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Feb 27, 2001
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Tree huggers are at it again - Protect Your Right to Ride!!! Please sign petition for Mc Donalds right to be able to give away a Bombardier ATV, PWC & snowmobile as their grand prize. This is another issue than fans the flames in regards to banning 2-strokes.

It is located at:

http://www.petitiononline.com/MCDPWC/petition.html

Here is a news clip:

MCDONALD'S PROMOTES DEADLY MACHINERY AS TOYS IN "MONOPOLY" GAME

Groups Ask Company to Substitute Safe, Non-Polluting Alternatives for Sweepstakes Prizes

CONTACT:
Katy Rexford, Bluewater Network (415) 788-3666, ext. 157
David Orr, Living Rivers (435) 259-1063

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Friday, August 3, 2001 -- San Francisco, CA

Environmental leaders, consumer advocates, and concerned parents blasted McDonald's Food Corporation for offering as sweepstakes prizes three of the deadliest and most environmentally harmful recreation vehicles on the market today - snowmobiles, personal watercraft (PWC, or "jetskis"), and all-terrain vehicles (ATV). In a joint letter sent today to McDonald's CEO Jack Greenberg in Oak Brook, Illinois, 26 organizations called on the fast-food magnate to substitute safer and less environmentally destructive products for the company's nationwide "Monopoly" sweepstakes game.

"The McDonald's Corporation promotes itself as caring about 'safe fun for children' and protecting the environment, but the Monopoly game prizes contradict those corporate values," said Katy Rexford of Bluewater Network. "We're shocked that McDonald's would offer to children prizes that are responsible for so many injuries and deaths."

According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, ATVs alone sent more than 95,000 Americans to the emergency room in 2000; snowmobiles were responsible for more than 14,000 emergency room visits. Moreover, while PWC comprise only 10 percent of the United StatesÕ recreational boating population, they are responsible for more than 40 percent of injury accidents.

The National Park Service (NPS) recently agreed to ban PWCs from most national parks, and a subsequent federal court settlement agreement with the NPS calls for a possible ban on PWCs at all other park units, including Lake Mead and Lake Powell on the Colorado River.

"Jetskis are unsafe and contribute to the pollution of water supplies for more than 20 million people in the Colorado River alone," said David Orr of Living Rivers in Moab, Utah, a co-plaintiff with Bluewater Network on the NPS lawsuit. "While citizens struggle to protect their families and their drinking water from these destructive machines, McDonald's is busy serving them up as good, clean fun."

Not only do these motorized "thrillcraft" have abysmal safety records, they are bad for the environment. Almost exclusively powered by dirty two-stroke engines, these machines dump between 25 and 30 percent of their unburned fuel mixture directly into the water, or onto the land or snow over which they ride.

Joining Bluewater Network and Living Rivers in the letter to McDonald's were groups from Alaska to Virginia, including the Alaska Center for the Environment, American Canoe Association, Bay Area Wilderness Training, Boreal Footprint Project, California Wilderness Coalition, Campaign to Safeguard America's Waters, Center for Biological Diversity, Colorado Mountain Club, Friends of the River, International Marine Mammal Project, Minnesotans for Responsible Recreation, Montana Wilderness Association, National Parks Conservation Association, Planning and Conservation League, Public Citizen, Schubert & Associates, Sea Turtle Restoration Project, Superior Wilderness Action Network, Swan View Coalition, Wild Wilderness, Wildlands Center for Preventing Roads, Winter Wildlands Alliance, and the Yggdrasil Institute.

In their letter, the groups expressed their desire to work with Mr. Greenberg to "change the emphasis of the 'Monopoly' game from one of dangerous, disruptive, and disproportionately polluting motorized recreation to a wholly different set of values that respects the environment and promotes the 'safe fun for children' theme that McDonald's proudly proclaims."


Thanks.
 
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