Desk-bound Nature Lover

My Blog: Occasional postings about the joys of birding, hiking, camping, and sightseeing.

My life: I spend most of my days in offices, looking at a computer screen, and waiting for those few weekends when I can get out and enjoy some remnant of our precious natural heritage. But, boy, do I live on those weekends!

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Writing My Congressman

One of the last hurdles the Republicans have to get over in their efforts to destroy the priceless and irreplaceable Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is to work out an agreement on a budget bill. The Senate version has provisions to destroy the refuge and the House version does not. The handful of Republican congressmen who oppose destroying the refuge, including my own congressman, Mark Kirk, are under extreme pressure from the party leaders to change their position. To encourage Congressman Kirk to hold firm, I sent him this email.

Dear Congressman Kirk,

It is with great anxiety that I am writing concerning plans by many in your party to allow oil drilling on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Past and current behavior of the oil companies prove that this would surely lead to the destruction of the refuge and much of its wildlife.

I know that you have expressed support for protecting the Refuge in the past, but I have recently learned that you are under great pressure from your party to change your position and vote to allow the refuge to be destroyed.

Please hold firm on this issue. It would be a terrible tragedy for this irreplaceable treasure to be destroyed. There are so many way which our energy problems could be addressed through conservations. It is not necessary to sacrifice the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Note that I will be watching this issue, and I will pay close attention to how you vote.

Sincerely,
[My Name], PhD

On another issue, the time that all people of conscience in this country have been dreading has now come. Bush has a chance to select judges to the Supreme Court. As expected, his first nominee is a catastrophe. I sent the following email to my two Senators, Richard Durban and Barrack Obama, to ask them to do oppose this horrible nomination.

Dear Senator,

Please do everything within your power to block the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court. Judge Roberts's opinion in the Arroyo Toad case shows an inclination to favor business interests over the public interest, and his flippant characterization of the case shows that he does not take the problem of endangered species protection seriously. It is reasonable to extrapolate that he does not take other environmental issues seriously. This man is not fit to decide cases on environmental issues which may have irreversible consequences.

[My Name], PhD.

I hope some of you seeing this will also take the time to write and oppose the destruction of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and to oppose Bush's anti-environmental judicial nominee.

For more information on the struggle over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, see the National Audubon Society Website or the Sierra Club Website.

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