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Sign Here to Save the Planet

Join a People's Campaign to Ratify the Kyoto Protocol

 

by Ross Gelbspan

 

The much-discussed Kyoto Protocol takes effect today, Feb.

16. In the face of the United States' continuing refusal to

ratify the international agreement, a group of progressive

activists is launching a drive to gather millions of

signatures from U.S. citizens for a " People's Ratification of the

Kyoto Global Warming Treaty. " Ross Gelbspan, a Grist

contributor and author of two books on climate change -- The Heat

Is On and Boiling Point -- explains why you should put your

coffee mug down and sign the petition today.

 

http://www.kyotoandbeyond.org/

 

What on earth is a person supposed to do?

 

History and nature are on a collision course. And we are

trapped at ground zero.

 

As the signals from the climate become excruciatingly

urgent, the Bush administration turns its back on the challenge,

the U.S. press remains in denial, and the environmental

establishment agonizes over its own relevance. All the while,

we are, as the British paper The Independent put it,

sleepwalking into the Apocalypse.

 

What on earth is a person supposed to do?

 

The existential choices are few and barren. We can try to

find a safe haven in, say, New Zealand -- but there's no

escaping a global threat. We can defy a history of futility

and try, yet again, to appeal to the humanitarian instincts

of ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy. We can go into hibernation

for four more years. Or we can try, as individuals and

organizations, to bring the U.S. in line with the rest of the

world.

 

That's what a small group is attempting with today's launch

of a nationwide signature-gathering drive for a People's

Ratification of the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty. Last year,

longtime New York-area activists Ted Glick, Connie Hogarth,

and the Rev. Paul Mayer put together the Climate Crisis

Coalition, an umbrella group that includes environmentalists,

religious leaders, campus organizers, peace groups, and

activists working on indigenous rights, environmental justice,

and human-rights issues. (I am an honorary member of the

CCC.)

 

Drawing on the anti-Vietnam War movement, the Nuclear

Freeze movement of the early 1980s, and the more recent -- and

stunningly successful -- campaign to ban landmines, the CCC

hopes to provide powerful testimony that millions of

Americans are far ahead of their government in standing up to

what is arguably the greatest challenge ever to face humanity.

" We ... recognize that the Constitution of the United

States grants us the ultimate authority of government, " reads

the petition in part, continuing, " we hereby ratify the Kyoto

Protocol and demand that our elected representatives follow

suit. "

 

While acknowledging that the current goals and timetable of

the protocol are inadequate, the coalition is pledging its

support for future rounds of the agreement, which could

reduce emissions by as much as 70 percent.

 

It may be a long shot. But it's the best shot we've got.

 

 

 

Feeling the Heat

 

In late January, Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, declared that the world

has " already reached the level of dangerous concentrations of

carbon dioxide in the atmosphere " and called for immediate

and " very deep " cuts in emissions if humanity is to

survive.

 

Pachauri's declaration came alongside new findings unveiled

on Jan. 24 by a commission of scientists from the U.S., the

U.K., and Australia, which declared that the world is about

10 years -- or about 2 degrees Fahrenheit -- away from

irreversible climate change. The scientists calculated that the

" point of no return " will arrive when concentrations of

atmospheric carbon dioxide reach 400 parts per million (ppm).

For most of the 20th century, these carbon concentrations

increased by about 1 ppm per year. In recent decades, that

rate rose to 1.5. Today it's more than 2 ppm per year. Grand

total: 379 ppm, and counting. It's a level of atmospheric

carbon this planet has not experienced for 420,000 years.

 

As if on cue, about a week later, researchers with the

British Antarctic Survey reported that the massive West

Antarctic ice sheet may already have begun to collapse. Citing

recently discovered increased glacial flows into the Antarctic

Ocean, Chris Rapley, head of the survey, noted: " The last

IPCC report characterized Antarctica as a slumbering giant

in terms of climate change. I would say it is now an

awakened giant. "

 

Also in late January, Britain's Hadley Center for Climate

Prediction and Research released giant computer models

created by the combined power of more than 95,000 computers in

150 countries. The models dramatically increased the

estimate of future warming from between 4 and 10 degrees

Fahrenheit to as much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit. " The danger zone is

not something we are going to reach in the middle of this

century, " said the center's Myles Allen. " We are in it now. "

 

Adding to the grim picture, a recent Christian Science

Monitor article noted that the 850 new coal-fired power plants

that India, China, and the U.S. are planning to build would

generate up to five times more carbon dioxide than would

have been avoided by the Kyoto Protocol.

