Subject line: In Eugene this Saturday, Virtual Town Hall with presidential candidates

MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION

MEDIA ADVISORY FOR: CONTACT: Tyrone Barnett, booking Saturday, July 7, 2007 [email protected]

MoveOn Members in Eugene Gather for Virtual Town Hall Meeting on Climate Crisis

Local residents to watch Live Earth concerts and launch Virtual Town Hall Meeting with new video of presidential candidates talking about climate solutions

EUGENE – On Saturday, July 7, local residents will participate in MoveOn’s second Virtual Town Hall meeting. At the gatherings, called “Party for the Planet,” members will watch the presidential candidates, for the first time, discuss their plans for addressing the climate crisis. Over 1,300 events will take place around the country, sponsored by MoveOn.org Political Action.

Saturday evening’s event coincides with a series of Live Earth concerts sponsored by former Vice President Al Gore, which partygoers will watch live on TV. After they watch the presidential candidates answering questions about the climate crisis posted by MoveOn members on YouTube.

“People who participate in MoveOn's Virtual Town Hall on climate are part of the solution to a crisis that affects us all,” said former Vice President Al Gore.

“This is the first time ever voters can compare the presidential candidates’ side-by-side on the climate crisis,” said Joel Thomas, owner of Cozmic Pizza, and 17-year resident of Eugene. “The public is paying attention to the climate crisis like never before, and we will demand that our next president promise bold action on this issue.”

The “Party for the Planet” Virtual Town Hall event part of a free all day live-feed screening of the Al Gore/Live Earth worldwide concert for the climate crisis which will happen at Cozmic Pizza from 1PM-8:30PM on July 7th.

Beginning Sunday, July 8th, MoveOn members will vote for the candidate with the best plan. The results of the vote will be released on Wednesday, July 11th, 2007. Votes taken after the Virtual Town Halls do not represent an endorsement.

The first Virtual Town Hall was held in April and focused on Iraq. A third Virtual Town Hall will take place this fall on health care. MoveOn’s membership voted to make these three issues the organization’s top priorities.

In recent weeks, MoveOn gained 250,000 new members from a petition asking Congress to move toward a clean energy future—showing high energy among voters on this issue. The “Party for the Planet” is being co-sponsored by the Campaign for America's Future, the League of Conservation Voters, and the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. Saturday “Party for the Planet” Details:

Who: Residents of Eugene, members of MoveOn.org Political Action. All Ages. Everyone Welcome! What: "Party for the Planet" - watch Live Earth concert, debut video of presidential candidates talking about solutions to the global climate crisis Where: COZMIC PIZZA 8TH & CHARNELTON When: Saturday, July 7, 2007 at 6 p.m.

Hey zombies, wake up. The flood of contradictory science and experts makes you look more foolish every day.

What is at risk is not the climate but freedom http://www.ft.com/cms/s/f65e71aa-1a14-11dc-99c5-000b5df10621.html By Vaclav Klaus

Published: June 14 2007 03:00 | Last updated: June 14 2007 03:00

We are living in strange times. One exceptionally warm winter is enough - irrespective of the fact that in the course of the 20th century the global temperature increased only by 0.6 per cent - for the environmentalists and their followers to suggestradical measures to do something about the weather, and to do it right now.

In the past year, Al Gore's so-called "documentary" film was shown in cinemas worldwide, Britain's - more or less Tony Blair's - Stern report was published, the fourth report of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was put together and the Group of Eight summit announced ambitions to do something about the weather. Rational and freedom-loving people have to respond. The dictates of political correctness are strict and only one permitted truth, not for the first time in human history, is imposed on us. Everything else is denounced.

The author Michael Crichton stated it clearly: "the greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda". I feel the same way, because global warming hysteria has become a prime example of the truth versus propaganda problem. It requires courage to oppose the "established" truth, although a lot of people - including top-class scientists - see the issue of climate change entirely differently. They protest against the arrogance of those who advocate the global warming hypothesis and relate it to human activities.

As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not in communism. This ideology wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning.

The environmentalists ask for immediate political action because they do not believe in the long-term positive impact of economic growth and ignore both the technological progress that future generations will undoubtedly enjoy, and the proven fact that the higher the wealth of society, the higher is the quality of the environment. They are Malthusian pessimists.

The scientists should help us and take into consideration the political effects of their scientific opinions. They have an obligation to declare their political and value assumptions and how much they have affected their selection and interpretation of scientific evidence.

Does it make any sense to speak about warming of the Earth when we see it in the context of the evolution of our planet over hundreds of millions of years? Every child is taught at school about temperature variations, about the ice ages, about the much warmer climate in the Middle Ages. All of us have noticed that even during our life-time temperature changes occur (in both directions).

Due to advances in technology, increases in disposable wealth, the rationality of institutions and the ability of countries to organise themselves, the adaptability of human society has been radically increased. It will continue to increase and will solve any potential consequences of mild climate changes.

I agree with Professor Richard Lindzen from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who said: "future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century's developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age".

The issue of global warming is more about social than natural sciences and more about man and his freedom than about tenths of a degree Celsius changes in average global temperature.

As a witness to today's worldwide debate on climate change, I suggest the following:

*Small climate changes do not demand far-reaching restrictive measures

*Any suppression of freedom and democracy should be avoided

*Instead of organising people from above, let us allow everyone to live as he wants

*Let us resist the politicisation of science and oppose the term "scientific consensus", which is always achieved only by a loud minority, never by a silent majority

*Instead of speaking about "the environment", let us be attentive to it in our personal behaviour

*Let us be humble but confident in the spontaneous evolution of human society. Let us trust its rationality and not try to slow it down or divert it in any direction

*Let us not scare ourselves with catastrophic forecasts, or use them to defend and promote irrational interventions in human lives.

The writer is president of the Czech Republic

Yawn, les aucoin and norm dicks......who cares what they think about anything? they're so over and cheney lives in the VP Mansion............

I second that image of Dick Cheney as morbid. He's the closest thing to absolute evil that I've ever seen on the world political stage.

The only thing standing between him and complete, unsolicited, unmitigated genocide are the tattered remnants of a democracy that we continue to call the United Sates Congress... and they're not doing the best job.

<h2>I did hear that his plans for Iran are having cold water poured on them by other world leaders, but then again, the rest of the world didn't much like the plan to invade Iraq, either.</h2>