Dear friend,
The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) sent out yesterday a call for
immediate faxes to the President about US proposals for the Climate
conference this December in Kyoto, Japan. The following is my modification
of the EDF form letter. The first four paragraphs are pretty much verbatim
from the EDF letter. But as you can see, so much more needs to be said. The
conspiracy of silence must end, and now is the time for you to speak up. I
urge you to write the President immediately, and get those in your networks
to do the same. Feel free to distribute my letter.
The time for Climate Action is NOW!
Andy Caffrey, director
Climate Action NOW!
P.O. Box 2182
Berkeley, CA 94702-0182
PS Sorry for any duplicate postings you might have received. This is the
only posting we will be sending to you unless you contact us. If you would
like to be on the Climate Action NOW! e-mail list, or receive the four-page
Climate Crisis Journal tabloid which we are preparing for the Nov. 1 issue
of the Earth First! Journal, send an e-mail to me at
[log in to unmask] (if you send if before Oct. 15)
[log in to unmask] (if you send it after Oct. 15)
And of course, donations to "Climate Action NOW!" are urgently needed. So
too is your involvement. Let us know if you want some help.
If not now, when? If not us, who then?
********************************** FORWARDED:
EDF's request:
To: Andy Caffrey
From: William Roberts, Environmental Defense Fund
Re: President Clinton's Position on Global Warming
Date: October 10, 1997
President Clinton and his advisers are meeting this morning to decide the
fate of the planet, and they need to hear from you!
That's sounds like an exaggeration, but read on.
This morning the President is scheduled to review options from his staff on
the position the U.S. should take in upcoming international negotiations on
a treaty to tackle the vexing problem of global warming. With the U.S.
responsible for the lion's share of international emissions, the position
our nation takes will be decisive.
President Clinton will likely make his decision in the next 24 hours!
Despite repeated promises made by Clinton and Vice President Gore
to take meaningful steps to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, EDF has
been told that the President's advisers have assembled proposals that
substantially delay any U.S. action on climate to, at the earliest, 2010,
with some proposals postponing action to 2020 and beyond.
In addition, even the most aggressive proposals only commit the
U.S. to "stabilize" emissions at 1990 levels, meaning that the U.S. would
not promise to actually reduce emissions - a step that must be taken to
stabilize earth's climate.
Most importantly, all the proposals provide a bailout provision for
polluters. The proposals would commit the U.S. to limit emissions, BUT
ONLY if the costs to industry are not too high. Of course, that means that
there would be no real limit on emissions at all, since companies could
continue to emit greenhouse gases above even 1990 levels if costs got too
high.
The current proposals would guarantee a limit on costs to
businesses, but provide no guarantee of environmental improvement for the
planet.
Below is a draft letter we would like you to send to the President
and his advisers urging him to take a strong stand to defend the planet and
to keep his long-standing promise to control greenhouse gases. Just edit
the letter to include your own thoughts and e-mail it back to us. We'll
take care of faxing to the President and his aides.
Decisions on this critical issue will likely be made in the next 24
hours, so please act right away! And, thanks for all your help.
*******************************
Climate Action NOW! letter to Clinton:
President William J. Clinton
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
I am writing to urge to you to keep your pledge to reduce U.S.
greenhouse gas emissions and to reject staff suggestions that you renege on
that pledge.
I understand that your staff have prepared several draft proposals
for the U.S. position in upcoming global warming negotiations later this
year in Kyoto, Japan. None of these options commit the U.S. to reduce
emissions below 1990 levels, all of them postpone action to 2010 or beyond,
and all of them include a "cap-busting" provision that could make even
modest reductions illusory as companies continue to increase emissions
beyond 1990 levels by simply paying a fee to the U.S. Treasury.
As recently as this Monday, you reiterated your support for
mandatory commitments to bind the U.S. to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
Yet, all of these proposals would abandon that commitment by allowing the
U.S. to continue to emit greenhouse gases well above 1990 levels if costs
get too high. Companies will simply sit back and pay fees to the Treasury,
while the U.S. contribution to global warming continues to soar.
Mr. President, I strongly urge you to reject the staff options
presented to you and to insist that the U.S. make binding commitments to
reduce emissions WELL below 1990 levels, to do so WELL BEFORE 2010 and to
make sure that you drop any "cap-busting" escape clause that will destroy
the incentives for U.S. companies to make innovations to reduce emissions.
More specifically, I would like you to consider the following
information, which I discussed personally with Vice President Gore early in
1992. He said to me that he was very familiar with, and agreed with this
material and the author, David Suzuki, of the Harvard University-published
book from which I was first apprised of this material. The book's title is,
"It's A Matter of Survival," coauthored by Anita Gordon and Suzuki. In the
book, they cite reports by the U.S. EPA, the U.N. IPCC, and the Woods Hole
Research Center, which indicated the need for 50-80% reductions of
Greenhouse Gasses from 1990 levels by the year 2000 or 2005!
