Coca Cola Breaks Ranks, Others Run For Cover

Greenpeace Activist News Vol. 1, No. 5 11 May 2001

Coca Cola Breaks Ranks, Others Run For Cover On Climate

One month after Greenpeace sent a letter on the Kyoto Protocol to the 100 largest companies in the United States, about 20 international headquarters and a number of national subsidiaries have responded. Only one of these responders supported the Protocol: Coca Cola's Spanish subsidiary. We are now contacting Coke's headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia to clarify its position. Many of the other responses followed the lead of ExxonMobil, expressing vague concern about climate change and global warming, but then attacking the Kyoto Protocol, the only international treaty designed to cut emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change.

We have set up two action alerts at

http://cybercentre.greenpeace.org/t/s/ams/e?a=BigOil&s=blue2

and

http://cybercentre.greenpeace.org/t/s/ams/e?a=Ford&s=blue2s

that allow you to send letters to the five largest US oil companies and to Ford, which wraps itself in a green cloak but is, in fact, a major opponent of the Kyoto Protocol.

More than three thousand people and groups have downloaded a Climate Action Kit from:

http://cybercentre.greenpeace.org/t/s/collector/getMessage?i=17

If you have not done so, please download a kit today. You can find links to recent news releases and our Corporate 100 database at:

http://greenpeace.org/~climate/climatecountdown/

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STAR WARS CONFRONTATION ESCALATES

Two Greenpeace activists were arrested at the Kwajalein missile range on the Marshall Islands in the central Pacific on 7 May and given the severe sentence of one month in prison for displaying a banner opposing US President George W. Bush's Star Wars program. The arrests occurred one week after Bush announced that he was prepared to tear up a key nuclear disarmament treaty and spend at least $60 billion on the new missile system.

Please send a message to the Marshallese government protesting this severe sentence and asking the government to abandon its support for this dangerous program from:

http://cybercentre.greenpeace.org/t/s/ams/e?a=Marshalls&s=blue2s

You can read more about the arrests and the Star Wars threat at:

http://cybercentre.greenpeace.org/t/s/989422666/index_html

More than 3500 people have sent letters to US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld from:

http://cybercentre.greenpeace.org/t/s/ams/e?a=StarWars_US&s=s01

Please send a letter to Rumsfeld (and related letters to the UK and Danish prime ministers) if you have not done so all ready.

You can send your friends a Star Wars e-card from:

http://cybercentre.greenpeace.org/t/s/ecs/c?i=4

Please send this e-card to as many friends as possible.

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STOCKHOLM BIO-POISONS MEETING LOOMS

One of the few environmental treaties even the Bush administration has decided not to abandon, the Stockholm Treaty on Persistant Organic Pollutants (POPs) will be signed by 120 governments in Sweden on 21 May. Designed to phase out some of the most deadly bio-poisons, the POPs treaty must now undergo an obstacle course of ratification and implementation. Many industry interests are lying in wait to weaken and destroy the treaty when the signers return to their home countries.

Please take a moment to congratulate the national delegations on the treaty signing, and urge them to ratify and implement it as soon as possible. If you leave a message at:

http://cybercentre.greenpeace.org/t/s/collector/getMessage?i=18

we will display it to delegates at the Stockholm meeting.

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ACT BEFORE BNFL NUKES US ALL

A new British plutonium factory threatens our environment, our health and to proliferate nuclear weapons. The UK’s Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) has launched a consultation process on the operation of a plutonium reprocessing factory at Sellafield, and invites comments (from any country) on British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL)’s proposal by no later than 23 May 2001.

If you are concerned about the dumping of radioactive waste into the world's oceans from this Sellafield factory, then please send a letter to the UK government from:

http://cybercentre.greenpeace.org/t/s/ams/e?a=Sellafield&s=blue2s

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JAPANESE AND NORWEGIAN WHALING FLEETS LEAVE PORT

Over the last week, the world's last major whaling fleets left their respective ports to hunt minke, and in the case of Japan, Bryde's and sperm whales. Norway hopes to export some of the whale meat and blubber returned to Japan. Japan has allocated a quota of 160 whales to itself under a so-called "scientific" whaling program that in fact sells the valuable meat and blubber on the open market.

More than 15 thousand people have already written to the Norwegian Prime Minister to oppose the proposed exports. If you have not yet done so, please send a letter from:

http://cybercentre.greenpeace.org/t/s/ams/e?a=NorWhaleAlert&s=01

You can also send a letter to your own government (with a copy to your local Japanese embassy) asking it to oppose Japan's current whaling program and aggressive campaign to legalize commercial whaling from:

http://cybercentre.greenpeace.org/t/s/ams/e?a=JapanWhaleAlert3&s=s03

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THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST FRANKENFISH CONTINUES

On 9 May, Greenpeace, along with 60 other environment and consumer safety organizations, petitioned the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and four other US Government agencies to ban the release of genetically engineered fish into open waters. The petition follows a Greenpeace action in March that sealed off a genetic engineering research centre. A/F Protein has applied to the US FDA for permission to commercialise genetically modified salmon, which would grow 3-5 times faster than normal.

You can engineer your own virtual Frankenfish and send it to a friend to warn them about this new environmental threat, from:

http://act.greenpeace.org/ecs/s2?card_id=5&sk=fish

You can send a letter to the US FDA from:

http://cybercentre.greenpeace.org/t/s/ams/e?a=gefish&s=blue2

You can sign our appeal for GE-free seas at:

http://cybercentre.greenpeace.org/t/s/collector/getMessage?i=16

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