> ---------- Text of forwarded message ----------
> Date: 08 Sep 1993 17:45:50 -0500 (EST)
> From: RUMEN WITH A VIEW <RODE@ABRSLE.AGR.CA>
> To: ghegyes@nalusda.gov
> Subject: Re: --UCS: Small Turbines Improve (fwd)
>
> A recent posting referred to the Union of Concerned Scientists. Does anyone
> have any information on this organization ? What is their address ? How many
> members ? What percentage of their membership are actually scientists ?
I am a "lay" member of UCS, and can provide a bit of info. on the
organization. Their main office is in Cambridge, MA:
Union of Concerned Scientists
26 Church Street
Cambridge, MA 02238
(617)547-5552
In general, they are concerned about energy efficiency, renewable energy,
nuclear waste problems - environmental impact of various energy uses.
They are working to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, particularly in the
U.S. They publish books and reports, and actively lobby Congress. From
one of their recent pieces of correspondence:
"...we hardly tax the pollution from fossil fuels at all. Instead, the
federal government relies on income, capital gains, and social security
taxes to pay the bills and even to subsidize the polluters. This
encourages the use of fossil fuels, since the polluters who use them don't
have to bear their full costs."
"We recently organized a "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity", in which
over 1600 of the top scientists from seventy-one nations, including a
majority of the Nobel laureates in the sciences, joined our call to
prevent environmental castastrophe by reducing use of fossil fuels,
utilizing resources efficiently, and stabilizing population through
reducing poverty and ensuring sexual equality."
"UCS also played a major role in the negotiations on the Climate Change
Treaty at last year's Earth Summit. And we are working with scientists
from many nations through the International Network of Engineers and
Scientists for Global Responsibility."
"UCS consistently deals with the most difficult issues, the ones that do
not yield to simple solutions or disappear overnight. Our success os the
result of our long-standing credibility as well as our ability to present
the evidence in a powerful and effective fashion, involving both experts
from all the fields of science teamed with grassroots activists from
across the nation and around the world. That is how UCS has helped in
years past both to control the nuclear arms race and to reduce the threat
of nuclear power accidents."
Their Board of Directors includes several present and retired Physics
and Mechanical engineering faculty members at MIT, two Physics
faculty at Harvard and Cornell, the President of the John D. and Catherine
T. MacArthur Foundation, and the former Director General of the European
Center for Nuclear Research.
An added note:
I just found out that the editors of the Gene Exchange, a "watch-dog"
newsletter concerned with the environmental and ethical impacts
of biotechnology, have joined the UCS, and will continue producing this
publication from there. They are Jane Rissler (PhD, Plant Pathology), and
Margaret Mellon (PhD Biology, JD). Previously, they were with the
Biotechnology Policy Center at the National Wildlife Federation. So - it
appears that UCS is expanding their focus. I plan to contact them
regarding their agenda concerning biotech.
Lara Wiggert
Technical Information Assistant
Biotechnology Information Center
USDA Natl. Agricultural Library
(also B.S. Biology; MS Library Science candidate -FYI)