submitted by [email protected]
Dear Friend,
I've never circulated this kind of email before. But I
am so appalled by President Bush's plan to open up the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge to massive oil development that I feel I must do
whatever I can to help stop it.
To me, the Arctic Refuge represents everything
spectacular and everything endangered about America's natural heritage:
a million years of ecological serenity . . . vast expanses of untouched
wilderness . . . an irreplaceable sanctuary for polar bears, white
wolves and 130,000 caribou that return
here each year to give birth and rear their young. For 20,000 years --
literally hundreds of generations -- the native Gwich'in people have
inhabited this sacred place, following the caribou herd and leaving the
awe-inspiring landscape just as they found it. Our own presidents going
back to Eisenhower have kept a bipartisan promise to safeguard this
world-class natural treasure. But not THIS president. It is a sad day
indeed when our president and congressional leaders would sacrifice
America's largest wildlife refuge for the sake of a possible six-month
supply of national energy. A six-month supply! We could save that little
oil by improving the fuel efficiency of cars and light trucks by a mere
one mile per gallon.
Only one group of Americans will benefit from the
destruction of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge: the oil giants. Everyone else
loses. Arctic wildlife populations will decline, the Gwich'in people
will see their land marred by pipelines and poisoned by oil spills, you
and I will become even more dependent on
oil, and the planet will suffer catastrophic global warming from the
burning of even more fossil fuel.
Unless we get millions of Americans to lodge a protest
right now, this nightmarish scenario may well come to pass in the next
two months. The Republican energy bill, which would fulfill the
president's promise to drill the Arctic Refuge, is moving through
Congress today. House and Senate leaders may also try to sneak through
the Arctic drilling provision by attaching it to a "must-pass"
appropriations bill. These votes will be decided by the moderates in
both parties. We must reach those moderates and hold them accountable.
Here's what you can do: go to
http://www.savebiogems.org/arctic
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has set up
this new website to make it extremely easy for you to send messages of
protest to your senators and representative. It will take you only a
minute.
I've been on NRDC's board for 25 years, so I know how
effective they are at waging and winning environmental campaigns. Last
year, NRDC used web activism to help generate a million messages of
protest to Mitsubishi and stopped the company from destroying the last
unspoiled birthing ground of the Pacific gray whale.
We'll win this time too if each of us does our part for
the Arctic Refuge. Please visit http://www.savebiogems.org/arctic right
now. And forward my message to your family, friends and colleagues.
Congress cannot ignore millions of us.
If we let them plunder our greatest wildlife refuge for
the sake of oil company profits, then no piece of our natural heritage
is safe from destruction. Please go to
http://www.savebiogems.org/arctic and help keep the Arctic wild and
free.
Sincerely yours,
Robert Redford
Go on to The Discarded
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