As prepeared for delivery...

Ambassador Klosson's Remarks at

Opening Ceremony

for GLOBE Train-the-Trainer Workshop

Nicosia, September 23, 2002

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am privileged to join Ministers Ioannides and Themistocleous in welcoming you today to the GLOBE "Train the Trainers" workshop. 

When former United States Vice President Al Gore launhed in 1994 the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment  -- or GLOBE -- program, it was a truly visionary project.  The Internet had long been used in the scientific and academic communities.  But with the advent of the World Wide Web in the early nineties, the Internet became a medium for mass communication and information exchange.  Vice President Gore saw the immense potential of this new tool for assessing the state of our global environment.  Through the GLOBE program, he seized the opportunity to create a worldwide partnership of teachers, students and scientists working together to learn more about our environment, to strengthen education, and to help meet educational standards. 

In the words of Nobel laureate Dr. Leon Lederman, "GLOBE is the quintessentially ideal program for involving kids in science."  GLOBE is that and more.  In many respects, GLOBE represents a path-breaking, unique combination that can provide inspiration for dealing with other issues.  It establishes a partnership between science, technology, education and the next generation in an international setting to focus our energies on improving our global condition.  That is a powerful combination.

Thanks to the dedication and diligent efforts of people like all of you here today, the GLOBE program has flourished.  Its achievements are remarkable.  In less than a decade, the GLOBE program has become truly global, joining teachers and scientists with over a million students from more than 11,000 schools in over 95 countries.  Your presence today illustrates that diversity.  Among you are trainers and officials from as far a field as Bahrain, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Iceland, Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar, Turkey, UK, USA, and Yugoslavia -- a total of 13 countries. 

Your continuing support is a critical part of the international success of the GLOBE program.  World scientists have made important environmental advances because you and your students have adhered rigorously to strict scientific protocols and have posted the important environmental measurements you collect on the Internet.  It is self-evident that our efforts to improve the human condition will go for naught if we do not also care for our global environment.   Through your efforts, we are developing a wealth of environmental data that will establish invaluable benchmarks for assessing global environmental change.  This information will be critical to policy makers now and in the future. 

Cyprus, for its part, joined GLOBE on November 24, 1998, after signing a bilateral agreement with the United States.  It began implementing the program fully in November 1999.  In the last three years the GLOBE program has been expanding steadily, under the able leadership of GLOBE Country Coordinator Dr. Andreas Michaelides.  Currently, Cypriot students in 12 high schools are involved with GLOBE on a regular basis, taking environmental (atmospheric, hydrologic, biological, and other) measurements, and then reporting them on the Internet.  I look forward to the day when students in each and every school in Cyprus and each of your countries will be able to participate in this program.   

I wish to extend my warmest congratulations to the Ministry for embracing the program from the start and devoting valuable time and resources to help make it a success.  In particular, I wish to thank HE Minister Ioannides for his personal attention to this program and to Dr. Michaelides for doing such a fine job of coordinating the program on the island. 

Let me close by wishing you all, organizers and participants alike, a successful and productive workshop.