The book also showed that reports from the energy departments of
the U.S., Canada, and Great Britain at the same time projected 40-45%
INCREASES in the emission of these gasses over this same period. Today,
seven years after the reports were authored, we are indeed emitting more
Greenhouse Gasses than ever before! This is a crime of VIOLENCE against our
communities and murder of those citizens killed by Greenhouse
Gas-induced/exacerbated weather disasters! It is your most fundamental and
overarching duty to protect American citizens and their property! And so
far, I can't see anything you have done to fulfill that obligation.
Cambridge University published a book a few years back,
"Confronting Climate Change: Risks, Implications and Responses," edited by
Irving M. Mintzer, which discusses the question of increasing weather
extremes leading to larger disasters. I quote from page 144:
"Some analysts are concerned that persistent, multi-year droughts
may increase the likelihood of large brush and timber fires. The 1991 fire
near Oakland, California (which caused more than $3 billion in damages) is
indicative of the kind of events that could occur with increasing frequency
as a result of accelerated greenhouse warming."
Well, Mr. President, I went through that fire. I lost everything I
own during that horror from Hell. Our house was turned into four inches of
powder by temperatures which reached 2000 degrees!. My life (and my brain)
have been forever changed by that horrific event, because I now suffer from
post-traumatic stress disorder, which is a permanent change in brain
chemistry, the same condition which has produced more Vietnam veteran
deaths by suicide, than the total number of US soldiers killed during the
entire Vietnam conflict itself.
This traumatic ailment, which causes me to have weekly
hallucinations, and which has destroyed my ability to rejoin the work
force, was caused by the firestorm, and, as I now believe, the firestorm
was caused by Global Warming and those traitorous government leaders and
corporate executives who made sure we would do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to reduce
the sales of petroleum and the profits of the oil and automotive industry
(according to Tim Wirth and other officials in your administration, we have
yet to pass a single law to assure emissions reductions) . Many studies now
indicate that Greenhouse-Gas-induced climate change began around 1976. If
that is in fact the case, then I think it is quite reasonable to believe
that the Oakland Firestorm holocaust itself was caused by Global Warming.
So, for me, I look upon Global Warming as a National Security issue
of the highest and most urgent concern. And the traitors are still in
power. Are you one of them? Is Vice President Gore? As Commander-in-Chief
it is your duty to call for an immediate war effort, an effort to defend
the property and lives of all Americans, to pursue the goal of achieving
the reduction targets of the three reports mentioned in Gordon and Suzuki's
book.
To do anything less would be an act of treason against the American
People, and especially to the inevitable climate casualties which are NOW
piling up around us. As you look at Acapulco, please contemplate on the
parallel threat to OUR nation's people, farms and wildlands. Anything from
you less than a call for sustained, emergency action would be evidence that
you are cavorting with the enemy, those who become wealthy from the
continued burning of fossil fuels-in four words, I mean the OIL INDUSTRY
and the AUTO INDUSTRY (of course, they have too many allies to list).
As far as I'm concerned, inaction would be equivalent to our
patriot founders allowing British spies unimpeded access to our towns,
forests and farmlands to commit acts of arson. The effect is the same. As
you travel this winter to the locations of the upcoming flood, hurricane,
and blizzard disasters of the coming months, and look into the eyes of the
ravaged victims of these subversive Oil Industry weather conspiracies, I
hope you will reflect upon the fact that these people's lives will have
tragically changed forever, no matter how much "disaster relief" you can
drag out of Congress.
For there is no such thing as disaster "relief." These disasters
are acts of insidious torture, which will scar their victims forever. These
people are the climate change POWs and MIAs of your era. Don't be a
Benedict Arnold, Mr. President. Do your duty. As the late, great Edward
Abbey wrote, "Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul."
Terrified of American Acapulcos,
Andy Caffrey, director
Climate Action NOW!
PO Box 2182
Berkeley, CA 94702-0182
cc:
Robert Rubin, Secretary of the Treasury
William Daley, Secretary of Commerce
Gene Sperling, National Economic Council
Katherine McGinty, Council on Environmental Quality
Todd Stern, White House Staff Secretary
Andy Caffrey, director, Climate Action NOW!
P.O. Box 2182, Berkeley, CA 94702-0182
[log in to unmask] http://www.imaja.com/change/can/can.html
"If things get any worse than this, we'll have to do something"
"They say the world is run by those who show up"
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