April 18, 2002
The Green Holocaust Files #4: Making A Difference
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 <albertsonjw@yahoo.com> 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.htm
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/20020413/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 <shootdaguy@yahoo.com> or <cheryl@manyrooms.org>
1.
Sent by "Mark Graffis" <mgraffis@islands.vi>
From: "Glen Barry" <grbarry@earthlink.net>
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
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.
3.
Sent by Dancing Deer <bens832@aol.com>
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.
4.
From: "Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D." <jackie@deepteaching.com>
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, he†complained 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 impact†of 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 ;and 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
5.
Also sent by Dancing Deer <bens832@aol.com>
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
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 <mountainsrme@webtv.net>
