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Newsletter of the Green Party of Ohio
Vol. II, No. 6 -- February 23, 2002
(This newsletter distributed to 2,838)
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FEATURED IN THIS ISSUE
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1) KEARNS TO INTRODUCE
IMPORTANT LEGISLATION
2) GREEN PARTY OPENS NATIONAL OFFICE IN D.C.
3) BEY ANNOUNCES RUN FOR TOLEDO CITY COUNCIL
4) GREENS BLAST BUSH
PLAN TO GUT CLEAN AIR ACT
5) POLLUTION DRYING UP RAINFALL
6)
GREEN SAYS $1 MILLION FUND-RAISER A SHOCK
7) THRON RUNNING FOR STATE
ASSEMBLY IN CALIFORNIA
8) CHAMBERLAIN RUNNING IN CA'S 19TH DISTRICT
9) ALASKA: JACOBSSON RUNS AGAIN FOR GOVERNOR
10) GREENHOUSE GASES LINKED
TO STRONGER EL NINOS
11) GREEN PARTY OF UTAH GAINS BALLOT ACCESS
12) KORTEN:
BEYOND THE GLOBAL SUICIDE ECONOMY
13) REGULATION OF TRANSGENIC PLANTS INADEQUATE
14) BOLIVIA BATTERED BY WORST STORM IN 500 YEARS
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1) KEARNS TO INTRODUCE IMPORTANT LEGISLATION
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Ballot Access News reported this month that 74th
District Republican Ohio
State Representative Merle
G. Kearns has agreed to introduce a bill soon to
let
petitioning candidates in the general election choose
a partisan label,
which would be printed on the peti-
tion and on the November ballot.
For
more information on Kearns, see:
http://www.house.state.oh.us/jsps/MemberDetails.jsp?DISTRICT=74
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2) GREEN PARTY OPENS NATIONAL OFFICE IN D.C.
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The Green Party of the United States opened its new
national office in downtown
Washington, DC on Feb. 20.
The office will represent the party in the national
media, oversee national field operations, and work on
building coalitions
in Washington, D.C. The office is
located at 1314 18th Street, NW, Lower Level,
Washington, DC 20036. Phone numbers are 202-296-7755
and 866-41GREEN (toll-free)
The Green Party
of the United States hosted the nomi-
nating convention in Denver, Colorado
in June, 2000 at
which Ralph Nader was nominated as the Green Party
candidate
for President. In November, 2001 the Federal
Election Commission recognized
the party's organization
as the national committee of the Green Party in the
United States. The Green Party of the United States
currently has affiliates
in 33 states and the District
of Columbia.
Visit
the Green Party of the United States at:
http://www.greenpartyus.org
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3) BEY ANNOUNCES RUN FOR TOLEDO CITY COUNCIL
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Green Party Candidate for District Four of Toledo
City Council, Mansour Bey,
a minister and community
activist, announced his candidacy at a news conference
Wednesday. Issues of economic justice for the central
city will be just one
of Mr. Bey's emphases in his
campaign.
However,
conflicting legal opinions have thrown into
doubt whether an election for
this seat will even be
held this year. Michael Ashford was appointed to this
position in January.
The
Toledo Blade reports that "Lucas County Prosecutor
Julia Bates says the
Ohio Constitution requires that
municipal elections be held only in odd-numbered
years.
But Barb Herring, city law director, says the constitu-
tion doesn't
address special elections, so a provision
of the city charter that allows
for the May 7 primary
election would prevail. At stake is whether Mr. Ashford
runs in 2003 as an incumbent with more than a year’s
experience and the
name recognition that brings, or in
May as a political newcomer whom the voters
don’t know well."
To
read the entire Toledo Blade article, see:
<http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artikkel?SearchID=73090323318734&Avis=
TO&Dato=20020220&Kategori=NEWS16&Lopenr=102200009&Ref=AR>
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4) GREENS BLAST BUSH PLAN TO GUT CLEAN AIR ACT
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Greens and other environmental activists oppose the
assault on New Source
Review requirements for old
power plants, and urge EPA chief Whitman to stand
up
to the polluter lobby inside the Bush Administration.
To
read Friday's national party news release, see:
http://www.greenpartyus.org/press/pr_02_22_02.html
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5) POLLUTION DRYING UP RAINFALL
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From Science News, Feb. 17, 2002:
New
satellite data shows tiny airborne particles
are changing rainfall patterns
around the world, re-
searchers said Sunday.
The
man-made particles, mostly from burning fossil
fuels, make it more difficult
for clouds to form and
less likely to rain if they do form, researchers said
at the annual meeting of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science.
