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EarthWINS Daily 5.5
October 8, 2000
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 21:07:21 -0500
From: EarthWINS Daily <EarthWINS-Daily@earthwins.com>
Contents
1. Mineral Policy Center: Contents of MineWire v3n10
2. WISCONSIN: Hope bubbles up in the Perrier wars - The
little town that could
3. Debate debacle
4. The Simultaneous Policy
5. Website: Environmental Working Group - Cutting Edge
Research and Health and
Environment
6. November 24th is Buy Nothing Day
7. Outphasing Fossil Fuels
8. **MineAction** Alternative Nobel Award for anti gold
activist
9. [Mike's Message] One Month from Today
****************************************
From: "Mineral Policy Center" <mpc@mineralpolicy.org>
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 23:17:42 -0400
MINEWIRE Essential Reading
for Mining Activists
Vol. 3, No. 10 October 6th, 2000
MINEWIRE is published bi-weekly by MINERAL POLICY CENTER to provide
members
of the Mining Activist Working Group with information they need to
build
successful campaigns.
A formatted version for easier reading and printing is available on
our
website at
http://www.mineralpolicy.org/files/MineWire_v3n10.pdf
-------------
IN THIS ISSUE
-------------
* FEDERAL UPDATE
CONGRESSIONAL UPDATE: 3809 Mining Rider
* NATIONAL MINING ASSOCIATION AND MPC IN AGREEMENT ON 3809 RIDER?
* COMMUNITY NUGGETS
NORTH AMERICA: US, Alaska
- Alaska conservationists meet to discuss mining's impacts throughout
the
state
NORTH AMERICA: US, California
- USGS finds mercury in fish in Sierra Nevada watersheds
NORTH AMERICA: US, Colorado
- MPC and Sierra Club plan to sue Cripple Creek and Victor Mining Company
NORTH AMERICA: US, Idaho/Montana
- Proposed Rock Creek mine threatens valuable wilderness
PACIFICA: Papua New Guinea
- Rio Tinto sued for alleged abuses to local environment and people
* MINING IN THE MEDIA
The Santa Fe New Mexican -- Molycorp makes bond; clean-up still due
Denver Rocky Mountain News -- Mines battle cyanide ban
Financial Post -- Gold 'mega-merger' predicted; gold stocks to recover
* ENVIRONMENTAL ADVOCACY RESOURCES
Bureau of Land Management Land and Minerals Records
********************************************
2. WISCONSIN: Hope bubbles up in the Perrier wars - The little town that could
By Rob Zaleski
October 7, 2000
http://www.thecapitaltimes.com/news/local/2000/10/07/perrier_100700.html
*********************************************
An editorial
October 7, 2000
http://www.thecapitaltimes.com/opinion/editorial/2000/10/debate_debacle_100700.html
********************************************
From: "John Bunzl" <jbunzl@simpol.org>
Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2000 06:32:11 +0100
The Simultaneous Policy, a new international campaign to counter the
forces of
globalisation and international competition, has been launched in London.
Based
on the premise that all nations are subject to global competitive forces
unleashed by the ability of capital and transnational corporations
to cross
national borders, no nation nor group of nations can control global
capital nor
can they implement vital economic, social or environmental policies
that might
incur market or corporate displeasure. To break the vicious circle
of global
competition, both between nations and between corporations, all nations
need to
act simultaneously by implementing the Simultaneous Policy (SP); a
range of
measures to re-regulate global markets and corporations in order to
restore
genuine democracy, environmental protection and peace around the world.
Endorsed by Noam Chomsky, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Ed Mayo and many other
leading
ecologists, counter-economists, churchmen and journalists, SP recognises
that
party politics has become little more than a sham in which whatever
party we
elect, the policies delivered inevitably conform to market and corporate
demands and to the dictatorship of competition. It calls upon peoples
all over
the world to come together to take policy out of the hands of politicians
and,
by force of their numbers and their votes, to compel political parties
around
the world to adopt SP. By transcending party-political differences
and by
offering a means that allows politicians and governments to adopt it
without
risking their respective national interests , SP claims to provide
the
long-awaited, coherent and practical solution to globalisation and
other world
problems.
Based on a new book, "The Simultaneous Policy An Insider s Guide to
Saving
Humanity and the Planet" by John Bunzl, the International Simultaneous
Policy
Organisation (ISPO) has been established to campaign for the adoption
of SP.
