July / August 1998

Table of Contents


About this edition...

Freedom Week Proclamation

Letters

SAMAB
Southern Appalachian Man-and-the Bioshere Program

Who is The Dogwood Alliance?

Treaty by Executive Order

The UN is Taking on Water
World Commission on Water
created by UN Bureaucrats

Let's be sure...
Commentary by Henry Lamb



About this edition...

Rarely do we print letters. Sometimes we just have to. This is one of those times. A random selection is on page 4.

The major focus of this edition is SAMAB, the Southern Appalachian Man and the Biosphere Program. Here is an in-depth look at how the UN/US partnership really works. Some of the NGOs at work in SAMAB file tax returns. You'll be amazed at which ones, and how much $ they report.

Guest writer Matt Bennett provides an even closer look at how the NGOs work, and how they are related to each other. Matt lives in the area and has done his homework.

The President is at it again, issuing Executive Orders left and left. Tom McDonnell (American Sheep Industry Association) has analyzed a new EO still in draft status, that could outlaw cows, sheep, hybrid seed, and most of agriculture.

Not to be outdone, the UN is at it again, creating a new Commission to go after water. There really is no satisfying the UN's appetite to control the world.

Front cover photo: The Nantahala River is one of the corridors most prized by those who wish to lock up the Appalachians. Between Bryson City and Topton, North Carolina, this stream is one of the most beautiful in America. It has become a mecca for eco-tourism. The stream now has more canoes and white-water rafters than trout.

Back cover photo: This picture is repeated thousands of times for those who drive through the southern Appalachian mountains. The land is coveted by the UN as a Biosphere Reserve and efforts to control the entire Bioregion are well underway by the SAMAB. Private property is an endangered species in Appalachia.



Freedom Week Proclamation

"Celebrating Human Achievement"

Whereas, individual freedom is among mankind's highest aspirations, and

Whereas, individual freedom is secured by private property acquired by individual effort, and

Whereas, America's founders, recognized that unlimited government power is the greatest threat to individual freedom, and

Whereas, those founders, exercising their freedom, designed a new system of self-governance, and

Whereas, That system is based upon the belief that government governs best when it is empowered only by the consent of those who are governed, and

Whereas, the courageous exercise of that belief has resulted in the discovery of a universal beneficial principle of self-governance, and

Whereas, the Constitutional Republic created by and built upon that principle is a towering monument to that principle, and

Whereas, that discovery and the system of self-governance it produced is among mankind's highest achievements, and

Whereas, the government created by the consent of those who are governed reflects the individual sovereignty of those who are governed, and

Whereas, there is no earthly power higher than the collective sovereignty of those individuals whose consent empowers government, and

Whereas, the first responsibility of that government is to protect, defend, and celebrate the sovereignty of the nation created thereby, now

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED:

Adopted this the _______Day of _______________, 199_

Visit our web site and join the celebration http://www.freedom.org



Letters

Enclosed is a check for our membership. We certainly appreciate receiving the fantastic ecologic. Your essay on Celebrating Human Achievement was one of the best I have ever read. It was so informational and inspiring.

Illinois Farm Bureau has supported Illinois EPA in holding five watershed planning meetings in the state. Marion and I attended the one held in Alton. The workshops were conducted by the Conservation Technology Information Center located in West Lafayette, Indiana. This is a not-for-profit organization supported by companies, the government, individuals, etc. They developed a large handbook and lots of materials on organizing watershed groups. The book encourages users to hold consensus-building meetings. I don't understand why watershed groups should be formed if there is no problem. The meeting also consisted of success stories about lakes which had been improved, which is fine. CTIC has support from the Indiana EPA and the USEPA. I wonder if they are a propaganda arm of the EPA?

Jane & Marion Schupbach
Sparta, IL


Thank you for sending me a copy of your most excellent magazine, ecologic. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about all of those rotten parasites working for the UN. They're as numerous and as disgusting as cockroaches.

We're just about done for, aren't we? Our leaders, both Republicans and the Democrats, have sold us out to the New World Order. We can thank the UN/World Government for all these unconstitutional laws regarding gun ownership and search and seizure and land takings because of trumped up environmental bills. We the people don't have much say in determining our own destiny anymore. The World Government bureaucrats are running our lives. Now they want to control our energy usage. I can see millions of jobs lost because of that. What's next? Control of our food supply? They can starve half of us and then the other half will be easier to control. How did we get to this sorry state? I guess a lot of us have been asleep or off in a dream world somewhere.

Barbara Erbe
Hayward, CA


It seems it was only yesterday I was preparing to renew my affiliation with the Environmental Conservation Organization and here we are going into our third year of association.

Henry, it has been a great pleasure to have been able to make your acquaintance and meet with you personally at the affairs in Kansas City and this past spring in Washington. I cannot say in adequate terms my appreciation for what I have learned through your writings. Moreover, I can say that those with whom I am affiliated here in Canada have benefitted enormously from the many very informative articles in ecologic.

The material you have written about over the past three years has enabled myself and others in our country to understand the critical issues facing our two nations. We have been inspired to dig even deeper to uncover the machinations of the globalist controllers whose actions we see going on around us at an ever-quickening pace in our communities. We understand now -- at least a few of us do!

Whether the bureaucrats want to call their program "Lands for Life" or "Special Places," we now recognize the Wildlands Project in all of its manifestations. We recognize the preparations and know that once Canada's parliament passes the endangered species legislation we Canadians are all in the jam jar.

In all this, I reflect on Samuel Adams statement quoted in the Fall '97 Journal of Liberty Matters newsletter which concludes with "...Let us contemplate our forefathers and posterity; and resolve to maintain the rights bequeathed to us from the former, for the sake of the latter, instead of sitting down satisfied the efforts we have already made, which is the wish of our enemies, the necessity of our times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude, and perseverance."

Doug Hindson
Bobcaygean, Ontario

I want to say how much I appreciate ecologic. It is truly an outstanding publication. Early in 1994, attempts were made here along the Rocky Mountain Front area to establish a consensus group. Ostensibly, the organizers were The Nature Conservancy, the Boone and Crockett Club (who own a 7500 acre ranch adjacent to us) and the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. However, in the summer of 1996, we realized the U.S. Fish and Wildlife had a major part in the initial stages although this information was not revealed to the participants. Actually, there is quite a story to the process, but in the end, the group, tentatively named the Frontlanders, did not succeed, and in its place, a private property rights group emerged now known as Montanans for Private Property Rights. As you can imagine, this did not and still does not set well with the enviros, and they continue to try and discredit the group. In fact, another inquiry from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife has just been sent from the Denver office.

