive fallout still lingers in Japan to this day, some 65 years. A single nuclear weapon detonated over a city could kill hundreds of thousands if not millions of people. Multiple nuclear weapons detonated together could upset the global climate, triggering rife agricultural failure and famine lasting years. The burning cities would raise smoke into the upper atmosphere, draping the planet, leading to a darkened and scorched surface, devastating food crops and leaving billions of people to starve. Finally, in 2016, the General Assembly of the United Nations embraced a momentous resolution to commence negotiations that would ban nuclear weapons. The United Nations member states determined that weapons calculated to inflict major catastrophic humanitarian injury must be banned under international law. Now, nuclear weapons will be positioned on the same legal foundation as all other weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical e.g. the nerve agent sarin. This must be met with favor.
In order to stop nuclear proliferation and reduce the menace of any use of nuclear weapons, the United States must seek to lead in efforts to diminish its nuclear arsenal with a multilateral international agreement with all other nuclear states. The absurd cost of sustaining distended nuclear programs and maintaining nuclear weapons over the next decade will doubtless cost billions if not trillions of dollars. Since the first atomic bomb was manufactured, some 15+ countries have dismantled their nuclear weapons programs with the intent of advancing international relations, something that should give pause to states that continue to sustain nuclear weapons.
As Robert Oppenheimer said at the Trinity observation in New Mexico, on July 16, 1945: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." The question is: will we become the 'Death' that Oppenheimer spoke of. We must advocate for and insist that the International community dismantle and demolish nuclear weapons everywhere. No one man, small group of men or country, regardless of its power, should possess an arsenal of destruction that threatens the totality of life for humankind. It is pure absurdity. This must be an International commitment.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 2015, moved forward the 'Doomsday Clock' to two and a half minutes before midnight, a danger never reached for over 30 years. Their reason: nuclear weapons proliferation and unrestrained climate change. Acknowledged in the same was the following: "In 2015, unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity, and world leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe. These failures of political leadership endanger every person on Earth… The probability of global catastrophe is very high, and the actions needed to reduce the risks of disaster must be taken very soon…Sivan Kartha…senior scientist, Stockholm Environment Institute, where he is co-leader of an institute-wide theme "Managing Climate Risks," said: "Steps seen as bold in light of today's extremely daunting political opposition to climate action do not even match the expectations of five years ago…Global greenhouse gas emission rates are now 50% higher than they were in 1990. Emission rates have risen since 2000 by more than in the previous three decades combined. Investments have continued to pour into fossil fuel infrastructure at a rate that exceeds $1 trillion per year, with additional hundreds of billions of dollars in continued fossil fuel subsidies. We can and must turn this around… Richard Somerville… a distinguished professor emeritus and research professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, said: "Efforts at reducing global emissions of heat-trapping gases have so far been entirely insufficient to prevent unacceptable climate disruption. Unless much greater emissions reductions occur very soon, the countries of the world will have emitted enough carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by the end of this century to profoundly transform the Earth's climate. The resulting climate change will harm millions of people and will threaten many key ecological systems on which civilization relies … We call upon world leaders to take coordinated and rapid action to drastically reduce global emissions of heat-trapping gases, especially carbon dioxide. We also urge the citizens of the world to demand action from their leaders. This threat looms over all of humanity. We all need to respond now, while there is still time."
The scope and scale of the future effects of climate change...ha[ve] unprecedented implications for...social stability...[and] "will cause civilization to collapse." "[W]e face the possibility that the global environment may be destroyed, yet no one will be responsible." With rapid global climate change, one-fourth of Earth's species could be headed for extinction by 2050. Climate change is undeniably one of the most stymieing and controversial issues facing the global theatre in this 21st century, mainly due to its denial by pseudo-science of Biblical origin as well as it being regarded by corporate America as an externality to the immediate corporate profit margins. Starvation, poverty, flooding, droughts, disease and war are already leading to human catastrophes. They're to be expected as the world continues to warm from man-made climate change. Escalating global temperatures, principally owing to man-made greenhouse gases are at the epicenter of unique changes to the earth's growing sea levels, warming oceans and extreme weather occurrences. It entails not simply social and economic fluctuations, but also raises serious moral and ethical dilemmas.
Mounting temperatures are bringing closure to much of our coral reefs and rainforests, consequently releasing hundreds of billions of tons of methane gas. The consequence will be the mass extinction of most terrestrial and marine species and the end of our advanced civilizations. For civilizations or societies that are not well-suited to standard climate erraticism, the more recurrent and extreme events created by this change will be shattering. These effects will separate their economic, social and political institutions, dispersing further out into global disorder. Climate change will touch (and disproportionately) all areas of human societies and cultures but also generational boundaries. Climate change and its toxic impact on hundreds of millions of people, if not civilizations, could be at the threshold.
Stephen Gardiner, of the Department of Philosophy, University of Washington noted this urgency; "The time to think seriously about the future of humanity is upon us." This is the issue ethicists are now struggling with. Some ethicists are now suggesting that environmental issues are so grave that we have to craft a totally new approach to human environmental: virtue. Would reengineering our eco-system be virtuous or ethical? How does climate change shape our understanding of the world? The assumptions reached in these questions are subtle and nuanced and will revolve on arcane explanations of terms such as 'justice, virtue, ethics and 'the good.' I understand that may seem foreign and preposterous to the fossil fuel industry and multinational banks that have only financial profit to consider, but if wrong, they will be left with the sober consideration that they amassed enormous corporate profits over the lives of future generations. Mankind is now at an intersection that will define its future for generations to come – survival or annihilation. "[W]e face the possibility that the global environment may be destroyed, yet no one will be responsible." Perhaps we should be asking ourselves, whether or not we have recognized the problem in time to avert our own annihilation.
