lincoln memorial by casey horner on unsplash

An Open Letter To Our Government

2017-12-05

Dear Sir or Madam,

I come to you from a place of love, empathy and gratitude.

I am having a hard time understanding and justifying the actions of our country's current leadership, focused on the matter of the environment. It feels like sheer negligence. From what I can see, it feels like the government is so rabid for economic growth in direct spite of the environment and its well being. I love our country. I am grateful every single day that I am an American. We come from one of the most spectacular places on earth, with lands, wildlife, and history as rich and as important as any other. I am incredibly empathetic to any American that has a different experience.

I lead an organization called Cause of a Kind. We exist to socialize the earth's greatest environmental maladies and facilitate partnerships between people and environmental non-profits who are actively working to take back tomorrow. We work around the clock to find people around the world, dedicating their lives and attention to actively making the world a better place. We look for people pursuing extraordinary goals and pair their efforts with environmental organizations that are on the frontlines working to truly secure our future. As a comprehensive digital marketing agency, we partner with the most recognizable brands on earth to help them tell their environmental and social stories.

Do you not see the confluence of your actions? You are constantly expanding oil and gas exploration at the expense of our critical aquifers and public lands. You are relaxing rules on trophy hunting, putting our rare and endangered wildlife at further risk above and beyond their current habitat challenges, which humans are largely responsible for. You backed out of the Paris Agreement and have been the only world leader to do so, further straining our reputation and position of power. You drive industry that supports deforestation and ecosystem destruction for continued real estate development, mining, and corporate gain. You acknowledge unsustainable shortages of fossil fuels but offer no scalable renewable energy alternatives. Marine and oceanic negligence causing rifts in the food chain and irreversible damage, such as the death of the Great Barrier Reef. Do you realize that there are many more issues as well that are threatening our home, let alone the entire globe? We have one earth. The United States are supposed to lead the world. We are designed to set an example to every other country and be a symbol for hope and innovation. That is simply what leaders do. In our recent past, we have failed at this critical role.

I write to you in desperate concern for our future. I do not have children yet, but I am incredibly concerned that they will not experience the world the way that I did. What else do the people of this country have to do to make you realize that we need massive change? How could there even be a debate? This is your home too. I find it hard to believe that you are not personally concerned with the availability and quality of drinking water, or the preservation of public lands, or even proper sanitation systems. Your children and their children are at risk. Restoration of the damage done takes a tremendous amount of time, global effort and money. But let's agree; you are making it worse. The citizens of the free world need our governments support. We need bold leadership that is willing to stand up for our future and make significant strides towards sustainability. We need to start caring about tomorrow or there will not be a tomorrow to care about.

With love and in mission,

Justin Abrams

Cause of a Kind

Originally Published: December 5th, 2017 As we approach a historic election, nothing has changed. Atleast not for the betterment of the environment.

Take Back Tomorrow | Lessons from Cause of a Kind on Vimeo.