One of the major mistakes the organizers made was to invite my husband and me as the selected landowners in the first closed meetings. We did not understand the process as it started, but we were extremely suspicious and were not susceptible to flattery, deception, etc. I wrote a letter to the local paper questioning the procedure and said that the proferred altruistic reasons for the establishment of the group needed to be examined in light of previous behavior by the Conservancy. This helped to elevate the chatter in local coffee groups and led to a large public meeting which aired many concerns, and then the facilitator factor popped up. Refusal to reveal the source of funding as well as the obvious biased behavior led to further suspicion and eventual abandonment of the group.

We are now seeing an attempt to circumvent local landowners and property rights advocates by the state department of wildlife and enviro groups in the attainment of federal monies to buy conservation easements. In addition, the Great Falls Tribune is acting as social engineer. The entire procedure follows the pattern of the Wildlands strategy. Unfortunately, the Tribune will not publish letters or do any research on its own.

I just wanted to let you know that we felt so much better reading your articles about the whole consensus scam, knowing that we have not been hallucinating about the entire mess. Although we are far outnumbered here, we will continue to battle on.

Carolyn Salansky
Dupuyer, MT


It's about time to renew my membership and make sure I don't miss any of your great ECO publications. I've shared them with a number of others, though I have a hard time getting them back. I had no idea of the extent of UN environmental intrusions into the affairs of government and private property in the U.S.

I wish I could contribute more, but at 78 years and a limited income, I mainly have to try to alert the generation behind me to the urgency of defending our heritage now, before any more is lost. Keep up the good work!

I am enclosing a check to cover my own renewal and two new memberships which I hope will reach out to others.

James C. Buckles
Dolan Springs, AZ


My purpose in writing is to obtain your organization's authorization to quote several sections verbatim from your issue #38, for inclusion in a manuscript I am presently composing concerning global domination.

Issues involved with physical control via "islands of human habitat" are not within my areas of expertise. I would like to be able to cite your organization as being what obviously is tops in that field through persevering efforts by total dedicated members unafraid to expose those ugly truths of this NWO agenda. I would also include the "Earth Charter" in the appendix.

While there are many other areas of unspeakable activity presently underway by those who would destroy our once-great nation, loss of access to our own lands to these internationalists has to be at he top of that list. Unfortunately, it has taken a back seat in books identifying all these varied agendas.

Dennis Jewell,
Imperial, California



SAMAB

America became the envy of the world because free people created a system of self-governance in which the power of government was limited and controlled by the consent of the governed, as expressed through representatives elected by the people. All rights reside with the people unless specifically relinquished through laws enacted by the representatives they elect.

In hardly a generation, nearly every human right has been restricted by ever-expanding government power, authorized, not by elected representatives, but by government bureaucrats and self-appointed individuals who are convinced they know better how people should live and behave than do the people who are governed. Those government bureaucrats and self-appointed individuals now run rampant in the development of still new ways to restrict individual freedom and herd the governed into life-styles and living conditions designed and enforced by the experts.

The United States Man and the Biosphere (USMAB) web site, and its literature, insist that UNESCO's sponsorship of the program "in no way reduces local control of the program, nor does it affect private property rights." It must be contagious -- this "legally accurate" parsing of words. The presence of a UN Biosphere Reserve most definitely reduces local control and most definitely "affects" private property rights.

While it may be "legally accurate" to say that the UN has no direct authority to dictate land management policy on U.S. soil, the actual facts reveal a relationship among the parties that is as devious, repugnant, and injurious to America as the other relationship hidden behind the "legally accurate" language.

Let there be no mistake: "public control of land use" is the policy and the pursuit of the United Nations. Agenda Item 10 of the report of the UN Conference on Human Settlements (HABITAT I), uses 65 pages to set forth the UN policy on land use control (see "The UN and Property Rights," ecologic, Jan/Feb, 1997, p. 8). Since the policy was adopted in 1976, the UN has been conniving ways to implement it. The World Heritage Treaty is but one initiative; UNESCO's Biosphere Reserve Program is another. It is significant that the Biosphere Reserve Program is not authorized by treaty; it is the result of an executive agreement that needs neither the advice nor consent of Congress.

Supporters of the UN Biosphere concept of land use control are quick to point out that the Statutory Framework document explicitly states that: "Biosphere reserves...remain under the sole sovereignty of the state where it is situated...." They are less quick, however, to discuss the land management regime required if an area is to be designated as a UN Biosphere Reserve. Article 4, Section 5, of the Framework document says that Biosphere Reserves "should" include:

The language in the documents that may be seen by the general public contain the "legally accurate" words that justify the public position taken by the proponents of UN Biosphere Reserves. Roger Soles, Executive Director of the U.S. MAB Program, in a letter to Phil Nichols of Dunnegan Missouri:

Compare Sole's cavalier "legally correct" language to the actual documents. Item 26 on the "Biosphere Reserve Nomination Form" in use since September, 1994, says:

The document must be signed by the person "in charge of the management" of the core reserves and the person responsible for the management of buffer zones.

And what, exactly, are the objectives identified by UNEP and UNESCO? The Seville Strategy for Biosphere Reserves, adopted March, 1995, says that one objective is to "Incorporate biosphere reserves into plans for implementing Agenda 21 and the Convention on Biological Diversity." In fact, at the first meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, Peter Bridgewater, Chairman of the Man and the Biosphere Council, told the delegates that there were 328 biosphere reserves in 82 countries which could be expanded and integrated into the strategies and action plans provided for in Article 6 of the Convention. He also said "they would serve as useful tools for the implementation of the Convention."

The Convention on Biological Diversity requires each nation to develop a system of "protected areas" (Article 8). Section 13 of the Global Biodiversity Assessment (GBA), an 1140-page document prepared by UNEP (to meet the requirement of Article 25 of the Convention on Biological Diversity) devotes nearly 300 pages to describing in great detail exactly what the "system of protected areas" should look like and how they should be managed. The lengthy description concludes by saying: "This basic design is central to the recently proposed Wildlands Project in the United States" (GBA, p. 993)

The Wildlands Project was written by Dr. Reed Noss, and published by Dave Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!, a director of the Sierra Club, and now Chairman of the Wildlands Project and of the Cenozoic Society, publisher of Wild Earth, in which the Wildlands Project first appeared in 1992. Neither Foreman, nor the Wildlands Project is concerned about "legally accurate" doublespeak. Consider Dave Foreman's language from his 1991 Confessions of an Eco-warrior:

A year after this vision appeared in print, Foreman published a special edition of Wild Earth, the journal of his Cenozoic Society, to showcase the "scientific" version of his vision. Dr. Reed F. Noss, a conservation biologist affiliated with the University of Idaho and Stanford University, a member of the Wildlands Project's Board of Directors, and more recently, a paid consultant to Bruce Babbitt's Department of Interior, is the author of the Wildlands Project plan.

