> ANNOUNCEMENT: "Fast Track, the MAI and Sustainability"  will be the
> topic
> of the next Communications for a Sustainable Future (CSF) Online
> Seminar,
> starting Monday, September 29 and ending October 10, 1997. The seminar
> continues CSF's series in "Sustainable Economics" and will examine
> variou=
> s
> perspectives and implications of the Multilateral Agreement on
> Investment
> (MAI) currently being negotiated at the Organization for Economic
> Cooperation and Development (OECD).=20
>  =20
> Joining in the online discussion of this controversial proposal for a
> new
> international agreement on investment will be OECD Representative and
> MAI
> investment specialist Marie-France Houde,  Stephen Viederman, Paul
> Hawken=
> ,
> and experts from various nations and fields of study.
> _______________________________________________________________
> OPINIONS on the MAI are profoundly divided. The United States Council
> for
> International Business says:=20
> 
> "When concluded, the MAI will become the next pillar in the global
> system
> of trade, finance, and investment."
> 
> But The Preamble Center for Public Policy maintains:
> 
> "=85The MAI will guarantee foreign investors the ability to acquire
> 100% equity ownership in almost all economic sectors, enabling
> manufacturers to relocate almost anywhere they please.  (also), the
> MAI
> will make it more lucrative for corporations to move production
> facilitie=
> s
> to low-wage countries by banning costly performance
> requirements..."=20
> 
> Of proposed "Fast Track" negotiating authority, Chantell Taylor of
> Public=
> =20
> Citizen says:
> 
> "... the President did not explicitly EXCLUDE the MAI in fast track,
> whic=
> h
> means that he has maneuvering ability ... to apply fast track when the
> ti=
> me
> comes WITHOUT risking the political heat now..."=20
> _______________________________________________________________
> Several more perspectives on the MAI  - including those from David
> Korten=
> ,
> the OECD, George Monbiot, William Witherell, and Noam Chomsky - may be
> accessed from:
>         http://csf.colorado.edu/sustainable-economics/mai/
> _______________________________________________________________
> To SUBSCRIBE to the online seminar, please send an e-mail message of:
>         sub sustainable-economics Firstname Lastname
> to: 
> 
> To POST your comments to the list, e-mail them to:
>         
> 
> We encourage you to include a descriptor in the "Subject" line of your
> e-mail.  If there is interest, a CONSENSUS STATEMENT will be drafted
> by
> seminar participants.
> ________________________________________________________________
> For more INFORMATION, please see:=20
>         http://csf.colorado.edu/sustainable-economics/
> and       http://csf.colorado.edu/sustainable-economics/mai/
> ________________________________________________________________
> If you have QUESTIONS about the online seminar, please e-mail Douglas
> Hinrichs at   =20
>

Kedves Csomor Zoltan!

Ugyan emailjet megkaptam; sajnos nem tudok maganlevelben valaszolni, 
mert a felado helyen a sajat postamesterunk cime szerepel (valami 
problema volt tegnap a rendszerunkkel).  Ezert elnezest kerek a tobbi 
olvasotol, hogy itt valaszolok:  valami rossz cimre kuldheti a 
KORNYESZ irasait, mert nem erkeztek be a moderalatlan szamba.  
Egyszeruen a  cimre kell bekuldeni.  Kerem kuldje be 
az emlitett irasokat meg egyszer erre a cimre.

Udvozlettel,
Dr. Urge-Vorsatz Diana
Kornyesz moderator

Ez talan kicsit tul Amerika-specifikus, de talan egy vitat ismet 
meger..... :-)

ONLY THE RICH AND POWERFUL ARE ALLOWED TO ENDANGER SPECIES


Endangered plants and animals contribute neither hard nor soft money to
political campaigns.  People who care about nature are more numerous but less
focused than people who want to log, mine, dam, drain, spray, pave or otherwise
impose their will upon the few remaining patches of undisturbed nature.  So you
can imagine what the latest rewrite of the Endangered Species Act looks like.