Acclaimed as "the first writer on the sustainable society to advance
beyond
rhetoric and grapple with the problem of how such a society might be
achieved",
the book crucially offers the blueprint for a secure and responsible
transition
from the existing paradigm of destructive, international economic competition
to the new paradigm of global cooperation in which global economic,
environmental and social problems can be solved.
John Bunzl - Director
International Simultaneous Policy Organisation (ISPO)
www.simpol.org e-mail: jbunzl@simpol.org
--------------
Georges Drouet - Director
ISPO Belgique
ispo.belgique@simpol.org
--------------
ISPO Argentina
ispo.argentina@simpol.org
--------------
ISPO Mali
ispo.mali@simpol.org
--------------
ISPO India
ispo.india@simpol.org
--------------
ISPO Brazil
ispo.brazil@simpol.org
********************************************
5. Website: Environmental Working Group - Cutting Edge
Research and Health and
Environment
*********************************************
6. November 24th is Buy Nothing Day
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 16:54:51 -0700
From: Culture Jammers Network <jammers@adbusters.org>
Hey Culture Jammers,
The Buy Nothing Day season is upon us! Less than two months remain
before the year's biggest eco-jam and people all over the world are
getting ready.
This year, the theme is First World Denial. In an age of bull
markets, SUVs and runaway consumption, let's send a wake up call to
overconsumers and remind them that they're living off the backs of
future generations.
To get your tools and resources; including background info, Quicktime
versions of the TV Campaign, poster and t-shirt templates, an
international Contact List and a new Organizers' Center, check out
<http://www.culturejammers.org>
Insider Tip for US election buffs- check out <http://www.radicaldemocracy.com>
Live Without Dead Time!
Staff and Volunteers of Adbusters
*********************************************
From: "Leonard Kater" <lgwkater@casema.net>
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2000 01:16:57 +0200
Reply-To: Climateconcern@earthwins.com
Dear All,
At the website of greenpeace's climate campaign
http://www.greenpeace.org/~climate/
the greenpeace appraoch is described as inter alia stopping
the exploration of new oilfields we cannot afford to pump into
the atmosphere. This sounds to me very reasonable and
signifies a genuine concern with life on our planet.
So now the main issue is: How do we redirect the enormous
research capacity of Oil Companies in ultimately wrecking
the earth on economical grounds into new directions of
saving the earth before life will be totally wrecked?
Below I have copied that Greenpeace page for easy reading;
I myself am most interested in exploring the possibility of
outphasing fossil fuels within a decade and use all new
sources of energy to eradicate hunger and other evils and
harmonize life in peace on our planet.
Warm Regards,
Leonard Kater.
==============
Greenpeace Climate Campaign
Greenpeace has identified global climate change as one of the greatest
threats to the planet. Governments and scientists alike have agreed
that the
problem is real, and serious. At the climate summit in Kyoto in late
1997,
industrialised countries agreed, at least on paper, to reduce the amount
of
carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases they pump into the atmosphere.
But
crucial details, upon which the success or failure of the agreement
rests,
are still under negotiation, and in the mean time little real action
is
being taken to address the problem.
Greenpeace is therefore campaigning for governments to face up to their
responsibilities and urgently address this problem. The longer action
is
delayed, the more drastic it will need to be in order to avoid dangerous
interference with the planet's climate from the so-called greenhouse
gases.
Carbon Hypocrisy
Governments should be leading the way to a fundamentally new energy
direction based on clean renewable energy, like wind or solar power.
But at
present many governments instead use taxpayers money to support the
agenda
of the companies which continue to spend billions of dollars on development
of coal, oil or gas - the climate-damaging fossil fuels.("Debate with
industry" section)
The Carbon Logic
Scientists estimate that we can only afford to release a limited amount
of
carbon into the atmosphere, otherwise, we pass the "safe" limits of
climate
change. It is at this point that climate change happens so fast that
ecosystems are unable to adapt. Greenpeace believes that a temperature
increase of 1 degrees C is the absolute maximum that should be allowed.
The
amount of carbon that we can release to keep within these limits can
be
calculated and is in the range of 112.5 to 337.5 billion tonnes of
carbon
over the next 100 years.