Because
they block sunlight, these tiny particles
slow down evaporation from lakes
and oceans, said con-
ference participant Daniel Rosenfeld of the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem. "So they suppress clouds in
the first place,"
he said.
What's
more, he said, the particles are too small to
form the seeds of raindrops,
"so the clouds that do
form ... have a hard time to rain."
The
analysis, he said, is based on new data from a
joint American-Japanese satellite
that uses radar to
examine particles in both shallow clouds, near the
Earth's surface, and the large, high clouds that con-
tribute most of the
rainfall.
Rainfall
from even the biggest thunderclouds can be
cut in half by such pollution,
Rosenfeld said, and it
can completely stop rain from shallow clouds.
Sooner
or later, he said, the evaporated water does
come down as rain, but not where
it used to. For in-
stance, he said, the satellite data show rain that
used to fall in the tropics is being transported to
higher latitudes.
He
added the areas most affected are those with the
worst air pollution -- and
those tend to be the most
populated areas, where water is an essential resource.
Man-made
pollution also is affecting the monsoons of
Asia, according to Veerabhadran
Ramanathan, of the
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, in La Jolla, CA.
He said a low-level haze over most of the Indian Ocean
is blocking sunlight
and changing the pattern of
evaporation.
As
a result, he said, the monsoons of southeast Asia
have more rain, while the
rest of the region gets less
precipitation.
Brazilian
researcher Paulo Artaxo, of the University
of Sao Paulo, reported a similar
discovery in the
forests of Amazonia. Between the months of August and
October, when farmers burn off woodland, the haze of
particles has a dramatic
cooling effect on the ground
below.
The
cooling effect may be as much as 47 degrees
Fahrenheit, he said, enough to
interfere with evapo-
ration and cloud formation. "To have a cloud form,"
Artaxo said, "you have to have water vapor from
evaporation."
While
the environmental emphasis has been on global
warming caused by greenhouse
gases, these tiny particles
-- known as "aerosols" in scientific
jargon -- may cause
local cooling effects, said Yoram Kaufman of the NASA
Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
But
overall, he said, greenhouse gases remain the
greatest concern, because man-made
aerosols remain in
the air for only a few weeks, while gases such as
methane
can last decades.
"If
we stopped burning fossil fuels tomorrow," he
said, "the aerosols
would be gone in a week, but the
gases would be there for years."
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6) GREEN SAYS $1 MILLION FUND-RAISER A SHOCK
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From the Associated Press State & Local Wire 2/18/02:
GREEN
BAY, Wis.-- The Green Party candidate for gover-
nor says he was shocked that
people would pay $1,000
to attend a fund-raiser with President Bush while
com-
plaining they can't afford their taxes.
The
event held in Milwaukee a week ago raised nearly
$1 million for the election
campaign of Republican
Gov. Scott McCallum, organizers said.
Green
Party candidate Jim Young said he was disgusted
that people and businesses
who claim to be overtaxed
by the burdens of government and the downturn in
the
economy were willing to pay $1,000 each to be there.
"Then they
paid $10,000 for a picture with the presi-
dent," he said. "And
all of this on the heels of
McCallum trying to lay the blame of the budget
on
the municipalities."
McCallum
recently unveiled plans to deal with a
$1.1 billion budget deficit by phasing
out shared-
revenue aid for local governments.
Young
stopped in Green Bay Sunday to help the Helfen-
stein Soup Council with its
ninth annual celebration
of Justice Day. The celebration focuses on the day
before the Presidents' Day holiday, so that interests
of various grassroots
groups can be heard by elected
officials.
Young
said the response has been great since he
announced his candidacy in March.
"When
I announced my run for governor, most people
ignored it because I announced
so early," he said.
"But I had to start early in order to make up
with
time what I will lack in funds compared to other
candidates."
Young
said the key to cutting government budgets is
changing the community's priorities.
"Everyone
says make cuts, but then when you go down
the list and start suggesting things,
people say,
'Oh, no, not that,"' he said. "So where do you com-
promise then?"
The
answer, he said, is by cutting back on the
building of prisons and roads,
and by finding alter-
native funding for services, particularly those used
by larger businesses.
