On Sun, 4 Feb 2001, Doug Pensinger wrote:
> Alberto, This is the preamble to an online "petition" I recieved this
> from a friend. I was wondering if you knew wether or not it is valid
> (it sounds suspicious to me.) Thanks,
>
> Doug
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
>
> << Brazilian congress is now voting on a project that will reduce the
> Amazon forest to 50% of its size. The area to be deforested is 4 times
> the size of Portugal and would be mainly used for agriculture and
> pastures and for livestock... All the wood is to be sold to
> international markets in the form of woodchips, by multinational
> companies... The truth is that the soil in the Amazon forest is
> useless without the forest itself. Its quality is very acidic and the
> region is prone to constant floods. At this time more than 160.000
> square kilometers deforested with the same purpose, are abandoned and
> in the process of becoming deserts. We cannot let this happen in
> silence. Copy the text into a new email, put your complete name in the
> list below, and send to everyone you know. >>
I don't see any sort of date on it. In general, I would be suspicious of
any internet petition that didn't have some sort of deadline on it. If I
were trying to do an e-mail petition, I'd indicate the deadline before
which activity must be taken, because nothing is going to last for the
possible years that an e-mail petition might circulate.
But what I think would be more effective than a "add your name to the
bottom, pass it along, and if you're the kNth person on the list, send it
to [EMAIL PROTECTED]" would be a URL pointing to a central web page with
a small form to fill in -- that way, you get all the people who are
interested, and don't end up with 50 copies of the info on the (kN-1)th
person, assuming everything gets sent back to you. With a web page, you
can let people know the deadline (and NOT have someone delete it from the
e-mail!), and give updated information to people who are interested in the
cause. I've seen a couple of these, and have been happy with the sites.
Julia