But industry already has around four times this amount of carbon --
over one
thousand billion tonnes -- in existing reserves of oil, coal and gas.
This
means that three quarters of the oil, coal and gas already found cannot
be
burned if we want to avoid dangerous climate change.
If we continue burning fossil fuels at present levels, the "safe" limit
of 1
degree C will be reached in just 40 years. That is why we have to start
reducing carbon dioxide emissions immediately and prepare for an orderly
phase out of fossil fuels. Greenpeace calls this the "carbon logic".
The oil companies alone have already found enough oil to cause dangerous
climate change. Yet they continue to look for more. And of course once
they
have invested in finding the oil, they will not be prepared to give
up their
right to pump it out and sell it. The effects on the climate could
be
catastrophic.
In other words, we are in a second world oil crisis. But in the 1970's
the
problem was a shortage of oil. This time round the problem is that
we have
too much.
In the meantime, every dollar spent on new oil exploration for oil which
cannot be used is a dollar not spent on the real solutions to climate
change: a conversion to renewable energy sources such as wind and sun.
Oil companies, such as Exxon, Shell, Mobil and BP continue to extend
their
reach - exploring for oil in ever more remote 'frontier' areas, previously
too expensive or harsh to contemplate. Governments are licensing this
to
happen, even encouraging it with favourable tax rates, despite the
climate
threat.
In order to do this, a first step is to remove the obstacles to a switch
of
energy sources. Greenpeace is therefore campaigning against new oil
exploration. We are challenging the oil industry to stop exploring
for more
oil -- oil we cannot afford to see used--and to switch investment into
renewable energy. We are focussing on halting oil exploration in two
'frontiers' - the Arctic in Northern Alaska and on the Atlantic Frontier
in
the wild ocean to the north and west of Ireland, Scotland and Norway.
Renewable Energy for the future
Greenpeace firmly believes that it is possible to completely change
the way
the world provides for its future energy needs. We can no longer assume
that
fossil fuels will provide the bulk of our energy in the future. Instead,
changes need to be made now to move towards a future where our energy
needs
are met by clean, renewable energy. We are therefore campaigning for
investment in renewable energy; and for removal of the barriers to
the
provision of renewable energy.
Buying a fridge to save the climate
The most important greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide (CO2). However,
also
powerful -- and regulated by the Kyoto Protocol -- are the
hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). These have been widely used in recent years
to
replace the ozone-destroying CFCs (chlorofluocarbons) which are now
being
phased out under the Montreal Protocol. As part of Greenpeace's campaign
to
protect the ozone layer, Greenpeace developed Greenfreeze technology,
which
is a cooling system that is safe both for the ozone layer and the climate.
Greenpeace wants this solution to be applied throughout the world to
replace
HFC refrigeration.
-------------------------------------------------------
.Please feel free to send your input to:
Climateconcern@earthwins.com
.Please join by sending a blank e-mail to:
Climateconcern-subscribe@earthwins.com
********************************************
8. **MineAction** Alternative Nobel Award for anti gold activist
From: "Johannes Rohr" <j.rohr@fian.de>
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 16:27:03 +0200
Resent-From: mineaction@mpi.org.au
Dear all,
today in Stockholm this year's laureates of the "Right Livelihood Award",
also
referred to as the "Alternative Nobel Award" have been announced. Among
the
recipients is Birsel Lemke, one of the leaders of the largely successful
resistance against Eurogold's Ovacik gold mining project near Bergama
in Western Turkey.
For more information have a look at http://www.rightlivelihood.se/
Regards,
Johannes
~~~~~~~~~
From
http://www.rightlivelihood.se/2000/press1_3.html:
Birsel Lemke was born in 1950 and studied Political Science at Ankara
University and in the USA. She lived and worked in Germany from 1975-
85, before returning to Turkey. From 1987-90 she was a Board member
of the Green Party in Turkey. In 1990 she founded the Citizens' Initiative
HAYIR (No) against gold-mining projects.
The immediate cause of this initiative was the proposal by the companies
TÖPRAG and EUROGOLD to establish two gold mine pilot-projects
at
the Bay of Edremit and in Pergamon or, more precisely, 62 mining
projects from Troy to Pergamon at the Turkish Aegean and finally 560
projects all over Turkey.
The proposed extraction technology uses cyanide, which has been
responsible for numerous environmental and human disasters worldwide.
