An Open Letter to Trump On The Environment

President Trump,

I fail to understand the reasoning behind your disregard for preserving the continued habitability of our planet. As a father, I would assume you are possessed of the basic paternal inclination to ensure the security of your own progeny. Yet, you disregard all subjects of environmental concern with a casual and disinterested contempt which can only be called lazy, arrogant, and entitled.

You occupy the most powerful position in the world. Of all the human beings that have ever lived, you are in the best position to ensure the continued prosperity and survival of the human race. The collective machinery representing the sum total of human achievement is at your command, but you refuse to deploy it to the purpose of indisputable global benefit.

Instead, when it comes to the environment you seem to have adopted a tactic of aggression, as if we are at war with Mother Nature herself. You have pulled us out of the Paris climate agreement, you have loosened regulations on toxic air pollution, and you have rolled back fresh water protections to name just a few of your coordinated strikes on our natural world.

Your actions are akin to an insane sea captain drilling holes in the hull of his vessel, starting fires on the deck, and defecating in the water supply. Your conduct comes under a hysterical delusion that you will always be able to retire to your luxury cabin and quench your thirst with pure liquid from a crystalline decanter. But instead of a three-masted galley navigating the South Pacific, our ship is a planet and your acts of sabotage are less immediately apparent.

If the consequence of your insanity was limited to your person alone, I would welcome you to continue. But you threaten us all with agonizing, tormented, mass extinction and it’s imperative that you understand the path you have chosen is madness.

When your own child is forced to drink toxic water and inhale smoke instead of Oxygen because of the plans you put in motion, will you still be indifferent when he curses your name? Will you be as apathetic to his suffering then as you were to Greta’s yesterday?

The world observed as you delighted in setting your minions upon a young girl whom you found so offensive as she dared to make an impassioned plea for her continued existence. With haughty indignation you decried the mention of your own son’s name on the grounds of impropriety even while simultaneously eviscerating this other child of the same generation.

I tried and failed to keep up with the convoluted arguments you used to justify the inherent hypocrisy of those actions.

You were a man born into privilege, wealth, and power. I wonder if you even understand the concept of humility? Could it be that you have never been given cause to understand the nobility of submission? You claim to be a Christian, but what is your opinion on the sacrifice of Christ? Have you ever made a sacrifice for anyone or anything?

When have you ever retired from a conflict? When have you ever admitted an error? When have you acknowledged that the opinion of others was more informed than your own?

You don’t seem to recognize that a war with Mother Nature is one you cannot win. She is not some powerless intern or other harassed female employee at one of your disreputable and profitless businesses. You cannot force yourself upon her. To use your own words, redacted to blunt their essential offensive and misogynistic nature, you cannot “move in on her like a b----,” you cannot “grab her by the p----.” She will not be silenced thereafter with threats and non-disclosure agreements.

Mother nature is more powerful than you. That is something you have to accept.

Have you reflected in a quiet moment and understood that there are entities in this universe to which we owe eternal deference? It is a liberating thing to acknowledge.

Humility.

The world breaks us all so we come back stronger, but you keep dodging your moment of judgment so the crash, when it comes, will be all the more terrible. Now that you are president, the imminent implosion threatens to take us all down with you.

What you fail to understand is that any human disrespect for the environment can extend no further than our own destruction. The world does not need human beings. The world will endure without them. We can only pollute the air and poison the water and rid the surface of this planet of our race.

Yes, we have the power to do that.

But why?

As the president, you can choose to bring about the kind of positive impact history will rightfully celebrate for generations. You are in a position to alter the trajectory of our era. There is still time to inscribe a positive legacy that will outshine all your prior transgressions.

Humility.

Preservation.

Altruism.

Make these your guiding impulses and dedicate your remaining time in office to protecting the environment.

You have children sir, extricate yourself from the delusion that your wealth and power can shield your offspring from the corruption of the natural world. You are running up a debt that every living thing will someday be called upon to pay.