--- Begin Message ---
Hello everyone
Here are some urgent environmental issues that I recommend to your
attention in the hope that any action you may choose to initiate - as
recommended below or otherwise - will help make a critical difference for
the future of this planet.
I plan to send you a special Earth day 2002 compilation tomorrow and
perhaps some more! And there is an interesting Post Scriptum to read
below... ;-)
Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
http://www.cybernaute.com/earthconcert2000
P.S. John Albertson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> asked me today: "Jean; I look
forward to your communiques and I am a bit concerned. I have not received
anything since Monday. Are you still on the air?" AND MY REPLY IS: Since
other may also wonder... My soulmate is visiting here for the first time
this week - and we are having a great time! - and so I've obviously been
unable to focus much attention to my usual compilation work. Yet I have
lots of material to send you, so you may receive more than one compilation
tonight - and I recommend you give a good look at my latest Media
compilation #66: We Don't Have A Democracy, We Have A Hypocrisy ---
Webposted at
http://www.cybernaute.com/earthconcert2000/Archives2002/MediaCompilation66.h
tm
Incidentally, in less than a month from now I'll also have MUCH less time
to dedicate to preparing these compilations as I'll get my organic gardens
started - as I've done for the past 21 years - and so will be almost off
the web for nearly 3 weeks. I will send you a reminder on this with a
special request for extreme email restraint, from all of you to me, for
most of the summertime. I will also network much less material this summer
as usual.
One more reminder: If you are considering the possibility of coming to the
Solstice Festival I'm organizing here from June 19 to 23 - see the whole
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT I've already sent you a couple weeks ago at
http://www.cybernaute.com/earthconcert2000/Archives2002/1stSolsticeFestival.
htm - I'm now offering all of you the possibility of locking in your place
for this unique event at the lowest discount price offered by sending an
initial $100 deposit before the end of this month. And for your
convenience, you may use the PayPal system for this - even if you are not
yet a PayPal subscriber as they allow for a first payment a $100 US taken
from your credit card - by going at https://secure.paypal.com
Oh! and for those who wonder about this, I've been unable yet to prepare
the special webpage that will give more details - with pictures - related
to this festival, but it should be available sometime next week and I'll
let you know when it is.
CONTENTS
1. FORESTS URGENT ALERT: Fate of Forests Determined Now
2. Report cites $54 billion in wasteful U.S. government projects
3. Way of life melting away: Existence of Artic Natives threatened as
temperatures rise
4. EPA Official Quits in Frustration
5. Fact Sheet: Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Oil Drilling
6. Making A Difference
SEE ALSO:
BUSH COOL TO WARMING REPORT
* In EnviroHealth: http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=18
Why did Bush bother requesting a global warming report from the National
Academy of Science if he was just going to ignore their ominous scientific
predictions?
Picture of the International Space Station
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/020412/161/1e32o.html
The International Space Station (ISS) is seen against the blackness of
space as the Space Shuttle Atlantis approached for docking April 9, 2002.
The ISS lived up to its name on April 12 with astronauts celebrating a
Russian national holiday in the morning before turning to barbecue and
country and western music in the afternoon. There are currently 10
astronauts aboard the orbiting outpost. See also "Shuttle Grandfathers
Begin Spacewalk" at
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=585&ncid=753&e=1&u=/nm/20020
413/sc_nm/space_shuttle_dc_145
D.C. Protest Organizers Join Arms - Middle East Turmoil Becomes Uniting Force
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43015-2002Apr13.html
NAVY SONAR CONTROVERSY COMING TO A HEAD (April 18, 2002)
With the NMFS "on the verge of making a final decision on whether to allow
deployment of the new low-frequency sonar" the Navy and environmental
groups have "intensified their competing campaigns to have it quickly
approved or permanently sidetracked" says the Washington Post 4/15. Marine
conservationists maintain the "extremely loud low-frequency pings" of the
submarine detection system would "seriously confuse, injure and eventually
kill noise-sensitive marine mammals and large whales in particular." For
its part, the Navy is pushing proposed legislation to give the military
broad exemptions from a variety of environmental laws including the ESA,
Migratory Bird Treaty Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act.