The Noss plan, funded by the Audubon Society and the Nature Conservancy, calls for core reserves surrounded by buffer zones, surrounded by outer buffer zones, all interconnected by corridors of wilderness. Noss says:

The same edition of Wild Earth (pp. 46-60) featured the Appalachian region as a target for restoration in a lengthy article written, in part, by Brownie Newman and Hugh Irwin. And shortly after Foreman became a member of the Board of Directors of the Sierra Club, the organization announced its "Ecoregion" campaign in which the Appalachians were again targeted to become an example of the wilderness world of his dreams.

The objectives of Dave Foreman, Reed Noss, the Sierra Club,and the Wildlands Project are, in fact, the objectives of UNESCO's Biosphere Reserve Program. While the methods to achieve those objectives may appear to be different, they are not. Through the process of politically-correct public-private partnerships, the methods of the two forces have merged into a single, well-funded, extremely well-organized obsession to transform America from the land of the free and the home of the brave into, as Science magazine puts it, "islands of human habitat surrounded by wilderness." The Southern Appalachian Man and the Biosphere Program (SAMAB) provides an excellent example of what is happening and how it is being accomplished.

SAMAB

SAMAB became one of the first UN Biosphere Reserves in 1976 when the 517,000 acre Great Smoky Mountains National Park was designated. Today, the mapped Biosphere Reserve includes core wilderness areas, buffer zones, a zone of cooperation that covers parts of six states, reaching from near Birmingham to the south, to beyond Roanoke to the north; from near Nashville to the west, to beyond Asheville to the east. Most of this expansion has occurred within the last decade, without public attention, and in many instances, without even the knowledge of local elected officials.

The transformation could not have occurred without intense coordination among the UN, the federal government, and an army of so-called environmental organizations working in public/private partnerships. Bill Reilly was the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency during the late 1980s when the intensified efforts began. He is the same Bill Reilly who was an official U.S. delegate to the 1976 UN Conference on Human Settlements that adopted the UN policy on private property. It should come as no surprise that the EPA has been a prime mover of the UN Program. By the time the Gore/Clinton Administration took control, the Wildlands Project, Preserve Appalachian Wilderness (PAW), Virginians for Wilderness, and several other similar organizations were firmly established in the Appalachian region.

SouthPAW, and other organizations focused on building support for closing the Blue Ridge Parkway and converting it into a "corridor" to connect core wilderness areas. Road Rip fought for road closures in the national forests and to block road construction throughout the region. In every hamlet and town throughout the region, representatives of some "environmental" organization worked to achieve one or more of the objectives of the Wildlands Project in the SAMAB. A closer examination of the activities in one small part of the region sheds light on how the transformation is happening throughout the region and across the nation.

Polk County lies at the extreme southeast corner of Tennessee, adjoining both North Carolina and Georgia. It is in the very heart of the SAMAB; more than 60 percent of the county is owned by the U.S. Forest Service. Among the county's treasures is the Conasauga River. Throughout most of the century, the area forests have provided a livelihood for the county's residents, and federal payments in lieu of taxes (from 25 percent of timber sales) have provided the bulk of the county's revenues. Since the 1970s, timber sales have diminished steadily. By January, 1997, 45 percent of the Cherokee National Forest was off-limits to timber production, and harvesting was allowed on only 1 percent of the land, according to the Southern Timber Purchasers Council.

On January 19, 1997, a publication of Tennessee Citizens' Wilderness Planning reported that Kirk Johnson of Chattanooga had met with Congressman Zack Wamp to propose the creation of a National Recreation Area (NRA) that would encompass all federal land in Polk County and the Conasauga River. The proposal would require a special act of Congress, which would remove the area from the normal planning and management processes of the U.S. Forest Service, and stipulate the basis on which the area would be managed. Other similar areas created by special legislation, also carry the authority to condemn private property for inclusion in the area.

On January 29, the Polk County News announced that "Wamp wants Ocoee to be recreation crown Jewel," a story about the Congressman's desire to designate the Cherokee National Forest as a National Recreation Area. The story said Wamp would assemble an "informal planning group" to reach consensus on the project. How the group was formed, and who actually invited the participants, is not clear. It is clear that local elected officials and private land owners were systematically ignored. Kirk Johnson, a resident of Chattanooga, was listed as the project's primary pusher.





A meeting was held on February 2nd. Kirk Johnson made a two-hour presentation on behalf of the Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition (SAFC), headquartered in Asheville, NC. This organization has a staff of 9 and reported 1997 income to be $955,419. SAFC is a subsidiary of the Southern Environmental Law Center, of Charlottesville, Virginia whose 1997 income was $7,209,003. At least eight of their employees are compensated in excess of $80,000 per year, with the prize going to Frederick Middleton who gets $157,839. The Southern Environmental Law Center operates in six southeastern states and maintains a variety of environmental programs ranging from coastal wetlands to public land management issues, on which $2,854,760 was spent in 1997. Their money comes from a variety of sources including, since 1993: Pew Charitable Trusts, $1,260,000; Energy Foundation, $600,000; Lyndhurst Foundation, $500,000; and Public Welfare Foundation, $200,000. In 1997, the organization received $249,948 from "legal fees" which was reported as "revenue including government fees and contracts." Interestingly, the organization reported only $34,075 from "Membership dues and assessments."

The SAFC was also represented at the February 2nd meeting by Tom Hatley, Executive Director, and Hugh Irwin, one of the authors of the article that appeared in the 1992 Wild Earth special Wildlands Project edition. The Polk County Executive and one Commissioner attended the meeting and announced that they learned about the meeting through a phone call only a few days before the meeting. Members of the Southern Timber Purchasers Council, which was not invited, showed up anyway to oppose further restrictions on logging in the forests. Another meeting was scheduled for February 10th.

As the project became known to local residents, it became mired deeper in controversy. Arthur Smith, spokesman for Cherokee Forest Voices (a member of Souther Appalachian Forest Coalition) said: "Rednecks from rural Polk County got to Zack Wamp and told him he was finished if he pushed this thing." Asked if the project is dead, Smith said "It's not dead; it's just resting awhile."

The July/August edition of Wild Mountain Times carried an article written by Brownie Newman, another author of the 1992 feature in Wild Earth, in which he claimed "Forest Service Threatens America's Most Diverse River." He reported that the Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition, Pacific Rivers Council, the Biodiversity Project, and Kirk Johnson had met with the Forest Service to ask that two scheduled timber sales be postponed. "The message was basically, we could spend the next two years fighting over these two timber sales or we could spend that time creating a good Forest Plan." Johnson did, in fact, file an appeal to stop the timber sales.

