Mike Ferner

Mike Ferner
April/May 2002

When I was asked to speak on wind and solar and conservation alternatives and how these could help make the U.S. more secure by reducing our reliance on foreign oil, I replied that I wasn’t interested in talking about the topic directly, but would be glad to address it in a different context. I will put this very directly and simply: we don’t need more facts. We don’t need another truckload of data to convince politicians to do the right thing. What we need is the ability to govern ourselves so we can start making the kind of future we all know we want and need—one that will let us live in peace with our fellow humans, the Earth and other species.

In case you think it’s a bit bold to say we don’t need more facts, here are a few examples.

February 21 2001
Guest column
By Mike Ferner

Just exactly what were civilians doing at the controls of the nuclear submarine USS Greeneville when it sunk the Japanese fishing trawler and killed nine vocational high school students?

The official Navy inquiry has begun.

December 8, 2000
by Greg Coleridge & Mike Ferner

“Corporations should get out of politics.” A familiar quote from Ralph Nader? No.

It is BusinessWeek magazine’s recommendation in a recent cover story citing a litany of corporate abuses and warning of a backlash. For 50 years, Ohio corporations were indeed kicked out—prohibited from making any political campaign contribution.

(Signed by over 400 grassroots leaders, sent 11-17-94, never answered)

In July of 1994, the leaders of 15 of the larger environmental groups sent a mass mailing to their joint membership about the sad state of the struggle to save the biosphere.

The following letter is a challenge to those leaders by a group of other environmental leaders. It asks them to change their focus to the real problem — Corporate influence on legal systems world-wide.

173 grassroots leaders initially signed on to the letter and were then joined by about 240 more. Except for a polite reply from the Sierra Club, there has been no other response in word or deed.