From: Michael Strauss
<earthmedia@igc.org>
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2002 14:46:35 -0400
The following document contains the text of the letter that was sent this
week to president George W. Bush by a coalition of 'conservative
NGOs' in the U.S.
While the titles of those organizations signing provides some cause
for amusement, the content and implications of the message are far from
laughing matters.
It means that NGOs, businesses and trade unions who actually
support progress on sustainable de velopment can no longer take for
granted that they will have to themselves the attention of media
covering such environmental and economic negotiations. It also
makes it even more important for NGOs and others to make their message
and statements to press clearer, more concise, and more effective.
________________________________________
Michael Strauss, Director
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA ADVOCACY PROJECT
for NGOs at the 2002 Summit
211 East 51st Street, 3C tel: +1 212 355-2122
New York, N.Y. 10022 fax: +1 212 753-4804
www.earthmedia-summit.org earthmedia@igc.org
mobile in Jo'burg : + 27 083 750 8594
________________________________________
The International Media Advocacy Project is a not-for-profit project
coordinated by Earth Media in New York. Support for the IMA is provided
by public and private funders, including the Ministry of the Environment
of the Federal Republic of Germany.
The advice, analyses and materials of the IMA Project are intended solely
for the education and use of news media and not-for-profit organizations
actively working on environmental, social and economic development issues,
and on the Johannesburg Summit. They may not be used by for-profit
organizations or by primarily public relations-oriented agencies, without clear
acknowledgement and the expressed written consent of the IMA / Earth Media
==^================================================================
August 2, 2002
The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the Untied States
The White House
Washington, D. C.
Via fax
Dear President Bush,
We write to thank you and express our support for the positions you have taken
on the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. We
applaud your decision not to attend the summit in person. Although so-called
environmental groups may in the next few weeks pressure you to attend, we believe there
are good reasons not to give in to this pressure. Even more than the Earth Summit in Rio
in 1992, the Johannesburg Summit will provide a global media stage for many of the
most irresponsible and destructive elements involved in critical international economic
and environmental issues. Your presence would only help to publicize and make more
credible their various anti-freedom, anti-people, anti-globalization, and anti-Western
agendas.
We support your insistence, conveyed in the preparatory discussions leading up to
the summit by Undersecretary Dobriansky, that one of the key conditions for sustainable
development is good national governance. The sad fact is that many of the poorest
“developing” nations are not developing at all. Their people are mired in poverty and
environmental degradation largely because of oppressive and incompetent government.
The World Summit may be considered successful if it follows your lead and proposes
ways to encourage building government institutions based on the rule of law and that
respect people’s civil rights, including the right to property. In this regard, your proposal
to base new foreign aid on the recipient nation’s progress in improving its own
governance is most welcome, and we hope it will be adopted by other donor nations.
Most foreign aid over the past five decades has been wasted by incompetent and corrupt
governments, and much of it has been counter-productive because it has been used to
prop up brutal, rapacious regimes.
We also strongly support your opposition to signing new international
environmental treaties or creating new international environmental organizations at the
Johannesburg Summit. In our view, the worst possible outcome at Johannesburg would
be taking any steps towards creating a World Environmental Organization, as the
European Union has suggested. As Undersecretary Dobriansky and Assistant Secretary
Turner have argued, signing more treaties and creating more international bureaucracies
does not address the shortcomings of existing treaties and organizations.
World Bank studies have concluded that there is a direct correlation between
national prosperity and environmental quality and that environmental conditions improve
rapidly as poor nations become wealthier. What will therefore create the conditions.necessary for sustainable development is implementing policies that lead to economic
growth. This is not what entrenched international environmental interests want to hear,
and so we congratulate you for your courage in making the case for global economic
growth.
Of the specific environmental issues on the Johannesburg agenda, you have
correctly identified the lack of clean drinking water as the greatest environmental
obstacle for hundreds of millions of people around the world to achieving sustainable
development. Any progress that can be made on addressing this critical issue at the
summit will be most welcome. Conversely, the least important global environmental
issue is potential global warming, and we hope that your negotiators at Johannesburg can
keep it off the table and out of the spotlight.
We understand that there will be determined opposition at Johannesburg from the
international status quo to adopting the enlightened and progressive policies you have
proposed. We want you to know that you can count on our support for the determined
efforts you and your administration are making to change direction on these critical
global issues.
Sincerely,
Fred L. Smith, Jr.
and Myron Ebell
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Paul M. Weyrich
Coalitions for America
Grover Norquist
Americans for Tax Reform
David A. Keene
American Conservative Union
Eric Schlecht
National Taxpayers Union
Craig Rucker
Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow
Thomas P. Kilgannon
Freedom Alliance
Cathie Adams
Texas Eagle Forum.Richard Lessner
American Renewal
Steven Hayward
American Enterprise Institute
Tom DeWeese
American Policy Center
Terrence Scanlon
Capital Research Center
Kevin L. Kearns
U. S. Business and Industry Council
Allan Parker
Texas Justice Foundation
Marc Levin
Young Conservatives of Texas
Joseph L. Bast
Heartland Institute
Benjamin C. Works
SIRIUS—Strategic Issues Research Institute
David W. Almasi
Project 21
F. Patricia Callahan
American Association of Small Property Owners
Deroy Murdock
Atlas Economic Research Foundation
Dennis Avery
Center for Global Food Issues
Alan Caruba
National Anxiety Center
Chris Burger
Americans Against UN Control.Jean Bulette
Kitsap Alliance of Property Owners
Sharon Votaw
Homestead Land and Water Alliance
H. Sterling Burnett
National Center for Policy Analysis*
Jon Reisman
University of Maine at Machias*
Sherwood Barnette
Covenant Church of Pittsburgh*
Deidra D. Voigt
Keiji W. Bulette
Barry Klein
* Affiliation noted for identification purposes only.