Steph Gill

Dear President Obama,

First of all I want to congratulate you on your election victory. I saw how much hard work you put into your campaign and it was nice to see it pay off. I am writing you this letter to speak with you about your plan of action to help save the environment from climate change.

Throughout the election process I followed your “New Energy for America” plans closely and I was extremely pleased. I believe that your ideas and goals for the next few decades are very ambitious and at a time like this, we need a leader with ambition to make people in America feel as though these plans to stop climate change really can be achieved. I especially think that your idea of creating five million new “green” jobs by building new alternate energy sources is also a good approach at getting a wider range of people involved and interested in the climate change movement. For example, if someone who is unemployed who simply just does not care about the environment, they may start to become more interested now since more jobs will be created.

A lot of your plans seemed so realistically tangible to me because I really feel like they will benefit everyone in America and as long as every citizen puts in effort whether it’s taxes, less gas, investing in alternate energy sources, spreading the climate change movement word, or simply attempting to decrease their electricity use, I think that your aspirations can be achieved.

One point of yours that I have trouble agreeing with is the emergency energy rebate. I understand the point of this goal: to help families and individuals cope with the high gas prices so that they can put their money saved on gas toward other necessities such as food. What I don’t understand is that one of the biggest problems we have when dealing with global warming is the amount of gas used and car fumes being exerted into the air. If we lower gas prices, every individual owning a car will probably increase their driving mileage because they can now newly afford gasoline. This aspect works negatively against reducing carbon emissions and works negatively against stopping climate change. I think that gas prices should stay as they are now and people should save their money by still reducing their car mileage by taking public transportation to work instead of driving, or biking to an event instead of driving.

Another aspect that I contently enjoyed reading about was the both short-term and long-term policy plans. I think the combination of these two ideas will help people be more aware of what they have to do in the next four years, and what they have to do in the next forty years. I also think your goals which are “Ensure 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025,” and “Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.” Are attainably and will make a dramatic positive difference in stopping climate change.

I want to thank you for taking such an active interest in the climate change issue. A lot of political authorities have had a hard time dealing with it in the past, and your New Energy for America plan has given those who have lost hope, hope again. I wish you all the best of luck now and in the next four years. I look forward to seeing the New Energy Plan for America put into action.

Sincerely, Stephanie Gill