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Global Warming Deal * Escalating Costs of Space Control * Swing Senators

The first item is about a deal reached between the European Union and Japan to implement the Kyoto global warming accord. The US, though present at the meetings, had no comment or interest in joining such efforts to benefit our global environment.

Please write letters to editors and lobby your Senators, combine these two issues of global warming and missile defense. Perhaps, Congress will wise up and see the sense of using some of the funds wasted on a missile defense to booster the US economy, as well as honor the Kyoto accords.

1. Global Warming Deal Reached
2) The Escalating Costs of Space Control
3) Critical Swing Senators to Stop Star Wars
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1) Global Warming Deal Reached

From CNN.com /World
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/07/23/kyoto.talks/index.html

Deal reached at climate talks

July 23, 2001 Posted: 8:24 AM EDT (1224 GMT)

BONN, Germany -- A compromise deal to press forward with the Kyoto pact to cut greenhouse gases has been agreed.

The deal was struck after a week of meetings and more than 24 hours of continuous negotiations through into Monday morning in Bonn, Germany, a United Nations spokesman said.

During the last-ditch effort, delegates struggled with the issue of compliance -- or how to enforce an international treaty covering nearly 180 nations on greenhouse gases and how to impose penalties for violations.

The 1997 treaty aims to reduce global carbon dioxide emissions by 5.2 percent of 1990 levels by 2012.

"We have finalised the rescue operation. We have rescued the Kyoto protocol. It is a major achievement because we live with this for many years to come," EU Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom told Reuters.

The deal leaves the U.S. -- the planet's biggest polluter -- as the only world power not to accept the Kyoto accord. President George W. Bush rejected Kyoto in March, saying it would harm the U.S. economy.

"Almost every single country stayed in the protocol," said Olivier Deleuze, the chief European Union negotiator.

"There was one that said the Kyoto Protocol was flawed. Do you see the Kyoto Protocol flawed?"

The U.S. delegation, which participated in the talks, declined to comment on the deal.

An activist from environmental group Greenpeace, Bill Hare, told Reuters news agency: "It shows that George Bush is totally isolated in the climate debate."

"It is the long-awaited second step in the implementation of the Kyoto protocol. We are calling on Japan to ratify it now," he added.

Envoys admitted the deal fell short of tight rules they initially sought, The Associated Press news agency reported.

"I prefer an imperfect agreement that is living to an imperfect agreement that doesn't exist," Deleuze said.

Hundreds of delegates waiting in the convention hall lobby hugged each other when the news came that the agreement was clinched.

The deal clears the way for nations to continue the process of ratifying the protocol, which delegates hope to achieve in 2002.

The treaty must be ratified by 55 nations responsible for 55 percent of global green gas emissions to take force. Some 30 nations have ratified the pact to date.

The European Union has been a major driving force in trying to get the Kyoto accord ratified and onto the statute books of parliaments across the globe.

But it was Japan that became the key player, with the power to make or break the treaty.

"It's a brilliant day for the environment. It's a huge leap to have achieved a result on this very complex international negotiation," British Environment Minister Michael Meacher told Reuters news agency.

Conference chairman Jan Pronk had urged the environment ministers to continue talks when they reached a deadlock after a week of meetings.

"This is a good text. It is a balanced text," Pronk said of his compromise proposal.

"It is my conviction that it is possible to reach a full agreement."

Climate talks had already failed once when a conference last November in The Hague, Netherlands, collapsed in a last-minute dispute between the U.S. and the Europeans.
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2) The Escalating Costs of Space Control

By Loring Wirbel
Citizens for Peace in Space

Trappings of Empire:
The Escalating Costs of Space Control

As elements of George Bush's revamped military plan were released piecemeal over the course of the summer, the contradictions and hypocrisies were as evident in the work of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's master plan as they were in the Cheney/Abraham energy policy.

The White House is trying to satisfy a Republican leadership that wants to own it all, while proving that it can move to a leaner, more agile defense establishment that fits within the boundaries of a post-tax-cut national budget. The inconsistencies are there for everyone to see, nowhere more evident than in space imperialism. Even prior to the official May unveiling of an expanded Global Missile Defense program, the Bush administration was faced with an open-ended military space program with costs that could quickly expand beyond the $100 billion level.

This is not only because U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wants to accelerate peripheral missile-defense programs like airborne laser and Navy boost-phase defense, as well as the ground-based kinetic-defense program. It is also because the true costs of maintaining the type of planetary space control promoted by U.S. Space Command, includes many of the underlying costs of National Reconnaissance Office, National Security Agency, and multiple tactical intelligence programs.

Slowly, the realization is dawning on many within the defense establishment that the Space Command rhetoric, now adopted department-wide within DoD, cannot be supported in reality without massive increases in defense spending. With Rumsfeld's pet missile-defense programs operating at cross-purposes to his weapon-systems study projects, the schisms between space imperialists and budget-cutters could manifest themselves in very public ways by the end of 2001.

[To read the complete article link to]:
http://www.peacevision.org.uk/papers/wirbel.html
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3) Critical Swing Senators to Stop Star Wars

Forwarded from
Bruce K. Gagnon
Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 90083
Gainesville, FL. 32607
(352) 337-9274
http://www.space4peace.org
globalnet@mindspring.com
Date:20 Jul 2001 10:43:45 -0400


Friends:

Our friends at the South Dakota Peace & Justice Center have taken on the responsibility to apply loving pressure and persuasion on their Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD), the Senate Majority leader, concerning Star Wars issues.

They have given us a message from Daschle's staff that they need help with some key swing senators.

We are asking you to look at the list below and if one of your senators is on the list to work hard to get them turned around on space weapons.

But if your senator is not on the list please don't assume they are not in need of attention. All of them are!

Please make sure to tell them that you do not support any research and development ® & D) funding for Star Wars (NMD, TMD, space-based laser, etc).

It is important to remember that in April, 1999 the U.S. Senate voted 97-3 in favor of the "National Missile Defense Act" that gives the president the right to deploy "missile defenses" as soon as technically feasible. Only Wellstone (D-MN), Leahy (D-VT), and Durbin (D-IL) voted no.

The Bush administration is asking for $8.3 billion (40% increase) in R & D in 2002.

KEY LIST:

* Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI)
* Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI)
* Sen. Jean Carnahan (D-MO)
* Sen. Thomas Carper (D-DE)
* Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN)
* Sen. John Edwards (D-NC)
* Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-SC)
* Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
* Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)

Thanks for your efforts. Please let us know if you have any questions and be sure to share any correspondence that you have with you senators so that we can track what they are saying.

Bruce K. Gagnon
Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 90083
Gainesville, FL. 32607
(352) 337-9274
http://www.space4peace.org
globalnet@mindspring.com
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Note: Check this link to a Flyby News issue posted May 9, 2001 for a sample letter:
http://www.flybynews.com/cgi-local/newspro/viewnews.cgi?newsid989462751,59348,

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