Volume 15, Number 3 April-June 2000 To Be Or Not to Be, That is the Question . For the Network Newsletter! Well, it’s a few years later since that plea for ideas about how to continue support for the newsletter. No quick-fix LET’S HEAR FROM YOU!! ideas were identified, but we managed to continue to produce the newsletter on a so-called “shoestring.” Here is another appeal to our readers to brainstorm about This newsletter depends on YOUR input. Please ways to keep the newsletter going. In the absence of a send relevant information that comes across your resolution, there will be one more newsletter after this desk, whether it is a news item, a meeting, job one, in July 2000. And then . no more. opening, or publication, to the address on the back cover. Information to be included in the next We here in ESIG have given this possible and likely newsletter must be received by 1 July 2000. future a great deal of thought. We could rationalize a decision to bring the Network Newsletter to an end: perhaps the Internet has replaced the need for it, and perhaps there are now numerous groups interested and involved in climate-society interactions and in climate and climate-related impact assessment. Editorial Perhaps we could just post it on the Internet, scale back To Be Or Not To Be: That is the Question the mailings, or charge for it. But many of the people we . For the Network Newsletter! want to reach are in the Third World and are without constant access to the Internet. A couple of years ago, I wrote an editorial about the To those of us in ESIG who have worked on the Network Newsletter and issued a muted call for financial newsletter for years (D. Jan Stewart, Jan Hopper, support in order to keep the newsletter going. This Shirley Broach, Jennifer Oxelson, Rick Katz, Maria newsletter started in 1985 as the result of a Krenz, Tanja Butler, Vicki Holzhauer, Tanya Beck, and “Networkshop” to develop a network of individuals, myself), it will be the end of an era. Nevertheless, we groups, and agencies interested in climate-society owe it to the impacts community to make one last call for interactions. We were careful to make it a newsletter for ideas about how to keep the Network Newsletter alive. the community, using input from the community. We did not want to make it an ESIG or NCAR newsletter, and –Michael H. Glantz kept it as a low-budget production, devoid of gloss (other than that easy-to-recognize pink). The initial funding of $30,000 came from the UN GECP FINDINGS RELEASED Environment Programme (UNEP) and NCAR. During the past few years, UNEP has fallen on hard times and The Economic and Social Research Council’s Global its support for the newsletter ended. ESIG has carried Environmental Change Programme (GECP) at the the ball with the help and understanding of NCAR. Much University of Sussex in Brighton, UK, was created in of the funding goes for postage. The newsletter has 1991 at the time of the diplomacy that led to the 1992 identified and built a community of interest in climate Earth Summit. It is now in its final year. In March 2000, impact assessment. This community can work with the three program summaries were released synthesizing atmospheric science community to better understand the main insights from the program’s work. Organized climate, climate impacts, forecasts, societal responses to around three themes (Risky Choices, Soft Disasters: forecasts, and the needs of users of those forecasts. Environmental Decision-Making under Uncertainty; Who Governs the Global Environment?; and Producing We started the Network Newsletter in the Dark Ages of Greener, Consuming Smarter), they are available on line the Internet. Few readers were on line, unlike today, a with a host of supporting materials, as well as in hard mere 15 years later. Our main goal was to continue to copy. These booklets are a key output from the produce the newsletter in hard copy and, much later, program. For more information, please contact the also as an electronic newsletter. We have kept it free of GECP Office, Mantell Building, University of Sussex, charge in order to assure that those who heard of it and Falmer, Brighton BN1 9RF; tel: 44-1273-678935; fax: 44- wanted to receive it could do so at no hardship to them, 1273-604483; email [email protected]. The Web site especially those subscribers in the Third World. is at wwww.gecko.ac.uk. (From Gecko. The final edition will be released in June 2000). Over the years, we have received lots of letters and emails in support of the newsletter. We’ve received input about papers, upcoming meetings, books, jobs and fellowship opportunities, articles, and so on. SPECIAL ISSUE OF OUR PLANET The latest issue of Our Planet, the UNEP flagship magazine for environmentally sustainable development, covers many of the issues debated at the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of wild fauna and flora (CITES), which was convened in Nairobi, Kenya, in April 2000. Available