ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR. LEONARDO DICAPRIO CATHERINE CRIER WATEWATERKRKEEPEREEPER WINTER 2005 ggoneoneglobal Ht: 0.816", Wd: 1.4872", Mag: 80% BWR: 1 William Abranowicz's work has been featured in Vogue, The New York Times Magazine, Martha Stewart Living and Le Monde d’Hermes. He is currently on the masthead of both Condé Nast Traveler and House and Garden and his work is On The Water included in public, corporate and private collections throughout the world. Abranowicz is an active member of Riverkeeper and is responsible for their annual } photo auction, Reflected Light. Letter From the President Waterkeeper: Time To Change the Paradigm fter years of global security than war or terror, a conclusion shared by difficult and Great Britain’s top scientist Sir David King, and by a A intense nego- recent Pentagon study. tiations, the Kyoto Responsible foreign oil companies like B.P. (which has Global Climate Treaty changed its name to Beyond Petroleum) acknowledge the took effect February 16 crisis and are aggressively investing in clean, efficient with the world’s biggest technologies and renewable energies that will help polluter, the United reduce carbon dioxide emissions globally by 70%. Similar AP Photo/CP,Jeff McIntosh AP Photo/CP,Jeff States, conspicuously investments by our nation would be a boon to America’s absent from the 150 participating countries. air, our economy and our national security. After all, the The solid scientific consensus that global warming steps we must take to comply with Kyoto are steps we caused by human excesses is already catastrophically should be taking to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, altering our weather is confirmed beyond doubt by over our vulnerability to price shocks on the international oil 2,000 top climate experts from over 100 countries in the market and our balance of payment deficits. largest, most rigorous peer reviewed collaborative Conservation and efficiency will make American research project ever. But you don’t need a weatherman industry more competitive and cleaner. Fuel efficiency to know which way the wind blows. The evidence of cli- will make every American richer; less money spent on mate chaos is all around us. gasoline means more money in our pockets. Efficient History’s ten hottest years have occurred since 1990. technology, like refrigerators, automobiles and air condi- The Arctic Ice Cap has lost 40% of its volume in 20 years tioners, will be key export items over the coming decades and will be gone within our generation. Forests are as third world nations strive to reduce their greenhouse dying, permafrost and glaciers are melting worldwide. gases. (China has already implemented one of the world’s Within decades, there will be no glaciers in Glacier most aggressive programs for curbing dangerous emis- National Park, no snows on Kilimanjaro. Sea levels are sions, including banning gas-guzzling automobiles.) The rapidly rising, coral reefs disappearing, weather patterns patents on and profits from these technologies will go to are becoming increasingly chaotic, animals and plants the nation with the toughest laws at home. are changing their behavior. Russian bears, suffering But rather than investing in a sustainable future, irre- through that nation’s warmest winter ever, are so con- sponsible American companies like Chevron, fused that they have awoken a month early, throwing off Exxon/Mobil, and Peabody Coal have poured hundreds of their entire life cycle. A quarter of the earth’s species will millions of dollars into a campaign intended to deny the be extinct in 50 years, according to a new collaborative science and delay reform. study by top biologists from eight nations published in Remember the successful anti-regulatory tactics of the Nature in January 2004. The frequency of catastrophic tobacco industry which employed diabolical public rela- weather is increasing exponentially. Deadly storms made tions geniuses, corrupt scientists, powerful lobbyists and 2004 the most costly year ever for the insurance industry. rivers of money to derail, for sixty years, regulation of a England received a month’s worth of rain in a single product that was killing one in five of its consumers? night. Two years ago a lethal European heat wave killed With far greater profits at stake in poisoning the public more than 15,000 people. U.N. Weapons Inspector Hans than did Big Tobacco, King Coal and Big Oil, are now Blix warns that global warming is a greater threat to employing the same tactics on a grander scale. They’ve 04 Waterkeeper Magazine Winter 2005 www.waterkeeper.org put hundreds of millions of dollars into an aggressive campaign with extinction and even impeding the North Slope oil industry to distort science and deceive the public, the press and policy as permafrost melting erodes vital roads. Stevens must be keep- makers about the climate crisis. They’ve funded phony ing his thick head very deep in the rapidly melting snow! Washington think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and The extent to which this White House is willing to alter scien- Competitive Enterprise Institute from which industry-paid scien- tific "fact" to please the energy industry is documented in a tists known as "biostitutes" grind out pronouncements that glob- February 2005 report by EPA’s Inspector General describing how al warming is environmental henny pennyism. Exxon persuaded EPA scientists were ordered to invent a fraudulent scientific the White House to muzzle and fire America’s top global warm- rationale for reducing controls of mercury emissions at indus- ing scientist Dr. Robert Watson—former chairman of the U.N.’s try’s behest. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—who had The Machiavellian manipulation of public opinion by long been a thorn in the industry’s side. At industry behest, the Exxon/Mobil, Peabody Coal and their cronies helps erode our administration has suppressed or fraudulently altered a dozen democracy and is certain to result, over time, in trillions of dol- major studies on climate change, including studies by EPA, NASA, lars in property damage, the loss of millions of human lives, the NOAA and a 10-year study, commissioned by this president’s profound diminishment of our planet’s natural wealth and ulti- father, in his own efforts to delay action on the issue. American mately of our dignity and humanity. Will someone explain to me energy industry thugs harass and intimidate Britain’s top scien- why the energy barons who are guilty of this public deception tist Sir David King at public appearances and disrupt interna- and injury should be considered higher on the moral scale than tional climatological meetings. And now we can add pop-culture the universally-condemned suicide terror bombers, for whom author Michael Crichton to the propaganda machine; his best- murder and mayhem, at least arguably, involve some self-sacri- selling novel, State of Fear, takes the asinine position that envi- fice? ronmentalists have made the whole thing up. Now, don’t start howling in indignation! I am not insensitive Seventy Eight million dollars spent on checkbook diplomacy to the misery caused by terrorists. My father was murdered by between Detroit and Washington since 1990 has dimmed politi- an Arab terrorist, and I lost close friends (and my office) in the cal enthusiasm for meaningful fuel efficiency standards and World Trade Center attack. But, the tragedy of our losses should won automakers an astounding $100,000 write-off for Hummers not blind us to the larger threats to our democracy, our nation and the sixteen largest gas-guzzlers. Hundreds of millions more and our values. For over two years the American press and many contributed by big oil and coal to indentured servants on Capitol political leaders have focused on the terrorist threat to the exclu- Hill have brought industry the most compliant Congress and sion of almost all other important stories—missing altogether President in history. Corporate toadies in the White House invit- the war that this administration has declared on our environ- ed the fossil fuel barons to secretly write the President’s national mental laws. energy policy, a collection of massive subsidies and tax breaks, Not a single question was asked by a reporter about the envi- ronment or global warming during the presidential debates and which instead of reducing fossil fuel dependence, increases our many key newspapers and networks have lost, terminated or wasteful addiction. Even the Wall Street Journal condemned the transferred key environmental reporters to other beats—includ- obscene plan as a "$145 billion boondoggle." ing, most recently, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, the All that money has bought the industry public officials will- Washington Post and CNN. ing to ignore the science. President Bush, who has received $100 It’s time to change the paradigm. As Hans Blix and Sir David million in energy industry largesse, says "the jury’s still out" on King, and the Pentagon have recognized, global warming poses a global warming. Powerful senate Environment and Public Works far graver threat to America than terrorism. As we consider the Committee chair James Inhoffe (who has received over $1 million relative culpability of corporate criminals who are putting the in energy industry cash in 10 years) calls global warming a planet at risk and engineering a massive deception to defraud "farce" and the senate Commerce Science and Transport chair- the public and our lawmakers, it’s worth remembering Teddy man Senator Ted Stevens who has received $560,000 from the Roosevelt’s oft-repeated statement that our nation would never energy and transportation industries, recently said that "global be destroyed by a foreign enemy and his warning that our dem- warming is the biggest hoax perpetuated on the American peo- ocratic institution would be subverted by "malfactors of great ple." Meanwhile, Stevens’ home state Alaska is currently heating wealth" who would erode them from within.