 

What on earth is a person supposed to do?

 

Meanwhile, several leading environmental groups in the

U.S., which pushed so hard to get the Clinton administration to

adopt the Kyoto Protocol, have put the issue of American

ratification on the back burner. Instead, they are focusing

on domestic actions to prepare for what they hope will be

the eventual reentry of the U.S. into climate negotiations.

 

By contrast, the CCC, driven by the urgency of the

situation, wants to generate popular support now for the 141

nations that have ratified or accepted the protocol and that plan

to ramp up the treaty's goals in the next round of talks,

perhaps by as much as 400 percent.

 

With support from Global Exchange, Greenpeace USA, and

Rainforest Action Network, petition organizers believe that,

given the current political climate, the time is right for

this kind of grassroots initiative.

 

The Bush administration's intent to undermine Kyoto became

crushingly clear, yet again, two months ago in Buenos

Aires, when it neutered the next round of talks planned for this

coming May. The talks had been intended to focus on much

larger and more rapid emissions-cutting goals, but as a

result of U.S. intransigence, they have been reduced to a mere

informational seminar, which prohibits the mention of any

action plan whatsoever.

 

The U.S. action left the Kyoto talks not even a " foothold, "

according to Michael Zammit Cutajar, former executive

secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

" It's a finger-hold, like hanging on by your nails. "

 

What on earth is a person supposed to do?

 

Sign this petition. Prove what CCC believes -- that,

despite the media's criminal negligence of the climate crisis,

you know about it, and you care. And that there is an

untapped reservoir of receptivity among the general public, if

only because so many people have been so startled by changes

in the weather that they know intuitively something is

terribly wrong.

 

Even before its official launch, the petition gathered some

impressive signatures. Renowned environmental leaders

Lester Brown and Barry Commoner have signed on. So have writer

Bill McKibben and Michael Shellenberger, cofounder of the

Apollo Alliance and coauthor of " The Death of

Environmentalism. " [Editor's note: McKibben is a member of Grist's board

of directors.] Others include Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio),

singer and songwriter Pete Seeger, actor Edward Asner, and

prominent religious leaders such as Bishop Thomas J.

Gumbleton of Detroit. The petition has garnered support from

Energy Action, the Green House Network, the Just Transition

Alliance, KyotoUSA, the Alliance for Affordable Energy, MADRE,

the Green Energy Network, New York Climate Rescue, the

cosmetics company Aveda, and others.

 

With today's debut, the members of the CCC stress that

their campaign reflects values that transcend the goal of

reducing carbon emissions. In its final paragraph, the petition

declares that the very act of signing affirms " our

allegiance to the democratic process, our fundamental and mortal

relationship with this Earth, and our essential solidarity

with every other member of the human family. "

 

Stand up and be counted.

 

What else on earth is a person supposed to do?

 

 

 

People's Ratification of the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty

When faced with a grave threat to a livable future for

ourselves, our children, and future generations, it is our duty

as Americans to respond.

 

To date, some 141 nations have ratified the Kyoto Protocol,

which enters into force in February 2005, in order to

arrest the intensifying destructiveness of global climate

change.

 

In contrast, the United States, which generates 25 percent

of the world's polluting carbon emissions with only 5

percent of its population, refuses to join in this worldwide

effort to keep this planet hospitable to civilization.

 

We recognize the current goals of the Protocol are too low

-- and its timetable too long -- to effectively halt the

escalating instability of the global climate.

 

We also recognize the Kyoto Protocol is the only existing

diplomatic framework through which the entire global

community can address this unprecedented challenge.

 

We further recognize that the Constitution of the United

States grants us the ultimate authority of government.

 

Therefore, as citizens of the United States, we hereby

ratify the Kyoto Protocol and demand that our elected

representatives follow suit.

