🚀 go-pugleaf

Actor, director and conservationist Robert Redford wrote the following letter
to
rally opposition to the Bush administration's plan to drill for oil in the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  Mr. Redford hopes to have his letter
circulated as widely as possible and to encourage millions of Americans to
take
action.  (My apologies if you've already come across this elsewhere.)

Please take a minute to read the letter and to voice your opposition to
drilling.  And don't hesitate to forward this letter to others to help them
see
that drilling in the Arctic is a distraction, not a solution.

The letter is also available on NRDC's BioGems website at
http://www.savebiogems.org/redford.asp

==========


Dear Friend,

I've never circulated this kind of email before. But I am so appalled by
President Bush's plan to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to
massive
oil development that I feel I must do whatever I can to help stop it.

To me, the Arctic Refuge represents everything spectacular and everything
endangered about America's natural heritage: a million years of ecological
serenity . . . vast expanses of untouched wilderness . . . an irreplaceable
sanctuary for polar bears, white wolves and 130,000 caribou that return here
each year to give birth and rear their young. For 20,000 years -- literally
hundreds of generations -- the native Gwich'in people have inhabited this
sacred
place, following the caribou herd and leaving the awe-inspiring landscape
just
as they found it. Our own presidents going back to Eisenhower have kept a
bipartisan promise to safeguard this world-class natural treasure. But not
THIS
president. It is a sad day indeed when our president and congressional
leaders
would sacrifice America's largest wildlife refuge for the sake of a possible
six-month supply of national energy. A six-month supply! We could save that
little oil by improving the fuel efficiency of cars and light trucks by a
mere
one mile per gallon.

Only one group of Americans will benefit from the destruction of the Arctic
Wildlife Refuge: the oil giants. Everyone else loses. Arctic wildlife
populations will decline, the Gwich'in people will see their land marred by
pipelines and poisoned by oil spills, you and I will become even more
dependent
on oil, and the planet will suffer catastrophic global warming from the
burning
of even more fossil fuel.

Unless we get millions of Americans to lodge a protest right now, this
nightmarish scenario may well come to pass in the next two months. The
Republican energy bill, which would fulfill the president's promise to drill
the
Arctic Refuge, is moving through Congress today. House and Senate leaders may
also try to sneak through the Arctic drilling provision by attaching it to a
"must-pass" appropriations bill. These votes will be decided by the moderates
in
both parties. We must reach those moderates and hold them accountable.

Here's what you can do: go to <http://www.savebiogems.org/arctic>

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has set up this new website to
make
it extremely easy for you to send messages of protest to your senators and
representatives. It will take you only a minute.

I've been on NRDC's board for 25 years, so I know how effective they are at
waging and winning environmental campaigns. Last year, NRDC used web activism
to
help generate a million messages of protest to Mitsubishi and stopped the
company from destroying the last unspoiled birthing ground of the Pacific
gray
whale.

We'll win this time too if each of us does our part for the Arctic Refuge.
Please visit <http://www.savebiogems.org/arctic> right now. And forward my
message to your family, friends and colleagues. Congress cannot ignore
millions
of us.

If we let them plunder our greatest wildlife refuge for the sake of oil
company
profits, then no piece of our natural heritage is safe from destruction.
Please
go to <http://www.savebiogems.org/arctic> and help keep the Arctic wild and
free.

Sincerely yours,
Robert Redford

 -----  Posted via NewsOne.Net: Free (anonymous) Usenet News via the Web  -----
  http://newsone.net/ -- Free reading and anonymous posting to 60,000+ groups
   NewsOne.Net prohibits users from posting spam.  If this or other posts
made through NewsOne.Net violate posting guidelines, email abuse@newsone.net