The Interior Department and EPA may think it’s OK to sell oil and gas leases under the newly melted areas of the Arctic Ocean, prime polar bear habitat, but children are asking their parents what they are doing to preserve the polar bear.

Whether it’s the Australian drought tripling the worldwide price of rice, or record flooding in Missouri and other Midwest states, whether it’s the loss of salmon runs on the Sacramento River, or the disappearance of bees or Mexican bats, people are getting wise to the facts. Other species are like canaries in the coal mine, and the coal mine is the Earth.

We have solar, wind, geothermal, tidal and wave power to develop. We have conservation which has barely been tapped to reduce our need for electric power, water and oil. We have new industries springing up to provide green architecture and energy-star insulation and appliances. And soon, with your help, we will have a government willing to require that municipal, industrial, and private parties all favor these green solutions as the preferred way of doing business.

This is the Earth we will leave to our children and grandchildren. We owe it to them to make the right choices.

Happy Earth Day!

Congressman John Hall