Thousands flood White House: e-protest gives Bush a taste of climate change
April 5, 2001 – Tens of thousands of angry citizens from all over the world have ‘flooded’ the White House with e-mails, as a part of a Friends of the Earth protest over Bush’s climbdown on the UN climate treaty, called the Kyoto Protocol. The action is stretching the Friends of the Earth e-mail server to breaking point (FoEE receives copies of all messages) and the White House server has reportedly crashed twice since Saturday, unable to process the world-wide protest. At peak times, every second an e-protest is sent.
More than 10,000 e-protests a day!
Since the start of the action last Thursday (March 29), more than 50,000 people from all continents participated, including representatives from industry, governments, churches, parliaments and NGOs. 200 persons from the European Commission were among the protesters as well as employees of BP and Shell, using their office computers. Messages came from every corner of the world, from Patagonia to Portugal, from Tasmania to Texas, from China to Costa Rica. The protest has been translated into French, German, Spanish, Russian, Japanese. More than 2000 US citizens even sent a fax to the White House.
Dr Martin Rocholl, political director at Friends of the Earth Europe: “FLOOD BUSH is not a computer-virus ! Behind it are tens of thousands of people who take the time to send their own e-mail to Bush, asking him not to let the world down in fighting global warming ñ many of them adding personal messages. We never expected such an immediate and powerful response. Within hours after our call for this action, our server, receiving the copies of the protest letters, was close to melt down. And it is still growing as people want to express their anger and persuade Bush to change his mind.”
Roda Verheyen, climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe: “The world is telling Bush that we need to act against climate change now, not later. While we still hope that President Bush will reverse his decision and join the world again in fighting global warming, the European Union must now show leadership and join with other countries to make the climate treaty work – with or without the US.”
FLOOD BUSH e-protest:
Dear President Bush,
I call on you as President of the USA not to betray the Kyoto Protocol.
The United States must live up to its commitment to the UN negotiations to prevent global warming. Sabotaging the Kyoto Protocol puts the USA into a position of environmental isolationism and makes it responsible for climate catastrophe. The US has one of the highest per capita CO2 emissions in the world. People around the world already faced with the first signs of climate change, suffering from floods and hurricanes, expect your country to be in the forefront of tackling climate change. An enormous potential of creativity, innovation and efficiency is there to be harvested once we have decided to really reduce CO2 emissions. If you fail to reverse your decision to kill the Kyoto Protocol, future generations will not forgive you. President Bush, the science is clear and the international political will is there to tackle climate change. The US must join the world in fighting global warming!
Sincerely,
Contacts:
On climate policies: Roda Verheyen, FoE Climate Campaigner: 0049 179 465 2979
On the E-mail protest: Martin Rocholl, Friends of the Earth Europe: 0032 2 542 0183 or ñ5420180
FLOOD BUSH on-line: http://www.foeeurope.org/climate
Background:
– A White House spokesman said: “The president has been unequivocal. He does not support the Kyoto treaty.” The Swedish Environment Minister described the move as “appalling and provocative”.
– Bush’s campaign for presidency was backed and financed by major US oil giants, which campaigned against the international treaty to prevent global warming.
– The US promised to cut their climate changing gases by 7% over 1990 levels before 2012 at the latest, but US emissions in fact rose by more than 10% between 1990 and 2000.
