Class agreed standards for an EPIC Winning Letter RUBRIC

Start Letter Here Be a little more mindful of the 500 word limit

Dear Mr. President,

The 113th congress of the United States of America were paid over 350 million dollars by
the fossil fuel industry. Together, the fossil fuel industry made back
41 billion dollars by the end
of 2014.[1]
Now help me figure this out. When did our great U.S.A. become controlled by oil
tycoons and not by decent and hardworking men and women? Men and women that died
defending our country. One of our core principles as a country is having a government run by
people, like you or me, who receive their power from the consent of the governed. I dont recall
when we the people decided that the people running our country make the decisions based off
money and not our American principles. While humans are disposed to suffer, as stated in our
Declaration of Independence, this is an evil we can no longer suffer. The fossil fuel industry has
continued in its destructive and harmful activities and, if we allow it to continue, we will have an
uninhabitable earth that we can no longer live on.
By the year 2100 the sea level will have risen 4 to 6 meters, which will be enough to
submerge many U.S. cities along the east coast. Higher sea levels would mean that many people
living in the U.S. will have to move out of their homes and relocate.[2]
Areas such as South Florida,
parts of Washington D.C., could be affected. Miami Beach and the Florida Keys will be lost
entirely.[3] The sea level is rising so intensely because, Antarctica is melting. This is due to the
increased temperature of the Earths global climate. This increase is caused by the severe growth
of CO2 emission over the past 60 years. In 1950 we had less than 400 million tons of CO2 in the
atmosphere,[4] but
in 2014 our emissions were at
a staggering 9.75 billion tons.[5] This
is not good.

Its not
even bad. Its disturbing. Disturbing to think that us as humans have been wearing the
blinders of greed for so long. Disturbing that we allowed just a few thousand humans, out of
billions, to destroy our Earth. Well I guess its no longer our Earth, but their Earth. I am only 17
years old, my generation is not responsible for, nor do we have control over, the murder of our
home. I want to have kids one day I really do! But I dont want to bring my kids into a doomed
world. A world doomed by greedy politicians and oil executives with no regard to the health of
the planet they live on.
These outdated and unreliable industries have continuously poisoned our planet. Which
will lead into our planets inevitable demise. What I hope for in the future is that these oil
corporations will make the change from oil and coal to solar and wind. If this does not happen
our planet will be mostly water and we will have less land to inhabit. But its inevitable that we
will lose a great chunk of our land here in the U.S. So with the help of the fossil fuel industry we
will lose over 28,000 square feet of land. Land that so many men and women died defending.