As you can see by the description above, the US Navy is now engaged in the
process of exempting itself from the law. The Navy seems to feel that it's
in the country's best interest for them to wiggle out of their
responsibilities.
For updated information on the LFAS issue go at
http://manyrooms.net/stopLFASresolutions.html
And at these 2 URLs below, you can read about the resolutions in Hilo, HI
and San Francisco, CA which seek to prevent this acoustic anarchy and
efforts of the Stop LFAS Worldwide Network to stop the noise pollution.
http://www.stoplfas.net
http://www.listen.to/lfas viewpoints
Sent by Cheryl Magill <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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1.
Sent by "Mark Graffis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: "Glen Barry" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, April 12, 2002
Subject: FORESTS URGENT ALERT: Fate of Forests Determined Now
This is VERY important... please respond and forward widely
ACTION ALERT!
CBD: FATE OF THE WORLD'S FORESTS & BIODIVERY BEING DETERMINED NOW
Urge U.N. Conference Delegates to Protect Forest Biodiversity
April 13, 2002 - By Forests.org and the Global Forest Coalition
TAKE ACTION: LOBBY GOVERNMENT LEADERS TO PROTECT FOREST BIODIVERSITY
http://forests.org/emailaction/cbd/
* One email click sends to several dozen governments
The ultimate fate of the World's forests may be determined this week at the
Convention on Biological Diversity meeting at The Hague. The convention
technical body has developed a strong, action driven work programme on
forest biodiversity conservation; which contains innovative action items on
ending deforestation, halting illegal logging, stopping biopiracy and
protecting and sustainably managing natural forests - including primary
forests. The programme is being undermined by countries profiting from the
trade in illegal or unsustainable logging and consumption patterns.
Ministerial delegates must be urged to support this programme. Please send
the email below, asking for bold commitments to end all forest loss,
protect primary forests from unsustainable commercial development, and
encourage community based eco-forestry management and protected areas.
TAKE ACTION: http://forests.org/emailaction/cbd/
BACKGROUND: The World's forests - home to 60% of the World's biodiversity
and providing critical ecosystem functions - are dangerously threatened.
Over the past decade the estimated annual rate of deforestation was 14.6
million hectares. One-fifth of the Earth's rainforests have disappeared
since 1960. Worldwide, large and fully intact ancient primary forests have
been reduced to 20% of their original pre-development extent. The COP6
meeting may be the last best chance to address the forest biodiversity
crisis.
Issued by http://www.Forests.org, Inc., The Global Forest Coalition and FERN
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2.
Report cites $54 billion in wasteful U.S. government projects
Friday, April 12, 2002 By Reuters
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government could save $54 billion over five years by
cutting spending for coal and nuclear technologies, road construction in
forests, and more than 70 other programs that are wasteful and damage the
environment, interest groups said Thursday.
The Green Scissors report, issued annually by a coalition of environmental
and consumer groups, urged the government to reduce spending for several
agriculture, energy, public lands, transportation, water, and international
projects and programs.
The report highlighted 10 projects, dubbed as "choice cuts," that the
coalition will target in Congress this year. Coalition members include
Friends of the Earth, Taxpayers for Common Sense, and the U.S. Public
Interest Research Group.
Budget cuts highlighted in the study include:
- Changing the 1872 Mining Law that allows mining companies to remove
minerals from publicly owned lands without paying royalties to the
government by implementing a royalty fee that could raise $394 million over
five years.
- Expediting the completion of the Clean Coal Program by stopping projects
that have not yet been started, saving about $253 million. The Green
Scissors report also suggested cutting the Bush administration's $2 billion
clean coal program that offers subsidies to encourage the industry to
develop cleaner burning technologies.
