I haven't done this for a long time. My age and health make it hard for me. Yesterday we got an e-mail about a group going to Congressman Wittman's Yorktown office at 2PM today so my wife and I decided to do it. The object was to confront the Congressman about his poor voting record regarding climate. It was a short notice event but drew about a dozen people. The Yorktown office is in a building belonging to the Department of the Interior. I thought that had its own irony. The person we actually met with was Joe Schumacher, District Director for Congressman Wittman. He was a good spokesman for the Congressman and a good listener as well. I felt he listened to all we had to say and since I was sitting next to him I noticed that he wrote nothing on his note pad. I hope his memory is better than mine because we covered a lot of ground. Read on below and I'll give my recollection of what went on and make some comments.
Virginia's First Congressional District has been carefully gerrymandered to insure Wittman can stay in office as long as he wants.He came into office during the Bush Coup and has voted loyally for those policies ever since. His voting record on environmental issues is terrible.
Our spokeswoman confronted Mr. Schumacher with this record. Many of us also made comments all of which tried to focus on the need for the Congressman to get with the program, so to speak, and stop pandering to big coal and oil.
We were told that the Congressman was enlightened and that he, like many Democrats, was for a good mix of energy sources. We were also told that the Congressman has a Ph.D. in Biology. Interesting since mine is in Physiology.
I identified myself as a scientist and spoke to the fact that not only climate scientists but all kinds were now convinced that Man Made Global Warming is real. I also mentioned that some of us have tried to get this across since the 1960s and have watched the denial manipulated over all that time until we are now in a crisis.
I also asked what the point of telling us about Wittman's Ph. D. was. I suggested that if anything, it would enable him to exert leadership since his position was secure with the voters. I'm not sure that idea will go any further.
Well we tried. I thought we made our case well. I also thought that we got nowhere. We diud set up some follow up action meetings so we shall see.
When I mentioned the fact that we are concerned about reaching or possibly having reached a tipping point, I asked him if he knew what that was. Rather than telling us what he thought it was he mentioned a book with that in its title. We stressed that there is no time for lengthy debate now and that we need action on a large scale and quickly.
We discussed the role of money in all this. I mentioned that when I write I no longer call us a democracy but rather a plutocracy. I could not be sure but he seemed sympathetic with that idea.
We also had an exchange about scientists who claim to be climate experts who are also on the payroll of the deniers. I added that the press usually plays the game of giving both sides equal time and equal weight. I also reminded him that the deniers were not only trying to make their "point" but were systematically undermining science in the process and that lots of big money was behind this.
We shall see. We really don't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind is blowing these days.