Enter: the big guns! The Tennessee Chapter of the Nature Conservancy held its annual meeting in Chattanooga, in April. The theme: "Rivers -- Protecting our Aquatic Heritage." The major event was the announcement of a Southern Appalachian Rivers Initiative, headquartered in Chattanooga, funded initially to the tune of $50,000 by the Lyndhurst Foundation. Lyndhurst's 1996 tax return shows a one-year income of $26,415,392, and assets of $122,290,671.

Simultaneously, the Nature Conservancy (which reported 1996 income to be $1,112,458,392, with assets of $1,358,866,481) produced a magnificent booklet entitled "A Stakeholder's Guide to the Conasauga River." The full-color booklet contains selected parchment pages and the cover is embossed with the river displayed in gold. The booklet is a highly polished presentation of all the reasons why the Conasauga River should be protected.

The environmental organizations work in coordinated fashion in local communities to generate support for their projects designed to give life to the Wildlands Project, and the broader transformation of the world to conform to the vision which underlies the Convention on Biological Diversity. The public side of the public/private partnerships work to put teeth into the objectives of their partners.

Against this backdrop of local environmental-group agitation, in July, 1997, the Tennessee Water Quality Control Board received a proposal from its staff to modify the state's water quality criteria. The proposal calls for the creation of a new program to be known as "Outstanding National Resource Waters" (ONRW). Designation as an ONRW would automatically require "no new discharges, or expansions of existing discharges. Degradation to the ONRW will not be allowed."

Surprise, surprise: the Conasauga River was the first of eight water bodies to be listed in the new rule. By outlawing any degradation of the designated river, virtually no logging or development activity could occur in the Conasauga watershed. When asked directly how and why this new program was being proposed at this time, a spokesman for the state agency's staff said the EPA made it clear that they wanted the program initiated.

These activities continue in Polk county, and to one degree or another, in virtually every county in the entire SAMAB zone of cooperation. Similar activity is underway in the counties that surround the other 46 Biosphere Reserves in the United States. Many of the environmental organizations that are working in local communities are affiliated with the national and international organizations that wrote the Convention on Biological Diversity. The Gore/Clinton Administration that pushed for ratification of the treaty, is implementing its provisions "administratively" even though the Senate deliberately chose not to ratify it.

Day by day, throughout the land, highly-paid professionals, funded by prestigious environmental organizations, wage war on individual freedom and private property rights in the name of "protecting the environment." Their efforts are said to be "local initiatives," which reflect the will of the people. In reality, their efforts are carefully planned, well-coordinated, generously funded by foundations, national environmental organizations, or by the federal government, and are expressly designed to exclude participation by real land owners and real local citizens whose lives are directly affected.

When challenged by individuals who are aware of the comprehensive plan to convert half of America to wilderness, there is a common defense: ridicule. Whether the result of ignorance or of deliberate deceit, the spontaneous response from government officials who are challenged is "black helicopter" ridicule of the challengers and a reassertion that the "program" is benign at worst, and environmentally beneficial.

Jack Wadham, President of Save Our Sovereignty in Macon County North Carolina, told a meeting of Macon County Republican Men's Club that the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was a UN Biosphere Reserve, and that the biosphere reserve plan calls for "human exclusion zones."

Within days, the local newspaper headlines read: "Rumors of impending takeover unfounded." Phillip Francis, Assistant Superintendent of the Park was quoted saying "This designation is merely recognition of an ecologically important area, not the superseding of American sovereignty." He went on to add "We've received information that is, frankly, laughable."

The use of carefully-parsed "legally accurate" language, and the consistent stone wall of ridicule by government officials combined with the high-priced public image of environmental groups such as the Nature Conservancy have kept away any serious investigation by the mainstream media. Consequently, the transformation continues, and is indeed, accelerating.

Two final points remain to be made. How is it that the Conasauga River remains such a highly-prized example of biological richness and pristine purity when its banks have yielded timber for the entire century -- without the benefit of the "protections" now demanded by the Wildlands Project and by the government?

Finally, UNESCO's Biosphere Reserve Program is not law. It is a voluntary program entered into by voluntary agreement. At any time, a new regime in Washington could end the program and reverse all management rules. If, however, the Convention on Biological Diversity had been (or is in the future) ratified, the program will be set in international law, which cannot be overturned by the election of a new President or Congress.

Organizations that work within the SAMAB

Organization Location Annual

Income

 Assets
The Nature Conservancy Arlington, VA $1,112,458,392 $1,358,866,481
The Conservation Fund Arlington, VA $30,763,151 $105,683,197
Sierra Club & Sierra Club Foundation San Francisco, CA $74,712,150 $53,586,266
The Wilderness Society Washington, DC $15,910,214 $11,866,169
Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition (a project of) Southern Environmental Law Center Asheville, NC

Charlottesville, VA

 $955,419

$7,209,003

$6,368,064
Wildlands Project (a project of: North American

Wilderness Recovery)

 Tucson, AZ $606,050 $312,700
Cenozoic Society (publishers of Wild Earth) Richmond, VT $169,813 $42,160
Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project (a project of: The Foundation for Global Sustainability) Asheville, NC

Knoxville, TN

$200,520

$74,462
Chattooga River Watershed Coalition Clayton, GA $166,272 $85,297
Wild Alabama Moulton, AL $184,247 $15,961
Western NC Alliance Asheville, NC $184,885 $72,897
Alabama Environmental Council Birmingham, AL $205,589 $109,384
Native Forest Network Missoula, MT $120,727 $16,037
Heartwood, Inc. Bloomington, IN $107,368 $44,484
Wildlaw, Inc Montgomery, AL **
The Ruckus Society **
Dogwood Alliance **
Citizen's Task Force Roanoke, VA **
Cherokee Forest Voices Kingsport, TN **
Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics Mountain Rest, SC **
Georgia Forest Watch Atlanta, GA **
Nantahala Forest Watch Highlands, NC **
Coalition for Jobs & the Environment Abington, VA **
Armuchee Alliance Smyrna, GA **

Source: Internal Revenue Service, most recent Form 990 (See www.freedom.org - research tools)

** No IRS Form 990 reported. Organizations are not required to report if income is less than $25,000 during three consecutive years. Organization may also be operating as a project of another, unknown not-for-profit group.



Who is The Dogwood Alliance?

By Matt Bennett

The following is a presentation by Matt Bennett, to the American Pulpwood Association meeting in New Orleans, LA on March 10, 1998.

It's a pleasure to be with you here in New Orleans. This is a very important discussion, and I'm glad to be a part of it. My part of the country, East Tennessee, is ground zero in the chipmill controversy, and over the years I've done a lot of soul searching about the relationship between chipmills and the hardwood industry.