- Eliminating the Nuclear Energy Technologies program and the Department of
Energy's Nuclear Energy Research Initiative and Nuclear Energy Plant
Optimization programs that were created to help improve the use of nuclear
power. Removing these could save more than $252 million during the next
five years.
- Cutting funding for construction, planning, and designing of new roads
used for logging in U.S. forests, saving $312 million over five years.
- Stopping the Yucca Mountain project in Nevada without an independent
review. This will save taxpayers $375 million in fiscal year 2002.
President George W. Bush in February named Yucca Mountain as the permanent
federal site to store tens of thousands of tons of waste from nuclear power
plants across the nation.
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3.
Sent by Dancing Deer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: http://www.journalstar.com/nation?story_id=8423&past=
Way of life melting away: Existence of Artic Natives threatened as
temperatures rise
BY USHA LEE MCFARLING / Los Angeles Times
YANRAKYNNOT, Russia -- The Native elders have no explanation. Scientists
are perplexed as well. The icy realm of the Arctic Native -- the tundra and
icenof Russia, Alaska, Canada and Greenland -- has started to thaw.
Strange portents are everywhere.
Thunder and lightning, once rare, have become commonplace. An eerie warm
wind now blows in from the south. Hunters who prided themselves on their
ability to read the sky say they no longer can predict the sudden
blizzards.
``The Earth,'' one hunter concluded, ``is turning faster.''
In recent years, seabirds have washed up dead by the thousands and deformed
seal pups have become a common sight. Whales appear sick and
undernourished.
The walrus, a mainstay of the local diet, is becoming scarce, as are tundra
rabbits.
The elders, who keep thousands of years of history and legend without ever
writing it down, have long told children this story: If the ice that
freezes thick over the sea each winter breaks up before summer, the entire
village could perish.
The children always laugh. Here in the Russian Arctic, the ground is frozen
nearly year-round. The ice blanketing the winter seas around the Bering
Strait is thick enough to support men dragging sleds loaded with whale
carcasses.
Even Zoya Telpina, the schoolteacher in this outpost of 350 Chukchi
reindeer herders and marine mammal hunters, said that a winter sea without
ice seemed like ``a fairy tale.''
But last winter, when Telpina looked from her kitchen window toward the
Bering Sea, she saw something she'd never seen in her 38 years: The dark
swell of the open ocean. Water where there had always been ice.
Telpina's husband, Mikhail, a 38-year-old dog-sled musher, has seen
mushrooms on the tundra shrivel and whole herds of reindeer starve. He has
cut open the bellies of salmon to find strange insects inside. He has seen
willows rise where he has never seen trees before.
The changes are so widespread that they have spawned changes in the Arctic
Native languages that so precisely describe ice and snow. In Chukotka,
where the Natives speak Siberian Yupik, they use new words such as
``misullijuq'' -- rainy snow -- and are less likely to use words like
``umughagek'' -- ice that is safe to walk on. In Nunavet, Canada, the Inuit
people say the weather is ``uggianaqtuq'' -- like a familiar friend acting
strangely.
What the residents of the Arctic are reporting fits convincingly with
powerful computer models, satellite images and recently declassified ice
measurements taken by Russian submarines.
In the last century, parts of the Arctic have warmed by 10 degrees
Fahrenheit -- 10 times the global average. Sea ice covers 15 percent less
of the Arctic Ocean than it did 20 years ago, and that ice has thinned from
an average of 10 feet to less than 6.
A group of scientists who spent a year aboard an icebreaker concluded that
the year-round sea ice that sustains marine mammals and those who hunt them
could vanish altogether in 50 years.
The U.S. Navy, already planning for an ice-free Arctic, is exploring ways
to defend the previously ice-clogged Northwest Passage from attack by sea.
Without the stabilizing effect of great land masses, the Earth's watery
north is exquisitely sensitive to warming. A few degrees of warmth can mean
the difference between ice and water, permafrost or mud, hunger or even
starvation for the inhabitants of these remote lands.
