Friends,

Donald Trump has promised that his first official act as president will be as a dictator.

My first act – waking up on November 6th to the news of his election – was to apologize to all living plants and creatures on this planet. Trump will not be their executioner, that process has been in motion for several hundred years; but he may be the willful, political tipping point that shoves the Earth into biological collapse from which recovery to an environment we recognize may be impossible.

The critical issue of ecological collapse was not discussed during this election. The price of toothpaste and orange juice commanded more attention. Lower taxes, for the rich as well as the middle class, commanded more attention. Demonization of immigrants clamoring for entry at the southern border exhausted our tolerance of fear and anger as though the fate of our nation depended on our willingness to be brutally exclusive. Participation in the genocide of Palestinians was ignored by both parties.

The height of Trump’s appeal was measured in direct proportion to the depth of his nasty, childish denunciation of his opponents. If the contest was to elect a champion of uninhibited mean-spiritedness, no wonder he won.

Winning the election does, unfortunately, give Trump the right to appoint a cadre of right wing ideologues to positions of power in our government, even people who have no experience in government or respect for it. But even though he seems to think so, his election does not give him the right to destroy life on our planet by calling climate change a hoax, and refusing to accept the science. In fact, his election requires him to acknowledge responsibility for protecting the environment because the public trust is the first order of any government – to provide a healthy environment for the next generation.

Let’s be clear: willful ignorance and avoidance of environmental stability is criminal. Not to do so is a death wish for oneself and a death sentence for one’s constituents – left and right. Trump becomes, then, his own black hole into which he sucks the hope of a future. Into which, in his greed and arrogance, he would take everything else with him.

As the candidate and now the president-elect of prevarication, Trump has worked hard to make sure most American citizens cannot distinguish between truth and lies. Here is a quote from the political philosopher Hannah Arendt that describes the place we are in:

This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong. And such a people, deprived of the power to think and judge, is, without knowing and willing it, completely subjected to the rule of lies.

With such a people, you can do whatever you want.

Our responsibility as citizens – of this country, of the Earth, of the community of living species – is to demand the truth and demand government action based on the truth. A government can be elected to favor conservative or liberal policies, but politicians cannot be elected to remove basic rights. A president, even one favoring corporate and oligarchic speech over individual, cannot cancel your freedom of speech. And, let’s be clear, a president who favors exploitation and commodification of the environment should be impeached for failing to protect a healthy future.

My second act of this new presidency will be to resist further exploitation of the environmentit in every way I can.