I earn my living in the hardwood industry, and according to some folks, I should cast a wary eye toward chipmills, and regard them as a threat to my future. Some of these folks proclaim to fight the chipmills on my behalf, delivering the message that the hardwood industry cannot survive the onslaught of these multi-national behemoths.

I confess; I have a skeptical nature. When somebody wants to do something nice for me, I always wonder why. I noted many of these folks were not traditional supporters of the hardwood industry. They were, for example, working hard to eliminate hardwood timber sales on National Forest. Therefore, it seemed imprudent to accept the message without better knowing the messenger.

I wondered, for example, who is the Dogwood Alliance? Why would they be concerned about the future of the hardwood industry? Do they really have a open vision of the problem, or are they looking at it with minds made up?

When I first learned of the Dogwood Alliance, I was working on the Wildlands Project, and my initial thought was that they might be a part of it.

For those unacquainted with The Wildlands Project, it was begun by Earth First! founder Dave Foreman, back in the early '90's. The goal of The Wildlands Project is to return large areas of North America, approximately fifty percent, to wild land or wilderness, for the preservation of biological diversity.

In order to do this, The Wildlands Project relies on what they call a "wilderness recovery network." This network consists of 1) core areas, which are mostly public lands, 2) buffer zones, utilizing public and private lands, and 3) corridors, also using a combination of pubic and private lands. Since the Dogwood Alliance works mainly on private land issues, I first wondered if they could be a part of the Wildlands Project's strategy for buffers and corridors. I eventually concluded they were not formally affiliated with The Wildlands Project, although I did find some interesting connections that would imply at least an awareness of, if not an agreement with, the Wildland Project's goals.

Eventually, I was able to get a reasonable understanding of the Dogwood Alliance by looking at its leadership, and the organizations that they represented.

Dogwood Alliance Network Coordinator is Cielo Sand Myczack, of the Broadened Horizons Riverkeeper Project. Cielo is Spanish for heaven, and in her own unique way, Ms. Myczack is a very spiritual person.

Broadened Horizons is the name of the boat that she and husband Leaf lived on for about six years as Riverkeepers. What is a Riverkeeper? Well, according to Ms. Myczack;

For many years Ms. Myczack spoke for the river through her Great Blue Heron, Walks-With-Care. The puppet serves as Ms. Myczack's alter ego, and she describes him by saying:

Ms. Myczak is a leader among environmental groups in the east, and she serves on the board of directors of Heartwood and Wild Law. I mention these two, because they are connected with the Wildlands Project, and because they represent a specific strategy in dealing with land-use issues. These groups rely on the legal system, and they have been quite successful in using the courts to shut down timber harvesting on National Forest from Alabama to Pennsylvania. They also believe in the strategy of using the legal system to force federal agencies to regulate activities on private lands.

WildLaw deserves a special mention. The non-profit environmental law firm from Montgomery, Alabama is headed by attorney Ray Vaughn. According to Vaughn, the goal of WildLaw, "...is essentially to expose and bring into compliance every single entity in the South that is not complying with the environmental laws." In addition to Ms. Myczack, WildLaw lists Lamar Marshall, head of Wildlands Project affiliate Alabama Wild, among those on its Board. WildLaw's Advisory Board consists of Dave Foreman, Reed Noss, Science Director of the Wildlands Project, and James Redfield, author of the best selling book, The Celestine Prophecy.

Danna Smith represents the other lead organization of the Dogwood Alliance, the Native Forest Network (NFN). I suspect that the Native Forest Network is a new to many of you, but they have been around since November of 1992, when they were formed in Tasmania, Australia. At the conclusion of that initial meeting, they staged a "direct action" against the Forestry Commission Tasmania to protest the export of woodchips from the region.

Native Forest Network has three main offices. NFN International, NFN West, headquartered in Missoula, Montana, and NFN East, headquartered in Burlington, Vermont.

NFN East is run by Anne Peterman and Orin Langelle. They focus primarily on Northern Forest issues, although Langelle has a special interest in the rainforest of Central and South America.

NFN West is run by Jake Kreilick and Philip Knight, who are also known by the Earth First! pseudonyms Jake Jagoff and Randall T. Restless. Both of these men have been connected with Earth First! since the late 1980's, and remain so today.

In a 1994 deposition given by Kreilick in the case of Highland Enterprises vs. Earth First!, et al., we get a good picture of the formation and structure of the Native Forest Network. Kreilick claimed then, that the Native Forest Network operated in seven countries with over 1000 members and 80 environmental organizations which made up the network. As a group, they focus on temperate forest issues and campaigns around the world. As Kreilick stated:

In his deposition, Kreilick makes no bones about his and Knight's involvement in Earth First! even taking credit for resuscitating Earth First! Montana, and changing the name to Wild Rockies Earth First! so that they could operate outside the state of Montana. He also participated in a number of "direct actions" for Earth First!, although by '93 he was getting more involved with Native Forest Network. Again quoting Kreilick:

That mission included spreading the word about the Native Forest Network, and in the fall of 1993, Kreilick was on the road speaking in 40 cities and towns from San Francisco to Burlington, Vermont. The tour included Nashville and Knoxville, Tennessee, and Asheville, North Carolina, and it was then Native Forest Network got its introduction to the chipmill issue in the Southeast.

After the tour, the TAGER web site mentioned they were attempting to get NFN involved in the southeast. TAGER (Tennesseans, Alabamians, and Georgians for Environmental Responsibility) a Chattanooga environmental group, is lead by Denny Haldeman. Quoting the site, and I presume Haldeman;

The eastern Native Forest Networkers were active in the area too. In July of 1994, Rodney Webb, a Native Forest Network activist from North Carolina, helped organize an Earth First! Round River Rendezvous on the Cherokee National Forest. At the conclusion of the meeting, they traveled to the Watts Bar Nuclear plant and staged a direct action, resulting in the arrest of over 50 people including Webb, and john johnson, an Earth First!er from Chattanooga, Tennessee. Also among those arrested was Anne Peterman of Burlington, Vermont, co-leader of NFN East.

Haldeman's "banging away" apparently succeeded, because in the summer of 1995, Doug-Hawes Davis, a film producer for The Ecology Center was making the video, Southbound about the chipmill invasion of the South.

The Ecology Center is one of about 10 environmental groups located in Missoula, Montana with ties to Earth First! In addition to The Ecology Center, some of the other Missoula crowd are Native Forest Network, Alliance for Wild Rockies (a Wildlands Project affiliate), Predator Project (also a TWP affiliate), and The Ruckus Society.