The most recent of these occured in Romania in late January 2000, when
3,5 million cubic feet of mine waste contaminated with cyanide and
heavy
metals was released into a tributary of the Danube, killing practically
all
aquatic life in a 250-mile stretch of the Danube.
Lemke was determined to defend her beautiful homeland - with it's
enormous classical agricultural and touristic riches- from this ecologically
barbaric technology, which Friedhelm Korte, Professor of Ecological
Chemistry at the Technical University of Munich, has described as
'distrastrous and unacceptable' on scientific grounds.
Lemke began by convincing the farmers in the locality of the first
proposed project to resist the proposal. She then persuaded the 13
mayors of the province to oppose it. She took them to Germany (whose
Dresdner Bank was due to provide funding for the mines) and showed
them the Rhein biosphere reserve as an alternative destiny for their
own
municipalities. They won political support in the Hesse Parliament
and
Dresdner Bank withdrew. Further public support, in Germany and
Turkey, was gained when the mayors wrote to the German General
Consul in Istanbul, applying for asylum in Germany for all of their
300,000
population, on the grounds that the mines would make their territory
uninhabitable.
HAYIR also won support in the European Parliament. The campaign was
successful in generally raising environmental awareness in Turkey,
using
imaginative slogans like 'Olives are our Gold' and drawing on the ancient
myths and stories of antiquity to illustrate the perils faced by the
local
people. HAYIR made the issue of cyanide-based gold mining the first
national focus of popular environmental concern.
In 1994 HAYIR sued the Turkish Environment Ministry and
EUROGOLD in the courts. In 1997 the Turkish Supreme Court found in
her favour and prohibited gold mining with cyanide in Turkey. Clearly
Lemke did not achieve this on her own. But she is recognised as the
moving spirit of the campaign. Her house was its informal headquarters
and her financial resources its main source of funds.
EUROGOLD did not accept the judgement of the Turkish Supreme
Court. It persuaded the Turkish Govertment to carry out another
environmental risk assessment, and to relinquish the decision as to
whether the project can go ahead to international arbitration, which
it is
feared will be excessively influenced by corporate interests, and will
ignore the enormous opposition to the project both in the areas directly
affected and throughout Turkey
The judgement of the Turkish Supreme Court in 1997 had important
knock-on effects internationally. It strengthened moves to ban gold
mining
with cyanide in Czech Republic, a ban which was confirmed by the Czech
Senate on August 11th, 2000. A decision whether to ban the technology
in Greece will be taken on October 6th 2000. A reversal of the Turkish
decision would undoubtedly affect these decisions and open the way
to an
expansion of mining pollution around the world.
Contact:
Birsel Lemke
P.O. Box 22
10700 Ören Burhaniye
Turkey
Phone: +49 171 880 7494
Fax: +90 266 416 4026
--
FIAN - Sektion der Bundesrepublik Deutschland e.V.
Johannes Rohr <j.rohr@fian.de>
Overwegstr. 31; D-44625 Herne
Tel. ++49-2323-490099, Fax: ++49-2323-490018
http://www.fian.de
-------------------------------------------------------
This is a message from mineaction. To send a message to the list, just
click
here:
mailto:mineaction@mpi.org.au
To get help, go to the list web page:
http://www.mpi.org.au/services/mineaction.html
********************************************
9. [Mike's Message] One Month from Today
From: "Mike's Message" <mikemail@cloud9.net>
Date: Sat, 07 Oct 2000 18:52:04 -0500
October 7, 2000
Dear friends and non-voters,
How has America responded after the first week of debates between the
four
men from the "two" parties who sat there and agreed with each other
on
increasing military spending, continuing the death penalty,
exporting/exploiting more jobs through "free" trade, and standing firm
against immediate universal health care?
Ralph Nader got a whopping 40% jump in the polls!
That's right. According the Zogby poll, Ralph went from 5 to 7% after
the
first debate, and 17% of independent voters now say they will vote
for Ralph
Nader. In Connecticut, the state represented by Gore's running mate,
Nader
is at 11%. In Alaska, he's polling 17% . He's at 9% in Oregon, and
8% in
California and New Jersey.
Seven percent is no small number in a country of more than 275 million
people. Seven percent equals the combined voters of Alaska, Colorado,
Delaware, Hawaii, Indiana, Idaho, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico,
New
Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming!