Visit
Jim Young's Web site at:
http://www.young4governor.org
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7) THRON RUNNING FOR STATE ASSEMBLY IN CALIFORNIA
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Green Party candidate Doug Riley Thron, a nature
photographer and political
activist, is one of eight
running for the First District State Assembly seat
in California. He is running unopposed in the Green
Party primary. His platform
stresses environmental
protection, campaign-finance reform and increased
funding for education. "Traditionally, the First
District has included
northern and western portions
of Sonoma County as well as Mendocino, Humboldt,
Lake
and Del Norte counties. But the district is expanding
this year to
include Trinity County, which is domi-
nated by Republicans. But the district
is still a
Democratic stronghold, and Green Party and independent
voters
are a strong force. A Republican has not held
the assembly seat since 1972."
Read
the entire San Francisco Chronicle article at:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/02/22/NB198139.DTL
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8) CHAMBERLAIN RUNNING IN CA'S 19TH DISTRICT
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Jo Chamberlain is a candidate for the Green Party
nomination for State Assembly
District 19 in the
March 5, 2002 Primary Election, in anticipation of
the November 5, 2002, General Election. A member of
the Green Party of San
Mateo County, Jo is an at-
large representative to the Green Party of California
Coordinating Committee, and co-chair of the Steering
Committee of the Green
Party of the United States.
She has been endorsed by Ralph Nader.
Visit
Jo's Web site at:
http://votejo.org/
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9) ALASKA: JACOBSSON RUNS AGAIN FOR GOVERNOR
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Native activist Desa Jacobsson announced her second
campaign for governor
of Alaska Monday. Jacobsson,
a former Juneau resident now living in Anchorage,
will seek the endorsement of the Green Party of
Alaska at its convention next
month in Anchorage.
She was the party's candidate in the 1998 guberna-
torial election, winning just over 3 percent of the
vote, which kept the Greens
certified as a major party.
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10) GREENHOUSE GASES LINKED TO STRONGER EL NINOS
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Rising concentrations of greenhouse gases may have
tipped the world into a
changed climate pattern,
research by two Australian government climate
scientists indicates.
For
full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-22-01.html
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11) GREEN PARTY OF UTAH GAINS BALLOT ACCESS
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The Green Party of Utah received official ballot
access Friday. Craig Axford,
Green Party candidate
for the 1st Congressional District, says more than
4,000 signatures were gathered. State law requires
that 2,000 registered voters
sign a petition to get
a party on the ballot.
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12) KORTEN: BEYOND THE GLOBAL SUICIDE ECONOMY
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The Xavier University Globalization and Global Jus-
tice Project announces
a lecture Monday, Feb. 25 at
7:30 PM in the Cintas Center Banquet Room. The
topic
of the lecture is "Beyond the Global Suicide Economy."
The speaker is David Korten, MBA, PhD, Stanford Uni-
versity. He has taught
at the Harvard Graduate Busi-
ness School and the Harvard Institute for International
Development, is formerly with USAID and the Ford Foun-
dation, and is founder
of the People-Centered Develop-
ment Forum. Mr. Korten is one of the leading
critics
of globalization. He is author of "When Corporations
Rule
the World" and "The Post-Corporate World." This
lecture is
free and open to the public.
If
you want to know more about the Cintas Center,
check the following website:
http://cintas.xu.edu/about.htm
If you need directions to the Cintas Center, check
this website:
http://cintas.xu.edu/map_directions.htm
You can get a map and directions to Cintas East
parking at this website:
http://cintas.xu.edu/images/cintas_directions.pdf
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13) REGULATION OF TRANSGENIC PLANTS INADEQUATE
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Regulations now in place to protect the public and
the environment from potential
harmful effects of
genetically engineered crops are inadequate, con-
cludes
a new review by the National Research Council.
The report, released Thursday,
says the government
must do a better job of screening these crops - both
before and after they are planted.
For
full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-22-06.html
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14) BOLIVIA BATTERED BY WORST STORM IN 500 YEARS
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A violent storm that swept through the Bolivian
capital Tuesday has claimed
48 lives police officials
said today. The storm brought the worst floods and
hailstorms in the 500 year history of the city. There
is concern that the
deadly storm and others in neigh-
boring Peru could herald another El Nino
year.
For full text
and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-20-02.html
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The views expressed in this newsletter are those
of the author or organization
noted and do not
necessarily reflect the opinions of the Green Party
of
Ohio.
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Ohio by
visiting the newsletter archives at:
http://www.ohiogreens.org/newsletters/
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Copyright
© 2002, Green Party of Ohio.
All rights reserved.
Paid for by the
Green Party of Ohio PAC (OH1066)
Gina Ficociello, Treasurer
1427 Northstar
Rd., Columbus OH 43212
Contributions to the Green Party of Ohio are not
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Green Party of Ohio
PO Box 851, Kent OH 44240
Email: secretary@ohiogreens.org
Web: http://www.ohiogreens.org