 

Additionally, we pledge to support subsequent phases of the

Kyoto Protocol to reduce worldwide greenhouse-gas emissions

by 70 percent. This global transition to clean energy would

address nature's demand for a stable climate even as it

generates millions of clean-energy jobs.

 

Finally, we declare, through this act of ratification, our

allegiance to the democratic process, our fundamental and

mortal relationship with this Earth, and our essential

solidarity with every other member of the human family.

 

To sign this petition,

http://www.kyotoandbeyond.org/

 

Ross Gelbspan, a former editor and reporter at the

Philadelphia Bulletin, Washington Post, and Boston Globe, is author

of Boiling Point and The Heat Is On. He maintains the

website www.heatisonline.org.

 

 

 

 

The People’s Ratification of the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty

 

The US Government won’t sign it – let the people say that they’re for it

 

Dear Friends,

We at the Climate Crisis Coalition are writing to enlist your support in signing

and helping circulate the People’s Ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. The CCC

represents a coalition of groups focusing on environment, labor, communities of

faith, indigenous rights, public health, environmental justice and human rights.

 

This petition drive has grown out of a number of recent developments.

 

First, the climate crisis continues to accelerate. Just this last year, four

hurricanes, intensified by warming surface waters, devastated parts of Florida.

Altered rainfall patterns left two million people in Kenya at risk of

starvation. A freak December hurricane ravaged Paris and left a quarter of a

million homes in France without power. A record 10 typhoons staggered Japan. And

2004 turned out to be the fourth hottest year on record.

 

In January, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on

Climate Change, declared that the world has " already reached the level of

dangerous concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere " and called for

immediate and " very deep " cuts in emissions if humanity is to " survive. "

 

Pachauri's declaration followed findings by a commission of scientists that the

world is about 10 years -- or slightly more than 1 degree C -- away from

irreversible climate change. That " point of no return " will arrive, according to

" Meeting the Climate Challenge, " a report from a commission of British,

Australian and American scientists and policy-makers, when concentrations of

atmospheric carbon dioxide reach 400 parts per million (ppm). Since carbon

levels are already at 379 ppm -- and rising at the rate of more than 2 parts ppm

per year, that deadline will be upon us within a decade.

 

Against that background, the Bush Administration in December reneged on a pledge

it made in 2001 when President Bush withdrew the US from the Kyoto process. At

the time, he said he would do nothing to obstruct the efforts of other countries

to forge an agreement. But at the most recent round of climate talks in Buenos

Aires, the US (with the support of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, among others)

prohibited participants in the next round of climate talks in May from

formulating any action plans to slow the rate of change.

 

In coordinating this petition drive, the CCC hopes that participating groups

will “co-sponsor” the petition by circulating it to their members and

constituents. We are also eager to gather as many individual endorsements for

the enclosed petition as possible.

 

Because the climate crisis affects so many aspects of society, we would suggest

that participating groups attach a short cover letter explaining to their

constituents why this effort is relevant to their specific concerns (e.g., as a

matter of faith and stewardship, public health, renewable energy job creation,

human rights, etc.)

 

Our intention is to work with all the co-sponsor groups to decide how and when

to release the accumulated signatures. We are aware that the Kyoto Protocol

formally takes effect on Feb. 16, 2005. Our provisional hope is that we would

all join in publicizing the “People’s Ratification” campaign not long after that

date.

 

Since it is our political leadership that is not only abandoning its

responsibility to the international community but is actively working to thwart

any progress by the rest of the world, it seems time for citizens to take this

responsibility on themselves.

 

Please join us – either as co-sponsors or endorsers – in this ground-up effort

to bring the United States in line with the rest of the world. Our hope is that

this effort could help regenerate a spirit of outreach and cooperation which

would stand in stark contrast to the official posture of defensiveness and

denial which currently marks this Administration’s climate policies.

 

Thank you so much for entertaining this request,

 

 

Ross Gelbspan (on behalf of the Climate Crisis Coalition)

 

>>> see petition

>>> see who support the petition

 

 

CLIMATE CRISIS COALITION

P.O. Box 648, Lenox, MA 01240

(413) 637-2486

tstokes

www.kyotoandbeyond.org

 

 

http://www.blueaction.org

" Better to have one freedom too many than to have one freedom too few. "

http://www.sharedvoice.org/unamerican/