File spoon-archives/marxism.archive/marxism_1995/95-04-30.000, message 403


Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 18:56:57 +0100
From: "Anna-Sabine Ernst, Gerwin Klinger" <cerebus-AT-fub46.zedat.fu-berlin.de>
Subject: Green-Peace Letter to Clinton


Following Letter to Clinton is promoted by Green-Peace:

Dear President Clinton,

I write to you because I am deeply concerned about global
warming and climate change. I also write to you because you
are the President of the country that is the  largest
emitter of carbon dioxide in the world. The United States,
with less then 5% of the world's population, produces close
to 25% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions.
Consequently,  the United States not only bears the
greatest degree of responsibility for the environmental
crisis brought about by global warming and climate change,
but is also in a position to take a leadership role in
taking immediate and effective action towards averting this
global catastrophe.

Mr. President, I appeal to you to provide the global
leadership for the early completion of a legally binding
'International CO2 Reduction Protocol';  which would,   at
minimum,  aim to achieve in industrialized countries  a 20
percent reduction of CO2 emissions (from 1990 levels) by
the year 2005. Furthermore, I urge you vigorously advocate
the global transition to the use  of renewable sources of
energy, such as solar power.


As Vice President Al Gore wrote, "if the world is to have
any chance at all of successfully negotiating the
excruciatingly difficult treaties that are now necessary,
the United States will simply have to take a leadership
role."  Unfortunately,  the role the US delegation has been
playing in recent climate negotiations is more reminiscent
of the obstructive Bush administration which, in the leadup
to the Earth Summit, blocked real progress on the Climate
Convention .

I wish to quote you  more of Vice-President Al Gore's
profound words, because I believe that he speaks for
millions of people around the world who are truly alarmed
about the prospects of an environmental Armageddon brought
about by human caused climate change:

"I have come to believe that we must take bold and
unequivocal action: we must make the rescue of the
environment the central organizing principle for
civilization. Whether we realize it or not, we are now
engaged in an epic battle to right the balance of our
earth, and the tide of this battle will turn only when the
majority of people in the world become sufficiently aroused
by a shared sense  of urgent danger to join an all-out
effort."

"[It] is clear that doubling CO2 will in fact increase
global temperatures and in the process subject us to the
risk of catastrophic changes in global climate patterns....
[The] artificial global warming we are causing threatens
far more than a few degrees added to average temperatures:
it threatens to destroy the climate equilibrium we have
known for the entire history of human civilization. As the
climate pattern begins to change, so too do the movements
of the wind and rain, the floods and droughts, the
grasslands and deserts, the insects and weeds, the feasts
and famines, the seasons of peace and war."

"We are in fact conducting a massive, unprecedented -some
say unethical- experiment. As we contemplate a choice
between adapting to the changes we are causing and
preventing those changes, we should bear in mind that our
choice will bind not only ourselves but our grandchildren
and their grandchildren as well. And of course many of the
changes -such as the predicted extinction of half the
living creatures on earth- would be irreversible."

"We need to act now on the basis of what we know. Some
scientists believe that we are in danger of passing a kind
of point of no return, after which we will have missed the
last good opportunity to solve the problem before it
spirals out of our control. If we choose not to act, will
we indeed pass that point?"


Mr. President, please act now.

Yours truly,

(Your name)




     --- from list marxism-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

     ------------------

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005