
An open letter to Donald Trump; Please Turn Off Your Electricity
Dear Don,
Donald, I am writing to you to scold you for your blatant disregard for science. Only when and where it suits you and your agenda do you embrace the products of science, every single day of your miserable life. I am writing to scold you for denying climate change and for putting us all at risk for the consequences. It is wholly irresponsible, insane and ultimately self-destructive. I am not a climate scientist but from those who are, the science is clear. On an eleventh or twelfth grade level, we teach about carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels and the role of CO2 in acidification of the oceans and the warming of the atmosphere. This is high school science, taught in the USA, not a hoax invented by China.
I taught 10th grade physics and 12th grade Environmental Science in Harlem, NY this year. I am teaching Newton’s Laws, forces, motion of objects, energy, electricity, the carbon cycle, carrying capacity, ecology and many foundational concepts. Our youth learn these sciences in public school as our guiding laws and principles in understanding the physicality and energetics of the world in which we live. The sciences have cultivated the technologies we use daily and those that have given rise to our current global economic and material systems and abilities. Science is a mode we use describe the world in which we live. Science gave rise to modern medicine. We stand on the shoulders of great thinkers and revolutionary genius’s who hypothesized, theorized, tested and described what they observed. Among them are Socrates, Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, Bohr, Mendeleev, Einstein, Linnaeus, Turing, Curie, Lovelace, Payne-Gaposchkin, Yonath, Carson and too many to mention.
Your son, Baron will learn about climate change and the Carbon cycle in school. He will learn about the science of climate change, the destructive effects of air pollution, water pollution and deforestation. The thing is, Donald, humans impact the planet we live on. We are all connected in one larger system. It’s not a hoax; it’s physical reality. We do not exist independently; we exist in systems.
In an ironic turn of events, you benefit materially in ways that many of us cannot even conceive of. You benefit, with your golf courses, your casinos, your hotels, boats, planes, and your extreme and gaudy wealth. You benefit, sitting pretty, comfortable, tweeting cowardly from your room, on that cell phone that was developed through science. That little piece of incredible genius, created through human understanding of electronic and magnetic forces, wavelengths, mathematics, computer sciences, and the brilliant minds of many. You who want to bring back “clean coal,” build pipelines, dismantle the EPA and deregulate businesses around environmental standards. You, who backed out of the Paris Climate Accord and made a fool of yourself and therefore, the nation you represent, at the G20 summit. You benefit from technology and science everyday but when it suits your profits and the wallets of your friends to bash science and deny it’s critical findings, you will. You’ll do it with a grin. Then you’ll tweet about how everyone else is a loser and you are a winner. No one will be a winner if climate change continues on its current trajectory and we don’t act now.
Another basic, fundamental principle we teach children in school is respect. Respect your teachers, respect your education, your peers, yourself and respect the rules. It seems that you, Easy D, never did learn respect. Many adults do not live the ethic they teach children. You are an extreme example. Insulting television stars and shows, yelling at other world leaders, attempting to institute a travel ban on Muslims and continuing to divide our nation with your xenophobia and your lack of understanding of the world through science or fact.
Baron will be learning about climate change in school soon. If you want to leave a world that he can live in, please learn about climate change yourself.
Until you can regard science and scientists with respect, put down all the tools and technologies that science has brought you. Park your planes, moor your yachts, turn off your electricity, and please deactivate your fucking twitter account.
With deep concern,
Charlotte Low