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