Environmentalists call it the "Kempthorne Species Destruction Act."  It was
drafted by Senators Dirk Kempthorne (R-Idaho), John Chafee (R-Rhode Island),
Max Baucus (D-Montana) and Harry Reid (D-Nevada), along with representatives of
mining and logging industries and -- surprise -- Interior Secretary Bruce
Babbitt.  Babbitt called the resulting bill "an excellent first step,"
whereupon several environmental groups demanded that President Clinton fire him
immediately.

Like other bipartisan wonders emerging from our hard-nosed Republican Congress
and soft-bellied Democratic administration, this bill is finely tuned to
balance the nation's competing moneyed interests.  It has nothing to do with
preserving endangered species.  Rather, it ensures that the right to extirpate
species is allocated only to those with money and power.

For example, there's a small item buried in the final pages of the bill that
allows the Secretary of the Interior to give any state, county or private
landowner permanent exemption from the entire law, with no requirement for
public notification or comment.  As High Country News reporter Jon Margolis
remarks, "It is hardly common practice for any government to provide its
citizens with a legal mechanism for evading a law."

In the hands of a corrupt Interior Secretary (remember James Watt?), permission
to extirpate a species could become an even slicker channel for political
fund-raising than it is already.  Nowadays you have to bribe not only the
executive branch but a large subset of the Congress in order to get a special
endangered species exemption.  With the new bill you would only have to bribe
the Interior Secretary.  (I expect the Congress to wake up before the bill
becomes law and keep itself in the money stream.  I bring the point up here
only to show the kind of thinking embodied in the Kempthorne bill.)

The old Endangered Species Act requires the Fish and Wildlife Service to check
out any contemplated federal action -- a Forest Service clearcut sale or an
Army Corps of Engineers dredging project -- to be sure it will not wipe out a
species.  The Kempthorne Bill lets these agencies be their own judges.  After
they declare their own plans innocent, the Fish and Wildlife Service will have
60 days to come up with an objection.  If there is none, the project goes
forward.

Can't you see the agencies dumping 900 "no effect" declarations at once on the
F&WS, so there's not a hope of responding within 60 days?  This practice will
be aided by steady Congressional cuts in the F&WS budget.  Swamp the few
remaining compliance assessors, and you've got the whole federal government
exempt from the law.

The Kempthorne bill also gives mining, forestry, and grazing companies
privileged access to government, keeps out public comment and public lawsuits,
and requires detailed calculations of the costs of saving the salmon, say, but
not the benefits.  But the worst part of the bill, in my opinion, is the
hardening of the "no surprises" policy.

"No surprises" comes out of a 1982 amendment that allows the government to make
"habitat conservation plans" -- deals with landowners, allowing them to destroy
the habitat of an endangered species, as long as they protect or restore some
similar habitat somewhere else.  

Habitat conservation plans could be a good idea, if developers weren't in too
much of a hurry to allow good studies to be done, if endangered species would
pick up and move on demand, if the deals weren't cut in private, if the
government weren't a marshmallow negotiator (remember that continuous need for
campaign contributions), and if someone hadn't had the bright idea of "no
surprises."

That means no surprises for the landowner, of course, not for the species.  If
it turns out that the conservation plan was faulty, that the preserved land
isn't sufficient or is in the wrong place or is flattened by a hurricane, that
the species population is falling faster than predicted, that another
endangered species is discovered on the land, or any other "surprise," the
landowner cannot be required to take further conservation measures.  

If a logging company, for instance, sets aside some nesting sites for spotted
owls, the company can go ahead and cut down other nests, even at the cost of
wiping out the owls or any other species.  The only alternative is that the
government buy the land, if the owner is willing to sell and the government has
the money.

The Kempthorne bill removes any public right to comment or sue for changes in
habitat conservation plans, even if they turn out to be certain death for a
species.

If the purpose of an Endangered Species Act is to preserve endangered species,
the Kempthorne version makes no sense.  But then no sensible law can come out
of a money-corrupted political system.  The proper response to that fact is not
to settle, as the Clinton Administration seems about to do, for a senseless
law.  The proper response is to change the corrupted system.