In December of 1995, Kreilick returned to the South as a member of the Kim-Scott Five. Five activists including Kreilick, john johnson, and Rodney Webb took over a chip barge loading facility in Mobile, Alabama. With Kreilick's help, Webb and Corey Freeman suspended a 50 foot banner, while johnson called a Chattanooga radio station on his cell phone for a play by play description of the action. According to the Earth First! Journal, the event was organized by Earth First!, Native Forest Network, the Foundation for Global Sustainability, Broadened Horizons Riverkeepers, TAGER, and the Bankhead Monitor (Alabama Wild).

Two weeks later, the Dogwood Alliance was officially introduced to the environmental community. Steve Holmer of the Western Ancient Forest Campaign circulated a memo announcing "over twenty citizens groups from Arkansas to North Carolina recently united as the 'Dogwood Alliance'...," and naming Smith and Myczack as co-coordinators.

In May of 1996, Kreilick was again in the South, this time at an activist workshop held at Camp McDowell in Winston County, Alabama, sponsored by Alabama Wild. He presented two workshops. One, together with Denny Haldeman, entitled Chip,Pulp, & Paper Mills-The Ugly Face of Industrial Forestry , and another entitled Pulp and Paper-The New Forest Arena.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Haldeman and Kreilick lead about 40 activists in a direct action against Weyerhauser's chip mill at Amory, Miss. Warned of the action in advance, the group was met by mill officials with coffee and doughnuts, and each activist was offered a complementary tree planting kit.

In an interview printed in the Wild Mountain Times in the Fall of 1996, Smith explained how she became involved in the chip mill issue:

In early April of 1997, the Dogwood Alliance announced a press conference and photo opportunity in front of the EPA office in Atlanta. There, on April 9th, the Dogwood Alliance delivered a letter to EPA, Region IV Administrator John Hankinson, Jr. requesting 3 things:

This was the most ambitious, and aggressive attempt yet, to expand federal regulatory authority over private land. The Dogwood Alliance had arrived. It wasn't long after, that people began to take note of their web site.

What caught my eye was their announcement that The Ruckus Society was coming to the Southeast for a national training camp. At the time, I had no idea who The Ruckus Society was, but the name sounded too intriguing to pass over. I came to learn, that this would actually be The Ruckus Society's second visit to the South.

The Ruckus Society is the creation of Earth First!, and Rainforest Action Network co-founder Mike Roselle. Outside magazine called Ruckus "Camp Anarchy" and described it as "...the nation's lone training ground for environmental activist," where "...aimless tree huggers are fashioned into media-savvy eco-warriors, ready for the fray." Long on attitude, but perhaps short on reality, one camper declared, "When we leave here, we're going to open a serious can of whupass." As I read the Outside article, guess who turned out to be an instructor at the camp. None other than Jake Kreilick.

I mentioned earlier this was Ruckus' second visit to the South. They had actually conducted an earlier camp at the farm of Jay McCarthy and Danna Smith near Widner, Georgia in April of 1996. At the conclusion of that camp, a group of activists led by john johnson, and Rodney Webb journeyed to Savanna to, as they put it, "...help the Rainforest Action Network protest the illegal import of mahogany stolen from native lands." Changing venues, this time they hung their banner over the side of a boat load of lumber.

As it turned out, the '97 camp would not be held in Georgia, but moved instead to a farm in Cherokee County, North Carolina. There for a week, activists from all over the world practiced lockdowns and sound bites, and rehearsed how to participate in direct actions that took place on private property. For the camp's commencement ceremony, the activists traveled to Caryville, Tennessee and the site of Champion International's chipmill. There, Earth First! and Native Forest Network activist blocked the entrance to the gate, while john johnson, Rodney Webb, and Danna Smith used their newly acquired communication skills to provide the local media with freshly written sound bites. johnson was later hired by the Dogwood Alliance as an Outreach Co-ordinator.

The action itself was less than successful. Earth First! was disappointed that they had not gained access to the crane to hang a banner. It seems that someone with inside information had tipped Champion off, and they were expecting the demonstrators.

Earth First! left vowing to return, which they did by the way, later that fall. This time they shut down the mill for the better part of a day, and hanging a banner which read, "Champion destroys our jobs, forest and rivers."

If I had to sum up the strategy of the Dogwood Alliance, I would describe it as SEPARATE, REGULATE and STRANGULATE.

First, separate the industry, and get us fighting among ourselves. A key part of the strategy relies on getting the hardwood industry to come out against chipmills.

Second, in the absence of unified resistance, and perhaps even with the assistance of some in the forest industry, get stronger forest regulation for private land on the books. Their best case scenario would involve EPA or U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with regulatory authority over private land across the entire south.

Third, remember the motto, "No compromise in defense of mother Earth?" Once those regulations are in place, use them to slowly strangle any type of forest industry out of existence, much the way public land laws have been used out west.

Rather than an ending, I hope that my comments can be the beginning of a new dialogue on chipmills. There is certainly the need within our industry to bring the discussion back to a meaningful conversation between the parties with the most at stake. Parties that I believe have the best interest of the industry, and the forest at heart. Let us be clear on who our allies, and who our adversaries truly are. With friends like Earth First!, Native Forest Network, The Ruckus Society, and the Dogwood Alliance, I'm not sure we need any enemies.

Matt Bennett (bennettm@mindspring.com) is the Executive Director of the Project for Responsible Dominion.
Visit his website: http://www.wildlandsproject.org.



Treaty by Executive Order

A draft Executive Order was circulated by the administration on May 8, which will take another giant step toward the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity -- even though the U.S. Senate has not ratified the treaty.

Tom McDonnell, Natural Resource Director for the American Sheep Industry Association, obtained a copy of the draft and has provided an excellent analysis. The draft Executive Order is entitled "Invasive Alien Species." Article 8(h) of the Convention on Biological Diversity requires participating nations to "Prevent the introduction of, control or eradicate those alien species which threaten ecosystems, habitats or species." The new Executive Order would comply with that requirement. The Executive Order says in Section 2: "Federal agencies shall...prevent the introduction and spread of invasive alien species into ecosystems...." The President is clearly imposing by Executive Order, international policies the U.S. Senate chose not to ratify. Here are several points raised in McDonnell's analysis:

Two major issues emerge: first, the audacity of an administration that deliberately ignores the will of the U.S. Senate by using an Executive Order to impose a policy that was specifically not adopted by the Senate; and second, the validity of the management policy itself.

The current draft Executive Order is but another step toward the full implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity, despite the fact the Senate chose not to ratify the treaty. The treaty requires a "national biological survey." The Department of Interior initiated a national biological survey, by Secretarial Order, even before the treaty was presented for ratification. The treaty requires "ecosystem management." Vice President Gore implemented his "Ecosystem Management Policy" through his re-invention of government. (Gore openly criticized then-President Bush for not signing the treaty in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, and has been its major supporter in the present Administration.) The entire land and resource management policy is evolving by Administrative -- not legislative -- authority, and is identical to the policies set forth in Agenda 21, and the Convention on Biological Diversity, neither of which have the benefit of Congressional approval.

