----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Maggie Zhou <mzhou
...@yahoo.com>
Sent: Thu, November 25, 2010 1:36:46 AM
Subject: SIGNON and FACTSHEET: militarism and climate change
Dear friends,
We need your organizations (in any country) to sign on by Dec 8 to this
War/Climate change statement, to be delivered to the UN climate talks, IPCC, the
White House, the media.
http://www.climatesos.org/2010/11/resolution-war-climate/
(please send organization – including country, contact name, title and email
address to rsmol...@riseup.net)
A handy factsheet is prepared to help you educate anyone who needs convincing
that there can be no solution to the climate crisis without stopping the US-led
wars and military aggression, and no escaping from the prospect of widespread
warfare and human misery without stopping the climate catastrophe. It’s time to
break the cycle and end the death spiral!
http://www.climatesos.org/2010/11/factsheet-militarism-climate/
Please sign on to the statement, forward both the statement and the factsheet as
widely as possible (to anyone who is concerned with planetary survival,
social/economical/political/environmental justice, etc.), make use of these
materials in your outreach to the public, to activists, and to the media, and
finally, be sure to mark your calender for an exciting antiwar event the weekend
of April 9, 2011 (and get the word out on that, too). All this is also
mentioned in the above two links.
The sign-on statement is pasted below.
In solidarity.
Maggie Zhou, Ph.D.
Climate SOS
Resolution: (for pdf file, click here)
US Militarism: Elephant in the Living Room. (Accompanying fact sheet:
http://tinyurl.com/26stkfv)
· The US Military and their allies, through their imperial wars and
military actions (overt and covert) around the world, has inflicted massive
suffering and civilian casualties.
· The US Military is the largest single source of greenhouse gas
emissions on the planet, yet these emissions are exempted from reporting
requirements.
· Access to more oil, the burning of which is fundamental cause of
climate change - is the primary underlying motive for current wars.
· Both warfare and climate change are rendering large areas
uninhabitable - displacing millions of people as refugees, and yet the rights of
immigrants are increasingly limited, threatened and abused.
· Climate change is likely to result in far more wars, being a “threat
multiplier” and now recognized as the greatest looming threat to "security".
Access to resources – including land, food, water – is already becoming
increasingly challenging, and scarcities will likely trigger conflict and
further displacement in the future.
· The US Military is also the largest source of toxic chemical and
radioactive poisoning of peoples and environment around the globe, and plays a
major role in promoting false solutions that only worsen the problems (biofuels,
nuclear technologies, climate geoengineering etc)
· The US and global economy is in shambles, funding for a "fair and just
transition" – to ensure that people are not negatively impacted by the necessary
transitions, is not forthcoming, “green” jobs remain scarce, millions lack
access to basic healthcare.
· The US has lead the efforts by developed countries in stymieing
progress among nations, consistently refusing to pay their “ecological debt”,
owed to non-industrialized countries and their peoples… All while spending
trillions on furthering wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and elsewhere.
· Our global commons (air, water, forests) is being bought and sold in
carbon markets under the guise that this is the ONLY feasible means of
generating funds to take necessary actions to prevent and adapt to impacts of
climate change. The result is further concentration of wealth and power, at the
expense of the planet.
We will not accept the death spiral of militarism, war and climate change. It is
time to break the cycle! In Cancun and beyond, we Demand:
1. An end to oil and resource wars, and reinstatement of diplomacy and
respect over use of force in all foreign relations
2. Troops brought home, military bases abroad closed down and cleaned up,
those on US soil dramatically reduced and cleaned up.
3. Redirection of the vast majority of military funding to fund human
services, ensure decent quality of life, payment of ecological and climate debt,
and compensation to countries and peoples damaged by US militarism.
4. Dismantling of the military-industrial complex. Corporations stripped of
personhood. Clean elections mandated.
5. IPCC to create an urgent special report on military emissions, both
direct and indirect (e.g., ecosystem damage and desertification due to military
activities). No reporting exemptions by powerful countries.
6. Urgent implementation of "real” as opposed to “false” solutions, to end
the use of fossil fuels, and restore and protect public and environmental
health.
