“One Does Not Compose Such a Letter Casually”: Scientists Writing to the White House on Matters of Existential Concern
by Sandra Steingraber, SEHN senior scientist and writer-in-residence
In July 1939, Albert Einstein sat in his undershirt on a screened porch on Peconic Bay in Long Island, New York and, with two other scientists, composed a letter to President Roosevelt.
He began by describing the new research findings of three fellow physicists, including Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard in the United States:
In the course of the last four months it has been made probable through the work of Joliot in France as well as Fermi and Szilard in America that it may become possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium, by which vast amounts of power and large quantities of new radium‐like elements would be generated. Now it appears almost certain that this could be achieved in the immediate future.
And he continued with a stark warning that secret German uranium research was already in progress and made clear that any remaining scientific uncertainties should not be used as an excuse to take no action:
It is conceivable —though much less certain—that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed.
One of the scientists who sat next to Einstein, an avowed pacifist, as he drafted these paragraphs was Princeton University physics professor, Eugene Wigner. In later reflection, Wigner marveled at the speed at which “the words just flowed out…because you know one does not compose such a letter casually.”
Of course, the White House did take action, in the form of the Manhattan Project, with all its eternal consequences.
Thirty years after Albert Einstein sent his fateful letter to the President, scientists and students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology came together over their shared concern that scientific research had been distorted toward developing devastating new military technologies. With the Vietnam War at its peak and Ohio’s Cayuhoga River on fire, MIT scientists called for a redirection of basic research toward solving social and environmental problems.
Thus was founded, in 1969, the Union of Concerned Scientists, which has since amassed a mighty network of scientists who regularly sign open letters to the White House on matters of existential concern, including the climate crisis.
In so doing, these scientists followed in the footsteps of a group of Boston-area physicians, who, in 1961, came together out of alarm at research findings showing that babies’ teeth collected from communities near above-ground atomic testing sites in the United State contained levels of strontium-90 at levels 50 times higher than earlier baselines. A radioactive human carcinogen, strontium-90 is released by nuclear bombs.
Rather than simply allow these results to languish in the obscurity of the peer-reviewed literature, these doctors, organized as Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), launched a public education campaign. PSR’s targets were not just political leaders but also others in their profession, including fellow pediatricians, whom they reached by publishing a five-part series of articles in the New England Journal of Medicine. This collective work firmly framed nuclear weapons as a medical issue. In 1963, PSR’s efforts directly led to an international ban on open-air and underwater nuclear weapons testing.
That the voices of U.S. scientists and health professionals have diminished influence in the current political moment is an understatement. Nevertheless, SEHN asserts that letters to U.S. Presidents from U.S. scientists on the great issues of our time are powerful statements that push back against denialism and disinformation. They open space in the culture for citizen activism. They matter. And we have initiated several of them.
Most recently, working with our colleagues at Food and Water Watch, Ted Schettler and I drafted a letter to the White House—specifically to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen—from more than 125 climate, environmental, and health scientists and researchers that expressed our serious concerns over the export approvals for liquefied natural gas (LNG) and the tax incentives for natural gas-sourced hydrogen production.
These two agencies are currently engaged in developing models for how to assess the climate impact of LNG exports and the creation hydrogen fuel, much of which, like LNG, begins with fracking for natural gas. The assumptions that these agencies choose for their models will determine whether LNG plants and hydrogen hubs are viewed as friendly or hostile to the Biden Administration’s climate goals and how they are incentivized with export authorizations (in the case of LNG) and 45 V tax credits (in the case of hydrogen).
As we write in the letter:
The stakes could not be higher. The choices that you make relating to modeling assumptions for the heat-trapping potential of natural gas will determine if the federal government will make decisions based on climate science or wishful thinking.
Unsurprisingly, the fossil fuel industry is pushing hard for flawed modeling assumptions that would hide the true climate impact of gas. We urged the Departments of Energy and Treasury to rebuff these efforts.
Especially ominous to us—as we went on say—are disparaging comments in an August 12 letter sent to Energy Secretary Granholm from Republican leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. This letter cast doubts on the findings of Cornell University biogeochemist Robert Howarth, who is a world authority on global methane cycling, falsely accusing him of using “incontrovertibly flawed methodology.”
This accusation, which originated with a pro-LNG think tank, is directed at a new paper, accepted for publication on September 6, that evaluates the greenhouse gas footprint of LNG exported from the United States over its entire lifecycle—from the well head and pipelines to the liquefaction plant and from the tankers to the burner tips. In this analysis, Howarth finds that LNG has 33 percent more heat-trapping capacity as coal over a 20-year time period.
As we countered in our own letter:
What the Committee on Science, Space and Technology decries as “flawed methodology” is actually modeling assumptions related to the 20-year versus 100-year time frame as well as the leakage rates of methane across the LNG lifespan, from wellhead to liquefaction center and shipping to burner tip. We find Howarth’s assumptions on time frames and leakage rates entirely reasonable. They are corroborated by the findings of other peer-reviewed studies and direct observations of methane leakage.
In other words, just as the founders of Physicians for Social Responsibility once championed the early research on baby teeth that revealed the perils of the atomic age and helped political leaders understand atomic bomb testing as a threat to public health, SEHN affirms the veracity of the new science on methane that reveals the grave risks to our planet from LNG exports and gas-sourced hydrogen.
Letters to political leaders from the nation’s leading scientists serve many purposes beyond the data shared in their paragraphs. They normalize the engagement of science with policy. They give voice to the collective knowledge of climate science and cast its practitioners in the role of public intellectuals. When posted on social media platforms and released in press conferences, they serve as tools of public education for journalists and community leaders.
And letters from scientists to the White House provide solidarity, affirmation, and talking points to frontline environmental justice communities who are fighting for their lives—whether they are ranchers living downwind of Cold War-era atomic testing sites in Nevada or mothers of children with asthma living in the shadow of LNG liquefaction centers. These are the lives behind the data points whose general welfare our elected officials are sworn to protect.
The letter-drafters here at SEHN are proud to continue in this storied tradition.