The second issue is the validity and wisdom of the land and resource management policies required by the Convention on Biological Diversity and being implemented by Administrative authority. The reason the treaty was not even voted on by the U.S. Senate is that the opposition raised by the American people convinced the Senate leadership (then Senator George Mitchell, D-ME) that it would be better to let the treaty languish than to go down in defeat.

Opposition to the treaty arose because a sufficient number of Americans became aware of the draconian land and resource management policies the treaty required. Among the most objectionable requirements were the conversion of as much as 50 percent of the land area in North America to wilderness -- off limits to human beings, and the federal management of "most of the rest of the land area" for conservation objectives. Private property rights are not a concern of the United Nations, which in 1976 declared that "...public control of land use is indispensable" (see ecologic Jan/Feb, 1997, p. 8).

Rather than risk another public confrontation with the American people, or the Congress, the Administration has chosen to implement the requirements of the treaty by Executive Order and rule promulgation, thereby effectively silencing the voice of opposition.



The UN is Taking on Water

World Commission on Water Created by UN Bureaucrats

Agenda 21, the precursor of the Convention on Environment and Development. Now the UN wants to control the use of water. The new "commission's" report will likely recommend a new Convention on Water which will further extend the UN's tentacles into the life and affairs of sovereign nations.

Here follows the official news release from the UN.

The World Water Council, meeting in Stockholm August 11, announced the formation of a World Commission on Water for the 21st century. It will be charged with preparing a long-term vision for addressing the issues of water in the next century. The report is to be completed in time for release on World Water Day, May 22, 2000, in the Netherlands.

Dr. Mahmoud Abu-Zeid, President of the World Water Council, announced today at the 8th Stockholm Water Symposium the formation of a World Commission on Water for the 21st Century. The Commission is expected to prepare a long-term vision for addressing the issues of water in the next century.

The 21-member Commission -- comprising internationally-recognized water, environmental and development experts representing academia, governments, private sector, international and national organizations, philanthropic organizations, and civil society -- is chaired by Ismail Serageldin, Chairman of the Global Water Partnership (GWP) and Vice President for Special Programs at the World Bank. In preparing the long-term vision for the 21st century, the Commission will address questions such as the impact of climate change on variability of rainfall and desertification, and the most likely scenarios for population growth and spatial deployment, looking into ways of reducing losses in monsoon areas and water harvesting in semi-arid and arid zones, as well as the possibilities of desalinization, and new underground water that could be tapped.

Pollution and its treatment through incentives and/or new technologies such as single-cell protein technologies, the re-use of city waste water for high value agriculture and techniques to transform water efficiency in agriculture, to get more crop per drop, and the role of civil society, of local communities, women, the private sector and other institutional actors must figure in this vision of the future. All of this must be related to real action on the ground in order for the "vision" to become a reality. The remarkable scope of experience and positions represented on the Commission would help raise awareness about the issues and promote action in concert with local communities and national governments and international bodies around the world.

The Commission's Secretariat will be located at the headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris and is co-sponsored by the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme, and the World Meteorological Organization -- and additional institutions are considering extending their support to the Commission. The report is to be completed in time for release on World Water Day, May 22, 2000, in the Netherlands.

Dr. Abu-Zeid referred to the Stockholm Water Symposium as "an excellent venue to start the long process to establish the common vision on fresh water for the next century. Many of the institutions such as Stockholm Environmental Institute (SEI) and Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) will be actively involved in this global exercise." He added that the Commission will meet in Cairo on March 23, 1999, and again in Stockholm during the Ninth Stockholm Water Symposium in August 1999. "This will allow the world to get a first-hand view of the intermediate results of the vision and feedback to the debate on the strategic directions of the Vision," concluded Dr. Abu-Zeid.

The establishment of the Commission was the decision of the World Water Council in response to the unanimous recommendations of the international community at the first "World Water Forum," held during March 20-25, 1997, in Marrakech and the "Water and Sustainable Development Conference," held in Paris, March 19-21, 1998. The Commission is supported by the Government of the Netherlands and Canada.

In announcing the Commission, Dr. Abu Zeid said, "At the threshold of a new century, few challenges loom as large as the declining availability of fresh water to meet the rising demands of an expanding human family while recognizing the intimate link of that precious resource to the global ecosystems on which human survival depends."

Dr. Ismail Serageldin, Chairman of the Commission, Chairman of the Global Water Partnership (GWP) and World Bank Vice-President for Special Programs, said, "Water is a precious resource, and learning to manage it better will require us to make sure that every drop counts, whether it is used in agriculture, homes, industry, or for maintaining the earth's ecosystems." He promised that the Commission would consult widely in arriving at its views, and would reach out to different regions of the world and to different constituencies in its work.

For further information, please contact: Laura Edwards, GWP Secretariat in Stockholm +46 8 698 5384; mobile +46 70 347 4382; Sarwat Hussain, World Bank Special Programs, (202) 473-5690, Shussain@worldbank.org

Expect a swarm of NGOs to become attached to this newly created UN body. In fact, expect several new NGOs to be created expressly to promote this new UN body. There will be a series of meetings with virtually no press coverage. NGO's will report through their global network to other NGOs, and at the appropriate occasions, demonstrations, and articles will appear in support of the coming Convention on Water.

The pattern is clear and the result inevitable. The document will appear first as "soft law," likely in the form of the Commission's report. The Commission will be expanded to become a "Preparatory Committee" assigned the task of developing a draft of a new treaty. On some momentous occasion, the treaty will be presented as the only solution to the world's water problems, and the world will clamor to give the UN even more control over national sovereignty.

Expect too, the Gore/Clinton Administration to embrace the program and implement its provisions with or without approval of the Senate. Since these events won't unfold for a few more years, perhaps the administration will have a new name.



Commentary

By Henry Lamb

Let's be sure...

What's a body to believe? The Gore/Clinton administration says global warming is real, it's here, and that drastic actions must be taken to head-off the cataclysmic effects of polar ice-cap melt, rising seas, inundated coastal cities, sickness, famine, and disease. Moreover, the Gore/Clinton administration is quick to tarnish nay-sayers as "pawns of industry" that seeks only to protect its profits.

The Union of Concerned (confused) Scientists (UCS), that well-known advocacy group organized to prevent the use of nuclear energy, offers an emotional, if not scientific, plea signed by a thousand scientists who concur with the administration's opinion. Surely, with the endorsement of the UCS, we can believe the statements of Al Gore and Bill Clinton to be true.