Yet, explaining the quick thaw and determining its cause -- whether human
or natural -- has so far eluded the experts.
There are few long-term climate observations from the Arctic:
Weatherstations in the Far North are just 50 years old. And there is almost
no data from places like Russia's Chukotka Peninsula, only 55 miles from
Alaska.
In their search for information, Western scientists are turning to sources
they once disparaged. In a rare convergence of science and folklore, a
group of scientists is mining the memories of Native elders, counting
animal pelts collected by hunters and documenting the collective knowledge
of entire villages.
These threads, which stretch back generations, may be the only way to trace
the outlines of the half-century of change that has resculpted the Arctic
and to figure out its cause.
``We have all these people paying very close attention to the animals they
hunt and the sea ice they travel on,'' said Henry Huntington, a scientific
consultant in Alaska.
``It's often extremely accurate and far better than anything science has
come up with.''
Native observations that at first don't seem consistent with the warming
--such as snowier winters and colder summers -- also fit the scientists'
models. Warmer air is expected to usher more storms and precipitation into
the Arctic. Melting sea ice in summer can lower the water temperature and
lead to cooler temperatures on adjacent land.
Despite parallel observations, Western researchers and Arctic dwellers
still look at each other suspiciously across a cultural divide. Many
scientists remain uncomfortable with any information that is not backed by
numbers and measurements. Many Native elders resent scientists who come
ashore withtheir strange machines thinking they know more about the place
than those who live there.
Others mistrust Western scientists who come to gather data and never send
back word of their findings. They still recall a group of toxicologists who
came to remote villages here several years ago to collect women's breast
milk to measure pollution levels. The scientists detected organic
pollutants such as dioxin and PCBs in the breast milk. But the women say
they were never contacted about the results.
For scientists, the facts are mostly a matter of academic, and sometimes
political, interest. But for the Natives, they may be a matter of life and
death.
The subsistence hunters of Chukotka live in small villages without pickup
trucks or snowmobiles, without supply ships or supermarkets. They have
19th-century harpoons, small boats and limited fuel for their hunts.
These villagers, almost entirely dependent on the icy sea for their food,
may be witnessing the demise of their ancient way of life.
Caleb Pungowiyi, an Arctic Native who works with scientists to record the
observations of his elders and peers, put it this way: ``When this Earth
starts to be destroyed, we feel it.''
Ice is a second home for Gennady Inankeuyas, a 42-year-old hunter
considered the best harpooner on the Chukotka Peninsula. For years,
Inankeuyas has prowled the ice for seals and walrus, dragging heavy sleds
and animal carcasses over the frozen ocean.
This year, Inankeuyas returned to the uncertain ice. He had to. ``Of course
it's dangerous,'' he said. ``But the village needs the food.''
That food is not as easy to come by now that the weather has changed. ``The
south wind is a bad wind. It moves the walrus to another place,'' said a
42-year-old Arctic Native hunter named Igor Macotrik. ``The walrus is hard
to find.''
Scientists understand such observations. Their data show that the walrus
are declining, possibly because they also have to work harder to find food.
Walrus mothers nurse their babies on sea-ice floes. As melting ice recedes,
the walrus do too. Far from the coast, the mothers must dive longer and
deeper from the ice to the sea floor to find clams.
In recent years, the Arctic Native hunters have also noticed that gray
whales have become extremely skinny. The meat of some freshly killed whales
smells rancid, ``like medicine,'' said 28-year-old hunter Maxim Agnagisyak.
The sled dogs won't eat it.
Scientists are beginning to analyze samples of whale blubber from the
region to seek an explanation. For several years, record numbers of gray
whales have washed up dead and emaciated as they migrate to their winter
calving grounds in Baja California.
Land animals are also under stress. Reindeer herds plummeted after the
Soviet Union collapsed and the government subsidies that helped sustain
then herds were cut off. The animals began starving, and their numbers
continueto decline .
