Mainstream media reports that some 8,000 people showed up in Washington D.C. today to link hands around the White House to protest the Keystone XL pipeline and the development of the Alberta boreal forest (aka “tar sands”).

The energy and determination of this crowd is wonderful. But It’s heartbreaking to learn that President Obama “missed most of the protest while he played golf at Fort Belvoir in Virginia.”

Last week I went for a walk on a golf course near my home, and was reminded again of how terrible these private parks are for the environment.

If lawns are destructive monocultures, just imagine the exponential scale of the golf mono-lanscape: acres and acres of closely cropped, artificially bright green  turf, with not a single broad-leaved plant to be seen.

Golf parks are anathema to butterflies and other insects, of course, since they are regularly treated with pesticides and herbicides.  They suck up precious water for a use that is 100% non-necessary: a pleasant game for the 1%.

I admit it, golf courses are one of my pet peeves.  I have never liked them, and never will.  So I suppose it was a sort of trigger to hear that Obama was off golfing this afternoon, instead of paying his respects to the thousands of activists streaming into Washington to communicate with him–the man we sent to represent us in the White House.

He is not the first American President to dodge attempts by the citizenry to communicate our wishes.  I think of President Bush off on his ranch while activists like Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey died in the Iraq War, tried to send him an anti-war message.

Mr. President, if your citizens make the effort to go all the way to Washington DC to speak with you, I think the least you could do is show up.  We are depending on you to make the right decision on the tar sands/pipeline issue, which is clearly NO PIPELINE, and no development of the boreal forest.

We expect you to make a decision in favor of the health and well-being of your citizens.  Instead of investing in tired, dirty old energy platforms like oil and pipelines, we should be investing in solar and geothermal.  We need an Apollo Project for renewable energy, and we need it now!

Sure, you deserve your R&R on a Sunday afternoon, Mr. President.  But if you make the wrong call on this issue, those luxurious golf courses you enjoy may soon be relics of the wasteful bygone days.

Future social historians might point to golf as one of the many foolish 20th century habits that left us crouching bewildered in the 21st century in the midst of a full-blown climate crisis.

You’re the Decider now, Mr. President.  We are expecting you to make the right decision–for your precious children, and ours.