Imagine telling all the voters of those 16 states that who they want
for
President cannot participate in the debates and is not allowed on all
50
state ballots! There'd be a revolt if that happened.
But that is EXACTLY what IS happening. Nearly 20 million voters are
being
told to bug off.
And the polls are not even counting everyone. They only count what they
call
"likely voters." That means when a pollster calls someone, the first
question they ask is, "Are you likely to vote?" If you say "no" --
and 55%
of the people are telling the pollsters they WILL NOT VOTE -- the pollster
hangs up on you.
SO, when they say "45% are for Gore" (or "45% are for Bush"), they mean
45%
of the 45% who are "likely" to vote are for Gore
In other words, only 21% of the entire ELIGIBLE voting public is "for Gore"!
I call that a minority, a special interest, a man 79% of the country
does
NOT want!
I do not want a single Gore voter to change their vote to Ralph. Why?
Because Ralph doesn't NEED a single Gore voter to win! The group of
Gore
voters is so small and insignificant that, if it makes someone feel
good to
vote for a man who is now receiving more money than Bush from Wall
Street,
then I say go right ahead!
Our appeal is to the majority of Americans who say that NEITHER of the
"two"
major parties are worth a hill of refried beans.
If you need to vote for Gore because you think a free election is nothing
more than a game of Tic-tac-toe ("A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush
so I'm
voting for Gore to block Bush, see?"), then go ahead and play that
game.
Games are fun. There are 100 million other Americans, though, who are
planning to sit the election out because they don't like this game
one damn
bit.
One month from today, I am hoping against hope that the Non-Voting Majority
in this country will decide that they've had enough of the b.s. and
go
behind that curtain for just a few minutes and rock the nation. It
is the
only day every four years when the average schlump has more power in
his or
her hands than all of media, all the oil companies, all of Congress
combined. With the flick of a switch or the stroke of a pencil, we
outnumber
the bastards by 99 to 1 on that single solitary day in November. Nothing,
literally nothing, is stopping us -- other than ourselves and our belief
that it can't happen.
On Mount Rushmore, we have carved in stone the heads of our four most
revered Presidents. YET, NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM BELIEVED IN THIS
CORRUPT
"TWO-PARTY" SYSTEM! Lincoln won as a third-party candidate of a brand
new
party. Jefferson won in a three-way race too close to call -- it had
to be
decided by Congress. Washington didn't even belong to a party, and
Teddy
Roosevelt, after succeeding a slain President and serving another term,
became so disgusted with the "two" parties he formed his own third
party and
came in second, beating the Republican, William Howard Taft!
If we admire these individuals so much, why do we now aspire to so little,
settling for the evil of two lessers? What has happened to us? We keep
settling for less, and we keep getting less. We start with a Kennedy
or a
McGovern, people who, though flawed, at least had a VISION and BELIEVED
in
something, and, by settling for the "lesser" each and every time, we
have
ended up with... Gore and Lieberman! You keep splitting and weakening
the
political gene pool, and this is what you get! Settle for less, get
less!
Less of us Americans now have health care insurance.
Less of us can now read at a fourth-grade level.
Less of us can now afford our own homes...
...and more of us have given up.
One month from today -- you can make a mark on history, or you can sink
further into the despair those in charge so keenly hope has choked
you into
giving up. "They all suck. I ain't votin' !" Music to the ears of the
richest one percent who want you to continuing funding the greatest
prosperity they have ever known with your hard and underpaid work,
your
taxes financing their tax breaks, and your willingness to pay more
for
everything from the pump to the pet food.
31 days and counting...
Yours,
Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
mmflint@aol.com
P.S. Following the tens of thousands who have packed arenas in Portland,
Minneapolis, Seattle, and Boston, two more big Ralph Nader rallies
are
happening this week. Ralph's crowds are still outnumbering Bush's and
Gore's
appearances combined! I will be with Ralph at Madison Square Garden
this
Friday night, October 13 along with Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam, Ani
DeFranco, Ben Harper, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins and others. You
can
order your tickets at www.votenader.org. Also -- this Tuesday, Oct.
19, at
the University of Illinois-Chicago with Ralph, Studs Terkel, Phil Donahue
and me. Come on out and scare the pants off the "two" party system!
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