Scientists have not studied the reindeer herds of Chukotka, but they have
seen similar starvation in Canadian caribou. The grazing animals
normallysurvive the winter by nosing through soft, dry snow to feed on the
tundra vegetation insulated below. In recent warm years, winter rains have
alternated with snow, leaving an icy crust that is difficult to penetrate
and lacerates the animals' legs.
Scientists are only beginning to catch up with Native observations on many
other aspects of the Arctic environment, such as tundra vegetation. They
are monitoring a tree line that is advancing north as the Arctic warms. And
scientists from Russia, Delaware and Ohio have just started a large-scale
project to study the permafrost as it thaws.
It is unclear if the changing climate will let them finish their work. With
scientists still debating the trajectory of change in the Arctic, the fate
of the Siberian Native remains as uncertain as the Arctic ice in late
spring.
Hunters with tiny boats and little fuel must now go much farther out to sea
for food. Sometimes they return empty-handed. Sometimes they return with
prey unusual for the season, or fish native to warmer waters. Sometimes,
when the seas are rough, they do not return at all.
The hunters willingly talk about the many changes they see around them. But
they don't spend much time worrying about climate change.
For the moment, they have more pressing concerns: gathering enough ammo for
the spring hunt and stretching their limited supply of stored whale meat.
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4.
From: "Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: EPA Official Quits in Frustration
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002
Hello,
We hear little these days in the mainstream media about the supposed energy
crisis. Like their coverage of most issues, they spent a few weeks on the
crisis and then moved on to other things.We were left with the assumption
that energy is in short supply and that as a result, rates have to rise.
This convenient perception is generating billions of dollars for the
utility companies while people around the country can't afford to pay
heating bills. Environmental rules around the nation have been suspended so
that new dirty power plants could be built.
Earlier this year, Eric Schaeffer, the EPA's director of civil enforcement,
resigned after 12 years at the agency. In his resignation letter,
heİcomplained that the White House "seems determined to weaken the rules we
are trying to enforce." He also implied that the often feared energy crisis
is a fabrication when he said, "What about the energy crisis? It stubbornly
refuses to materialize, as experts predict a glut of power plants in some
areas of the U.S."
If any of you had any doubts about the impactİof the current presidential
administration's environmental policy, Schaeffer's resignation letter will
put them to rest. New power plants will fill the owner's pockets with our
dollars at the expense of our ecosystems as utility rates continue to rise.
Below is the text of that letter.
Email your elected representatives and let them know that you won't
tolerate this any longer. You can find out who they are at
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ziptoit.html.
You can review a summary of some energy issues in two Healing Our World
commentaries from last year, "Energy Crisis or Greed Crisis," at
http://www.ens-news.com/ens/feb2001/2001L-02-09g.htmlİand a special report,
"Energy Crisis or Energy Hoax," at
http://drjackie.freeservers.com/articles/jagfeb12-2001.html.
Thank you for your efforts on behalf of our planet and our future.
Jackie
Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.
Author of "Healing Our World" commentaries on the Environment News Service
http://www.ens-news.com
Check out Jackie's website with an archive of his over 180 commentaries at
http://www.healingourworld.com
Jackie's new book, "Healing Our World, A Journey from the Darkness into the
Light," is available from XLIBRIS at:
http://www.xlibris.com/HealingOurWorld.html
---
Eric Schaeffer's resignation letter from EPA
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2002
Here's the full text of EPA Enforcement Chief Schaeffer's resignation
letter, delivered to:
Christine Whitman Administrator U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 1200
Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20004
Dear Ms. Whitman
I resign today from the Environmental Protection Agency after twelve years
of service, the last five as Director of the Office of Regulatory
Enforcement. I am grateful for the opportunities I have been given, and
leave with a deep admiration for the men and women of EPA who dedicate
their lives to protecting the environment and the public health.