The 'perfect moral storm" is what Stephen Gardiner, an environmental ethicist, maintains. He stated, "The source of climate change is located deep in the infrastructure of current human civilizations." Climate scientists have articulated a collective anxiety that time is near to running out; that global efforts at preventing a perilous environment have been too small and late. The looming nature of climate change will be a monumental challenge to our ethical values and our moral consciousness. The main problem today is that it is not perceived this way by many, as it lacks political will along with the rich quasi-science of the flag waving evangelical right wing, as well as others, who believe that God will never allow the earth to be destroyed because of some fluke conversation with Noah.
Our generation has clearly miscarried environmental justice in attempting to find a sustainable course that is internationally accepted. In large part, it is our shared absence in an internationally wide environmental ethic that has brought us to this state. We rely upon our environment for survival. We must remember that although we need it to survive, it does not need us; it will go on well after we are gone. Changing a person's behavior is germane to a rich environment and is an extremely significant process. It will entail consideration of an individual's socialization, essential values and beliefs with regard to the environment. The new paradigm, of environmental ethics, spoken of earlier, is categorically and undeniably necessary. Our connection to the environment will be strengthen by a more conscious, thoughtful and philosophical approach to life that is not driven by financial considerations, impulsive reactions, instinctive habits, antisocial behavior and religious diatribes on the scientific community by those with messianic delusions.
While our species 'dances with the devil, the rest of nature is held hostage.' Even if we step back from the precipice, it will be too late for many or even perhaps most of the plant and animal life with which we share the planet." Commenting on the power and will of the masses, Jamieson commented; "...people have the power to alter the fundamental global conditions that permitted human life to evolve and that continue to sustain it.
Polls indicate that over 60% of Americans support joining a multinational agreement to restrain the growth of greenhouse gas emissions as convened in Marrakech, Morocco on November 7th - 9th 2016, the time of your election. It was on the November 8th that the conference of the World Meteorological Organization offered a calculated analysis of the present state of what's been suggested as the 'Anthropocene' or the geological epoch, marked by extreme human meddling and interference. It is projected that an extermination of the environment that sustains all life will certainly become prejudicial if we continue on the same path as 'compliant lemmings'. Unfortunately, on November 9th, the conference basically ceased with little accomplished by a tacit agreement with no binding consensus. However, a growing majority of Americans believe our climate is in a perilous state; it must be mentioned, there will be no jobs if climatic factors destroy our way of life. At present, the public seems disenfranchised from their corporate bought elected officials who represent only Wall Street and Corporate America. This fact sends a chilling and deeply fatalistic message to the citizenry. It is our responsibility to make dissention to this dysfunctional political theatre, especially where rational scientific beliefs are marginalized and discounted.
This gapping chasm, amid public opinion and governmental policy, will have critical corollaries for the world at whole. Sea levels, as mentioned, are rising from melted glaciers in unprecedented fashion and together with the expansion of warm ocean water will have a ravaging and wrecking impact on low-lying coastal lands. Hundreds of millions of people living near sea level, are seriously threatened with millions more not having access to clean drinking water. It is predicted that tens of millions of people will be escaping the low-lying coastal plains like Bangladesh along with ominous weather patterns related to global warming. This will be a refugee catastrophe that will make today's crisis, which is a 'moral' one caused by the West, appear as a post-script or foot-note. This catastrophic consequence will only intensify with the United States leading the way to disaster with its neo-liberal policies and absolute maleficence and indifference for the exploited 3rd world that is being plundered. An apocalyptic, if I may say, picture happening blindly right before our eyes.
In closing, I am asking that you at least consider with judiciousness the devastating effect that nuclear weapons proliferation and a total rejection of what 99.9% of scientists are saying heading toward environmental disaster; it is not China. We have been put on alert to the impact of humankind on the planet, each other and all life. This dramatically confronts us with questions about 'who we are,' our relationship to nature as well as each other and what we are willing to ransom for profits. This crisis is existential and will not go away without human determination. If we make the moral and ethically necessary changes now, in the way we live, we might escape enormous perils in the future to us as a species and our ecological home, planet Earth.
Again, thank you.
Sincerely,
Jim Meyer


"The Soul of Man Under Socialism." The First Collected Edition of the Works of Oscar Wilde, 1908-1922, ed. Robert Ross (London: Pall Mall, 1969), 8: p. 294.
Goldman, Emma, "The Individual, Society and the State," Red Emma Speaks, p. 98
The 'State of the Future' is an annual book-length report with forecasts of global issues, produced by the Millennium Project, with Jerome C. Glenn as Director, since 1996. It grows each year; in 2012 it included a 150-page summary and 1500 pages of background data, along with a searchable database of historical data. The 2009 'State of the Future' report- A 6,700-page report produced by the Millennium Project consulted with world leaders and 2,700 experts from around the globe.
Ethics and Climate Change, II Dale Jamieson p.142.
The Nature Conservancy
Warming Report Sees Violent, Sicker, Poorer Future, The Associated Press, November 02, 2013
Taylor, Graeme. "Humanity at the Crossroads: A Time for Commitment and Action
MIT Technology Review, Climate Change: The Moral Choices, David Rotman, April 11, 2013
Ethics and Climate Change, II Dale Jamieson, p. 142.
Stephen M. Gardiner, "A Perfect Moral Storm: Climate Change, Intergenerational Ethics and the Problem of Moral Corruption," Environmental Values 15(2006): p. 401.
Ethics and Climate Change, II Dale Jamieson p. 147.