As our present government and the Democratic National Committee refuse to focus on our climate emergency, it is up to each of us to ask Climate Emergency questions and demand solutions in every upcoming debate, town hall, and meetings with officials and candidates. Do it in emails, tweets, letters, phone calls, faxes and in person.
- Do it because our coasts are being decimated, our rivers are creating every widening flood plains, which wash chemicals into the main waterways and create dead zones and spawn the fatal blue algae.
- Do it because our ability to produce food is diminishing.
- Do it because climate migrants, homeless and jobless, are drawn to our cities and towns out of the way of immediate threats. Do it because extreme prolonged heat will cause fires, drought, and exacerbate flooding.
- Do it because the air quality degrades on a daily basis, causing breathing problems and death.
- Do it because it is an imperative and the right thing to do.
- Do it for your family.
To that end, the Good Men Project, GMP, Environment Social Interest Group, under the auspices of Lisa Hickey, publisher and producer, and co-leaders Thaddeus Houze and myself, Carol Bluestein, have asked our members to contribute their priority questions that need answers and actions if we are preserve living beings and species and ensure potable water, and clean air.
Please copy the list, add your own concerns if not covered in the GMP list, and send them to anyone and everyone who has or may have an impact on policy.
QUESTIONS FOR THE CANDIDATES:
- What is your plan to address climate refugees displaced by flooding, fire, and homelessness in terms of coordinating basic needs and future job opportunities? In this country and in cooperation with other countries?
- What is your plan to address the change-over from fossil fuel to clean energy? Do you have a plan to create a government-driven solar energy program designed to turn every structure, every building, every home, industrial center and viable part of the cityscape into a means of gathering renewable energy?
- What is your plan to provide and maintain clean air and water nationwide, especially in light of our failing infrastructure? Will you commit to keeping water and its availability out of the hands of privateers?
- What are your plans to organize our recycling efforts as a nation?
- What steps would you take to remove single-use plastic from our oceans? It’s not just a matter of reducing and reusing, we need to deal with recycling and waste reduction.
- What are your plans to address our aging and ailing infrastructure in terms of water, sewage, electrical, and cyberspace upgrade? It’s been ten years since we have comprehensive infrastructure budget, and without these upgrades, we cannot move to renewable energy in any meaningful way.
- What is your plan to protect our wild and open spaces? Our current administration seems bent on raffling off our natural spaces both on land and at sea, to the highest bidder.
- Do you have a plan for improving and developing our natural forests, a key element in protecting us from the effects of climate change?
- What is your plan to protect our insect pollinators and consumers from industrial poisons and processes? The EPA is currently being attacked by our administration under the guise of deregulation. The claim is this will spur business growth
- How do you see fitting the development of libraries and other community services as a means of improving opportunities for community development? As climate change continues to affect our cities, libraries are proving to be a powerful source of community and protection from the environment during the extremes of weather.
- What are your plans to end predatory delay – the wanton disregard for responsible management of resources, workers, and community?
- What role do you see Nuclear Power playing? What are your plans for dealing with radioactive and poisonous waste?
- What tested and validated climate model do you support? If it hasn’t been tested or validated, will you put forth the funding to do the testing/validation in a timely manner
- Have you considered creating a new Conservation Corps as a national program integrated into schools and communities as a stopgap to environmental erosion and a means of carbon sequestration?
- Is there a plan to create a government-driven solar energy program, available to all, designed to turn every structure, every building, every home, industrial center and viable part of the cityscape into a means of gathering renewable energy?
- What is your plan to protect our trees in a systematic and structural way which protects our cities, our citizens and integrates into already existing old-growth forests?
- What is your plan to end Fracking which injects chemicals into the ground and poisons groundwater?
Paste and copy, email, Facebook, Tweet, Instagram, snail-mail, and speak these questions. We need answers now.
Do it because it is the right and responsible thing to do.
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Photo by Vlad Tchompalov on Unsplash