Their faith in the Agency's mission is an inspiring example to those who
still believe that government should stand for the public interest.
But I cannot leave without sharing my frustration about the fate of our
enforcement actions against power companies that have violated the Clean
Air Act. Between November of 1999 and December of 2000, EPA filed lawsuits
against 9 power companies for expanding their plants, without obtaining New
Source Review permits and the up to date pollution controls required by
law. The companies named in our lawsuits emit an incredible 5.0 million
tons of sulfur dioxide every year (a quarter of the emissions in the entire
country) as well as 2 million tons of nitrogen oxide.
As the scale of pollution from these coal-fired smokestacks is immense, so
is the damage to public health. Data supplied to the Senate Environment
Committee by EPA last year estimate the annual health bill from 7 million
tons of SO2 and NO2: more than 10,800 premature deaths; at least 5,400
incidents of chronic bronchitis; more than 5,100 hospital emergency visits;
and over 1.5 million lost work days. Add to that severe damage to our
natural resources, as acid rain attacks soils and plants, and deposits
nitrogen in the Chesapeake Bay and other critical bodies of water.
Fifteen months ago, it looked as though our lawsuits were going to shrink
these dismal statistics, when EPA publicly announced agreements with
Cinergy and Vepco to reduce Sox and Nox emissions by a combined 750,000
tons per year. Settlements already lodged with two other companies - TECO
and PSE&G - will eventually take another quarter million tons of Nox and
Sox out of the air annually. If we get similar results from the 9 companies
with filed complaints, we are on track to reduce both pollutants by a
combined 4.8 million tons per year. And that does not count the hundreds of
thousands of additional tons that can be obtained from other companies with
whom we have been negotiating.
Yet today, we seem about the snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. We are
in the 9th month of a "90 day review" to reexamine the law, and fighting a
White House that seems determined to weaken the rules we are trying to
enforce. It is hard to know which is worse, the endless delay or the
repeated leaks by energy industry lobbyists of draft rule changes that
would undermine lawsuits already filed. At their heart, these proposals
would turn narrow exemptions into larger loopholes that would allow old
"grandfathered" plants to be continually rebuilt (and emissions to
increase) without modern pollution controls.
Our negotiating position is weakened further by the Administration's budget
proposal to cut the civil enforcement program by more than 200 staff
positions below the 2001 level. Already, we are unable to fill key staff
positions, not only in air enforcement, but in other critical programs, and
the proposed budget cuts would leave us desperately short of the resources
needed to deal with the large, sophisticated corporate defendants we face.
And it is completely unrealistic to expect underfunded state environmental
programs, facing their own budget cuts, to take up the slack.
It is no longer possible to pretend that the ongoing debate with the White
House and Department of Energy is not effecting our ability to negotiate
settlements. Cinergy and Vepco have refused to sign the consent decrees
they agreed to 15 months ago, hedging their bets while waiting for the
Administration's Clean Air Act reform proposals. Other companies with whom
we were close to settlement have walked away from the table. The momentum
we obtained with agreements announced earlier has stopped, and we have
filed no new lawsuits against utility companies since this Administration
took office. We obviously cannot settle cases with defendants who think we
are still rewriting the law.
The arguments against sustaining our enforcement actions don't hold up to
scrutiny.Were the complaints filed by the U.S. government based on
conflicting or changing interpretations? The Justice Department doesn't
think so. Its review of our enforcement actions found EPA's interpretation
of the law to be reasonable and consistent. While the Justice Department
has gamely insisted it will continue to prosecute existing cases, the
confusion over where EPA is going with New Source Review has made
settlement almost impossible, and protracted litigation inevitable.
What about the energy crisis? It stubbornly refuses to materialize, as
experts predict a glut of power plants in some areas of the U.S. In any
case, our settlements are flexible enough to provide for cleaner air while
protecting consumers from rate shock. The relative costs and benefits?