on the Web, the magazine covers many of the issues debated and carries articles by several key figures, including an editorial by Klaus Töpfer (Executive Director of UNEP) and Willem Wijnstekers (Secretary- General of CITES). This special issue is on line at MSF AND THE ARAL SEA www.ourplanet.com or to be placed on the mailing list for hard copies, write to Mani Kebede, Circulation Manager, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is making a plea for Our Planet, UNEP, PO Box 30552, Nairobi, Kenya; tel: additional help for the 4 million people living in the area 2542-621234; fax 2542-623927; email surround the Aral Sea (called the “disaster zone”) who [email protected] have poor access to potable water. MSF is asking for particular help for those affected by the economic and environmental consequences of the drying up of the Aral GM WITHDRAWS FROM GCC Sea. MSF has been working in the area since 1998, providing medical assistance to the population and GM (General Motors), one of the world’s largest conducting research into the environmental factors automobile manufacturers, withdrew from the industry- affecting health. Ian Small, head of the MSF mission in based Global Climate Coalition (GCC), a group lobbying Uzbekistan, is asking for more NGOs (non-governmental against the ratification of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the organizations) to become involved. More details about UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Other the Aral Sea and MSF’s activities in the region can be corporations that have withdrawn from the GCC include, obtained from the MSF Web site at www.msf.org/ but are not limited to, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, Texaco, aralsea or contact MSF at their International Office, rue and Shell. British Petroleum withdrew in 1996. Although de la Tourelle, 39 - Brussels, Belgium 1040; tel: 32-2- the motives behind these withdrawals are not clear, 280-1881; fax: 32-2-280-0173; email msfh-tashkent@ given that the march toward acceptance of the Kyoto amsterdam.msf.org Protocol has slowed down considerably, the GCC stature as an effective anti-Kyoto lobby has been greatly weakened (From Nature, 404, p. 322). REPORT ON INDONESIA FOREST AND LAND FIRES An inter-agency report on Indonesia Forest and Land Fires and Proposals for Risk Reduction in Human Settlements was produced in October 1999 by the UN Centre for Human Settlements, with assistance from the UN Development Program in Jakarta, the UN Centre for Human Development in Nagoya, and the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center in Bangkok. The study was WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY sparked (pun intended) by the haze-producing fires in Indonesia during the 1997-98 El Niño event. The haze World Environment Day is commemorated each year on blanketed much of Southeast Asia and was blamed for 5 June. It is one of the principal vehicles through which ship collisions, airplane crashes, and a large increase in the United Nations Environment Programme stimulates respiratory problems. The report identifies strategic worldwide awareness of the environment and enhances action areas for the prevention of forest and land fires. political attention and, hopefully, action. This year’s For more information, please contact the Asian Disaster theme is 2000 The Environment Millennium: Time to Preparedness Center (ADPC), Asian Institute of Act. In many countries this observance provides an Technology, PO Box 4, Klong Luang, Pathumthani opportunity to sign or ratify international conventions and 12120, Thailand; tel: 5662-524-5378; fax: 662-524-5360; calls on everyone to demonstrate our commitment to email Kamal Kishore at [email protected] protecting the environment and to prevent future damage to our planet. For more information, please contact Tore J. Brevik, Director, Communications and tools and techniques to aid them in handling the Public Information, UNEP, PO Box 30552, Nairobi, challenges of dealing with coastal management. Since Kenya; tel: 254-2-623292; fax: 254-2-623927; email the first course in 1991, a total of 5 Institutes have taken [email protected] or see the Web site at www.unep.org/ place. SI-2000 is shaping up to be CRC’s most innovative course offered to date. It will be limited to 25 participants and will be held 29 May-23 June 2000 on the University of Rhode Island’s Bay Campus. For more POPULATION ACTION information and other inquiries, including those about INTERNATIONAL scholarships and other sources of funding for attendance at Summer Institute 2000, please contact CRC, Population Action International (PAI) has released a new University of Rhode Island Bay Campus, Narrangansett, report on population and critical natural resources, RI 02882 USA; tel: 1-401-874-6224; fax: 1-401-789- Nature’s Place: Human Population and the Future of 4670; email [email protected] or see the Web site at Biological Diversity by R.P.