Maybe not. Since day one of the global warming debate, scientists have taken a cautious, even skeptical position on the claim that elevated carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is causing unusual changes in the earth's temperature. The global warming theory arises from computer models developed a decade ago to predict the impact of elevated carbon dioxide. It was the results of those first, primitive models that generated the political heat necessary to produce the Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992. Before the treaty was even ratified, the computer modelers discovered that their early predictions failed to take into account any cooling effect the clouds may have, and they were forced to revise their original warming estimates downward rather significantly. They have revised their estimates downward twice more, from their original prediction of warming from 3.5 to 8 degrees by 2050, to a more comfortable prediction of 1 to 2.5 degrees by 2100.

During the ten years that global warming has been under scientific scrutiny, the computer models have gotten better and the research has become richer. Consequently, the vast majority of scientists have cooled to the idea of man-made global warming, but the policy makers have not.

Now, more than 18,000 independent scientists have responded to a voluntary effort organized by the Oregon Institute for Science and Medicine, in which they declare there is no convincing evidence of global warming (see box).

This petition, and the entire list of signers may be examined at the Institute's web site http://www.oism.org. Still, the Gore/Clinton administration ignores the scientific evidence on which these scientists make their judgment.

In the last ten years, a massive global-warming bureaucracy has arisen which now has a major stake in seeing that both the fear of global warming -- as well as the institutions created to combat it -- continue to grow at the expense of hard-working taxpayers.

Literally billions of dollars have been generated to fight global warming. Those dollars now rival the "profits" generated by "industry" as the real fuel that fires the global-warming machine. Those who feed at the government trough have found global warming to be extremely nourishing and are fighting, not to find the truth, but to keep the money flowing.

Clinton proposed an additional $6 billion program to fight global warming while insisting that the science not be debated. Why not debate the science? The answer is easy: the more science learns, the clearer it becomes that human activity has little or nothing to do with climate change. Should science reveal that the elimination of fossil fuels would have no effect on global warming, the entire global warming bureaucracy would crumble. Thousands of people around the world would be jobless. Of course if currently proposed global warming policy goes forward, millions of people who earn the money will be jobless. Workers in the United States, and 34 other developed countries will be severely restricted by energy-use limitations while workers in 131 developing nations will have no restrictions on energy use. It is increasingly clear that the global warming treaty has almost nothing to do with global warming, but is essentially another UN instrument to enforce social engineering and the redistribution of wealth.

The 171 nations that have ratified the global warming treaty will assemble in Buenos Aires in November for the Fourth Conference of the Parties. One of the priority items on the agenda is a report of a special "contact group" appointed to clarify Article II of the Kyoto Protocol which requires protection and enhancement of "sinks and reservoirs," and the "promotion of sustainable forest management practices." The name of the special contact group is "Land use change and forestry."

The name alone should send shivers down the spine of every property rights advocate, and scare the hell out of every person associated with forestry. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (a separate, but closely aligned UN institution headed by former Gore/Clinton administration official, Robert Watson) has been assigned the task of recommending the criteria by which "land use changes" must be reported, monitored, and controlled by the UN.

Carbon sinks and reservoirs are large areas of vegetation, such as forests, which require carbon dioxide to survive. Theoretically, at least, if forests are reduced in size, there will be fewer "sinks" to absorb and store carbon dioxide, resulting in even more carbon in the atmosphere and thereby further warming the global temperature. This feature of the Kyoto Protocol gives to the UN direct authority to concern itself with land use policies in each of the participating nations -- including the United States. The authority is not as direct as that contained in the Convention on Biological Diversity (which has not yet been ratified by the U.S. Senate), but it is a new authority aimed directly at land use. The World Heritage Treaty is the only other international "land-use" law that affects the U.S. The UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Program is voluntary, but would become law should the Convention on Biological Diversity ever be ratified.

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, like the global mean temperature, has fluctuated rather drastically throughout the life of the planet. None of the previous fluctuations can be blamed on human use of fossil fuel. During the era of dinosaurs, carbon dioxide levels were as much as 20 times higher than today's levels, as determined by glacial and ocean sediment core samples. Similarly, the global mean temperature has also fluctuated, though not so dramatically, without the benefit of human use of fossil fuels. Three thousand years ago, the global mean temperature was substantially warmer than today. Then there was a period of cooling for a couple of thousand years. The global mean temperature then rose again and reached what science calls the Medieval Climate Optimum around 1200, about two degrees C warmer than today. Human use of fossil fuel certainly had nothing to do with that period of global warming. Then, for a few hundred years, the global mean temperature took another plunge, until about 1650 (which science calls the "little ice age") when history records all manner of ills that befell Europe. Again, without the benefit of fossil fuel use by humans, the temperature began to climb. The global mean temperature continued to climb until about 1950, when, slowly, it began to fall again.

When Al Gore went on national television and announced that June, 1998 was the hottest month in 600 years -- as evidence of global warming -- he may have been technically correct, but he was as dishonest as his boss's first description of the affair with Monica. Mr. Gore knew full well that the Medieval Climate Optimum, which was receding 600 years ago, was not the result of burning fossil fuel, and did not result in the catastrophes he now prophesies. And he also knew that the extraordinarily warm temperatures in 1998 correlated directly with the largest solar flare, or sun spot, activity ever recorded, a corollary that is consistent for at least 250 years.

The Gore/Clinton/Browner administration is waging a propaganda war to support a global agenda that seeks to "socialize" the world under the authority of the United Nations. Global warming is but one element of the global agenda.

If there is a threat to global temperature posed by the use of fossil fuel, we should certainly know about it, understand the consequences, and take appropriate actions. After ten years of very intensive study, the scientific community appears to be increasingly convinced that there is no threat, or at the very worst, that we have not yet been able to validate any threat, to the global temperature. Moreover, we certainly do not understand the potential consequences of higher global temperatures. We may be in for another of those terrible periods where the temperature rises by 2 degrees and science will be forced to declare the period to be a "Modern Global Optimum."

On the other hand, we certainly know the consequences of restricting and prematurely eliminating the use of fossil fuel in the 34 developed nations. There will be an economic ice-age in the northern hemisphere while the southern hemisphere learns how to convert fossil fuel into dollar bills -- and continues to pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Despite the hype and hyperbole produced by the administration, and the pulpit-thumping tirades of the newly-fashioned "Reverend" Al, the American people are not fooled. An ABC Internet poll taken on August 27 asked this question: "What is behind this year's extreme weather?" The response:

If there is one message that is crystal clear in the global warming debate, it this: Let's be sure... before we inflict any new penalties on the American people.



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