EPA's regulatory impact analyses, reviewed by OMB, quantify health and
environmental benefits of $7,300 per ton of SO2 reduced at a cost of less
than $1,000 per ton. These cases should be supported by anyone who thinks
cost-benefit analysis is a serious tool for decision-making, not a
political game.
Is the law too complicated to understand? Most of the projects our cases
targeted involved big expansion projects that pushed emission increases
many times over the limits allowed by law. Should we try to fix the problem
by passing a new law? Assuming the Administration's bill survives a
legislative odyssey in today's evenly divided Congress, it will send us
right back where we started with new rules to write, which will then be
delayed by industry challenges, and with fewer emissions reductions than we
can get by enforcing today's law.
I believe you share the concerns I have expressed, and wish you well in
your efforts to persuade the Administration to put our enforcement actions
back on course. Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican and our greatest
environmental President, said, "Compliance with the law is demanded as a
right, not asked as a favor." By showing that powerful utility interests
are not exempt from that principle, you will prove to EPA's staff that
their faith in the Agency's mission is not in vain. And you will leave the
American public with an environmental victory that will be felt for
generations to come.
Sincerely,
Eric V. Schaeffer, Director Office of Regulatory Enforcement
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5.
Also sent by Dancing Deer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Fact Sheet: Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Oil Drilling
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Covering more than 20 million acres,
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) includes the largest designated
wilderness area (8 million acres) in the National Wildlife Refuge system.
In dispute is permission to drill on the 1.5-million-acre coastal plain,
the biological heart of the Refuge.
Absent of roads, lodging and campsites, ANWR has been dubbed "America's
finest example of an intact, naturally functioning community of
Arctic/sub-Arctic ecosystems." Teeming with wildlife (more than 160 bird
species, 36 kinds of land mammals, nine marine mammal species and 36 types
of fish), the Refuge is a breeding ground and habitat for caribou, polar
bears and other animals.
About one in four jobs in Alaska (some 55,000 jobs total, or twice the
number of jobs in the petroleum, mining and construction industries) depend
on a clean environment. These jobs are in the commercial and sport fishing,
tourism and hunting sectors.
Drilling for oil in the Refuge
The United States holds less than 3 percent of the world's proven oil
reserves, yet Americans consume 25 percent of the world's produced oil.
Opening the Arctic National Refuge would increase world reserves by only
0.3 percent. Even opening all our refuges, parks and coastlines to drilling
would not satisfy our current energy demands.
The amount of oil that could be recovered economically from the Arctic
Refuge over a 50-year span -- approximately 5.3 billion barrels -- amounts
to less than a nine month's supply for the United States.
Drilling in ANWR would provide consumers with little or no price relief,
since the amount of oil involved provides no leverage against OPEC market
control. For example, when Alaska's Prudhoe Bay increased production in the
1970s, OPEC was still able to double oil prices by curtailing their supply.
Various estimates put the amount of economically recoverable oil -- that
is, after production costs are balanced against the price of oil -- at less
than what could be saved with just a 3 mpg increase in the average fuel
economy of American cars and trucks.
Sources: Alaska Conservation Foundation, Energy Information Administration,
Environmental Defense, Environmental Media Services, Union of Concerned
Scientists, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, The Wilderness Society
The work of Chief Looking Horse calls for Global Healing in many aspects
that encompasses Peace with all Mitakuye Oyasin (all living beings,
relations) All these efforts can be viewed on http://www.wolakota.org
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6.
Making A Difference
As the old man walked the beach at dawn, he noticed a young man ahead of
him picking up starfish and flinging them into the sea. Finally catching up
to the youth, he asked him why he was doing this. The answer was that the
stranded starfish would die if left until the morning sun. "But the beach
goes on for miles and there are millions of starfish" said the old man. "
How can your efforts make any difference?" The young man looked at the
starfish and then threw it to safety in the waves. "It makes a difference
to that one," he said.
Sent by Mark Quire <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
--- End Message ---
