Physicians for Social Responsibility Maine ~ Peace Action Maine
NEWS RELEASE

Contact: Melissa Boyd (207) 772 6714 psr_maine [at] yahoo [dot] com
Danny Muller (207) 772 0680 info [at] peaceactionme [dot] org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: A unique conference entitled “Achieving Global Energy Security” (AGES) will be held from 8:30 to 4:00 on Friday, April 13, at the Abromson Community Education Center of the University of Southern Maine in Portland. Conference speakers and workshops will tie together the three critical issues of our time—energy policy and global warming, nuclear issues, and preemptive war strategies- with presenters having recent experience in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan.

Catherine Thomasson, national president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, traveled to Iran in March of 2007. “It is essential that we encourage our administration to pursue real negotiations without precondition as the only solution to resolve the issues (in Iran) of control of the nuclear energy process and support for a peaceful conclusion to the morass in Iraq,” she wrote in a recent letter from Iran. Ms. Thomasson will present on the Medical Consequences & Health Impacts of War, consequences she was acutely reminded of during her travels.

“If Iraq was solar based, I probably would not have gone to Iraq,” states Peter Buotte, an Augusta native and Iraq war veteran. He has been involved in organizing the AGES Conference. As an installation artist, he has helped construct the conference’s Gallery of Hope, an optimistic green thinking space, which will be the centerpiece of the AGES Conference.

Dr.Alberto Colombi, conference presenter and Director of Emergency USA, traveled to Afghanistan. Dr. Colombi was instrumental in organizing three shipments of medical supplies to support Emergency’s hospitals in Afghanistan which he visited with his wife in the summer of 2005 and to provide Ambulances and laboratory analysis equipment for Emergency’s African regional project.

Speakers are available for interviews before, during, and after the AGES Conference.

Co-sponsors of AGES also include Peace Action Maine, the University of Southern Maine Office of Environmental Sustainability, Maine Public Heath Association, Sierra Club Maine, Maine Council of Churches, Maine Veterans for Peace, and the United Nations Association of Maine.