Comments on: Greenpeace USA Grants Kimberly-Clark Two Years Unlimited Destruction

By: dael

dael — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 16:16:34 +0000

Can they utlilze Canadian hemp for paper pulp?

This would optimize national resources of the farmers and industry way into the future.

I did a sear ch on hemp on this page and nothing came up.

Am I losing it here? OMG

[Probably because I haven't mentioned hemp, Dael. But it's definitely a way forwards on a smaller scale - we keep wiping our asses and blowing our noses with great wads of tissue, when we could easily use far less, and different things.]

By: Greenpeace surrenders to Kimberly-Clark’s sadistic validation : Green Resouces

Greenpeace surrenders to Kimberly-Clark’s sadistic validation : Green Resouces — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:46:06 +0000

[...] designs is simply hard to gulp down. Five years of objection came to nothing as it allows KC to molest the Canadian Boreal Forest at will. It won’t utter a word on the issue anymore. Now everything is [...]

By: keith

keith — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:25:34 +0000

How can you compromise about the future of an ecosystem? There are no grey areas; one route is destructive, the other is not – K-C are still destroying, that is not a compromise, it is a cop out!

And how can there be “internal division” amongst a non-existant group? I am not in the same group as Greenpeace, Sierra Club, WWF or FoE – all of them accept the lie that industrial civilization can be sustainable.

Respectfully, nonetheless,

Keith

By: walkerp

walkerp — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:54:25 +0000

Sometimes you just have to compromise. The two parties were negotiating. I’m sure there are many people at K-C (and in the forest industry) who are very unhappy with the concessions they gave as well.

I think it’s important to keep everyone’s toes to the fire on these issues, but at the same time, you should also recognize pragmatic success and respect it. Applaud the K-C agreement, applaud Greenpeace and the get right back into the fight.

Now is not a time for internal division among the vast spectrum of people who care about the planet.

By: Greenwash Of The Week: The Greenpeace And Kimberly-Clark Partnership. | The Good Human

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:31:18 +0000

[...] friend Keith from The Unsuitablog, has this to say: Go to the Kleercut web site and the banner says, “Case Closed!” But hang on! [...]

By: Carlo

Carlo — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:24:04 +0000

All comments I read above about Greenpeace are as Greenpeace was the Government of Canada whose task is to look for a compromise among stakeholders and be compliant with democratic principles that require that such a compromise considers even unlogical and urational “needs” if those are shared by a significant part of voters.
Greenpeace is a free association that tipically asks for support presenting itself as a no-compromise knight in defense of nature.
I supported Greenpeace and I feel betraied.
Why should one look for a compromise to save an old-growth forest in the country that has probably the highest per-capita extension of forest in the world, millions of hectars of cheap degraded forests where to expand production forestry whithout ANY need to mortally wound the largest extension of primary boreal forest, and a very high standard of life with NO need for
sacrifying a natural juwel for cleaning asses? If this happens in front of who has no moral, humanitarian, social, economic justification, is like to renounce to ALL actions in defense of the environment. Can you find all around the world a brighter example of unuseful envirnmental degradation for which a compromise was less justified?

[Thanks, Carlo, your English is better than my Italian, and I completely agree ]

By: Arturo Velez

Arturo Velez — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:56:40 +0000

Great work, Keith!
KC Mexico was producing a lot of cellulose pulp from sugarcane. Since sugarcane producers were “very political” (defenders of their rights), production lowered to less than 40% of the plant capacity. KC sold all their plants in MX a few years ago.

**
Agave fibers contain up to 78% cellulose (trees contain around 50%). One hectare of agave produces 4X more cellulose than the fastest growing eucalyptus (500 tonnes of biomass per hectare per year!!).
Agave thrives in semiarid marginal land, needs no watering, nor agrochemicals.
Tens of biofuels and bioproducts can be derived from agave. It is the ideal feedstock for a biorefinery where electricity, biofuiels and bioproducts are produced.
I am developing a project to produce biocoal for electricity generating facilities (to mitigate GHG emissions) and sell it at a lower price than coal, around forty US dollars per tonne, to make it attractive to the market.
Best!
Arturo

By: Juliette

Juliette — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:31:11 +0000

Keith,
I almost never put my Greenpeace address for the simple reason that I like to keep it spam free. I am no idiot and perfectly knew that my IP address was traceable.
I write that I am a greenpeace employee when stating opinion, not facts – all I did here was answering your points with facts, and as David pointed out, I did not think it would have changed those facts in any way. I apologize if anyone feels played, it was not my intention.

By: keith

keith — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 10:39:30 +0000

Thanks, Darby. Have tidied up the link so it works better.

David, I understand your sentiment, but disagree with two key points: first, that we have to use tissues to blow our noses (I have always used handkerchiefs); second, and more important, that ANY change in practice has to be good. Elsewhere on The Unsuitablog I talk about the *motivation* behind change being the most important thing: in the case of K-C, the motivation is commercial, both in terms of appearing to be green while only making fairly symbolic changes in their sourcing policy, and also manipulating Greenpeace’s naiveté in order to get some pretty amazing PR. There is nothing to suggest K-C have changed their modus operandi; and why should they? They are a huge corporation that exists to make money for shareholders.

BTW, it *does* matter that Juliette is a Greenpeace employee, because she left (whether this was intentional or not, I don’t know) a gmail address rather than being open about the office from which she was posting; this is a tactic (intentional) that K-C themselves have adopted to try and make out that the general public support their position. Corporations routinely ask their staff to contribute to blogs and write letters as members of the public.

By: Darby

Darby — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 23:24:07 +0000

thanks, Keith. here are some more thoughts on this:

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/ahershkowitz/kimberlyclarks_products_remain.html

quote from the blog linked above:

“Kimberly-Clark’s new policy is to ensure that 40 percent of its North American fiber is either recycled or certified by FSC, but in order for Kimberly Clark products to be environmentally preferable, the company needs to announce meaningful targets for increasing recycled and post-consumer recycled fiber in their products. The current policy does not guarantee that Kimberly-Clark will in fact increase recycled content in any of its at-home products, most of which do not currently contain any recycled content at all….The most sustainable tissue products are the ones with the highest possible levels of postconsumer recycled content.”