 (Donella H. Meadows is an adjunct professor of environmental studies at
Dartmouth College.)

Hat, megszuletett.........

HAGUE COURT RULES ON GABCIKOVO-NAGYMAROS DISPUTE. The
International Court of Justice in the Hague has ruled that Hungary
broke international law by abandoning a 1977 agreement with
Slovakia to build the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros system of dams and
hydroelectric power stations on the Danube River. But the court also
said that the former Czechoslovakia, was also wrong in pressing
ahead with the project and diverting the waters of the Danube from
Hungary into Slovakia. According to the court, Hungary was not
entitled to suspend and subsequently abandon in 1989 its part of the
work on the hydropower project, a court spokesman told reporters.
The court obligated the two countries to take all necessary measures
to ensure the implementation of the 1977 accord.

Dear all,
The International Court of Justice in The Hague delivered its 
judgement on the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros Project yesterday. The 
communiques (summaries), as well as the judgment can be found on 
the ICJ's own website: http://www.icj-cij.org
The address where to obtain a hard-copy of the whole judgment (over 
120 pages I estimate) is mentioned at the bottom of the communiques.
WordPerfect or WordWindows version of the comminiques are available 
upon request from Milieukontakt Oost-Europa, Amsterdam via: 

Paul Kosterink
(valamint lasd alabb Ago informaciojat is)

http://www.icj-cij.org/Presscom/ipr9710bis.html

Egyuttal mar letoltheto a Zold Pok file teruleterol is, hamarosan
kitesszuk FTP-re is.

Egyebkent pedig hadd idezzem Janossy Andrast, aki szerint a birosagi dontes 
pontos megertesehez tobb hetre lesz szukseg, addigra azonban az emberek fejet
mar tele fogjak tomni az ujsagok es a politikusok elkapkodott, torz, 
kiragadott kozlesei es nyialtkozatai.

Aki az igazsagot keresi, legyen turelmes.

Nagy Agoston

Sziasztok!
Latos Peternek:

Az ablakot illetoen arnyaltabban fogalmaznek. A nyari hovedelem 
szempontjabol az ablakot arnyekolnam, ekkor szerencses esetben szort 
fenyt atareszt csak a nap direkt sugarzasat arnyekolja le az erre 
alkalmazott "szerkezet". Idezo jelben mert ez lehet pl. arnyekolo 
ponyva pl. kozel vizszintesen kihuzva, de lehet lombhullato fa is. 
(Azert lombhullato mert az osztol tavaszig - amikor a honyereseg a 
lakasnak jo - atengedi a napsugarzas nagyobb reszet.

Lehet beszelni takarasrol is, csak vallalni kell ennek 
konzekvenciait, termeszetesen elonyei is vannak. Elkepzelheto pl. 
mozgathato hoszigetelt tabla az ablakok elott. Ezt nyaron nappal az ember 
nem hasznalja ha fenyt is akar, hasznalja, ha fontosabb az 
arnyekolas, vagyis a hovedelem. Telen nappal el van tolva, hogy 
legyen feny es (esetleg) honyereseg, ejszakara pedig az ablak ele van 
zarva, hogy hoszigetelesevel csokkentse az ejszakai hideg orakban a 
fokozott hoveszteseget.

Ha valakinek tovabbi informacio, segitseg, ...stb. kel szerintem azt 
az sajat E-mailunkon vagy szemelyesen erdemesebb.


Gyula

> -------------------------------------------------------------------
DESI Gyula
Snail-mail:     1111 Budapest, Muegyetem rkp. 3. K II 27/a
T:              361 463-3947
F:              361 463-3949
> -------------------------------------------------------------------

BAN DIHYDROGEN MONOXIDE!

THE INVISIBLE KILLER

Dihydrogen monoxide is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and kills
uncounted
thousands of people every year. Most of these deaths are caused by
accidental inhalation of DHMO, but the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide do
not
end there. Prolonged exposure to its solid form causes severe tissue
damage.
Symptoms of DHMO ingestion can include excessive sweating and urination,
and
possibly a bloated feeling, nausea, vomiting and body electrolyte
imbalance.
For those who have become dependent, DHMO withdrawal means certain death.

Dihydrogen monoxide:

* is also known as hydric acid, and is the major component of acid rain.
* contributes to the "greenhouse effect."
* may cause severe burns.
* contributes to the erosion of our natural landscape.
* accelerates corrosion and rusting of many metals.
* may cause electrical failures and decreased effectiveness of automobile

brakes.
* has been found in excised tumors of terminal cancer patients.

CONTAMINATION IS REACHING EPIDEMIC PROPORTIONS!

Quantities of dihydrogen monoxide have been found in almost every stream,

lake, and reservoir in America today. But the pollution is global, and
the
contaminant has even been found in Antarctic ice. DHMO has caused
millions
of dollars of property damage in the midwest, and recently California.

Despite the danger, dihydrogen monoxide is often used:
* as an industrial solvent and coolant.
* in nuclear power plants.
* in the production of styrofoam.
* as a fire retardant.
* in many forms of cruel animal research.
* in the distribution of pesticides. Even after washing, produce remains
contaminated by this chemical.
* as an additive in certain "junk-foods" and other food products.

Companies dump waste DHMO into rivers and the ocean, and nothing can be
done
to stop them because this practice is still legal. The impact on wildlife
is
extreme, and we cannot afford to ignore it any longer!

THE HORROR MUST BE STOPPED!

The American government has refused to ban the production, distribution,
or
use of this damaging chemical due to its "importance to the economic
health
of this nation." In fact, the navy and other military organizations are
conducting experiments with DHMO, and designing multi-billion dollar
devices
to control and utilize it during warfare situations. Hundreds of military

research facilities receive tons of it through a highly sophisticated
underground distribution network. Many store large quantities for later
use.

IT'S NOT TOO LATE!

Act NOW to prevent further contamination. Find out more about this
dangerous
chemical. What you don't know CAN hurt you and others throughout the
world.

Coalition to Ban DHMO


Forwarded by Agi G.

A freshman at Eagle Rock Junior High won first prize at the Greater
Idaho Falls Science Fair, April 26. He was attempting to show how
conditioned we have become to alarmists practicing junk science and
spreading fear of everything in our environment. In his project he
urged people to sign a petition demanding strict control or total
elimination of the chemical "dihydrogen monoxide."   And for plenty
of good reasons:

 1. Can cause excessive sweating and vomiting;
 2. Is a major component in acid rain;
 3. Can cause severe burns in its gaseous state;
 4. Accidental inhalation can kill you;
 5. It contributes to erosion;
 6. It decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes; and,
 7. It has been found in tumors of terminal cancer patients.

He asked 50 people if they supported a ban of the chemical.  Forty-three
said yes, six were undecided, and only one knew that the chemical was
a rather different and perhaps inappropriate  way of referring to
"water".
^^^^^^^^

The title of his prize winning project was, "How Gullible Are We?"  He
feels
the conclusion is obvious.

Forwarded by Agi G.

Vegulis azt hiszem nagyjabol ugyanazt mondjuk, csak masrol beszelunk ;-) 
Abban termeszetesen segithet egy jol elkeszitett mini-Kis-Balaton, hogy a
szennyviz a falubol/tanyabol ne egyenest az elovizekbe folyjon, a gond
csak az, hogy az igy megtisztitott viz sem igazan tiszta, pl tele van
foszforral az algak nagy oromere. Tehat nadast telepiteni jo, de ezzel
nincs kesz a dolog, valamit meg tenni kell a kifolyoval, ha lehet! Erre
nekem nincs otletem (ettol meg masoknak lehet: a "wetland" dolog igen futo
biznisz manapsag, nem tudom hogyan mondhatnank magyarul).

Szilva