Unless you are, by some remarkable turn of events, completely self-sufficient in food — which, believe me, I would dearly love to be, except that I live in a society that doesn’t want me to be — then you will have to go out and buy stuff from time to time. Today was one such time; so after walking my younger daughter to school (or, to be accurate, walking about 30 metres in front of her while she chatted to a friend) I continued slipsliding on the surface of pavements covered with just-melting ice, and eventually reached the small National Trust property where I do some wardening two or three times a week. The gate was locked due to the snow and ice being quite treacherous, so I let myself in and spent a happy 30 minutes walking around picking up the odd piece of litter, and generally enjoying the bewhitened landscape, replete with squirrels, crows, chaffinches and a slightly confused mistle thrush.

I left through the top gate, then continued my slidey walk through the town in search of a charity shop woolly hat (£1 from Cancer Research), a mug of coffee (to accompany the planning of The Unsuitablog’s next major campaign), some potatoes and onions from the corner veg shop, and various food items from the Co-op (formerly Somerfield). It was while putting the porridge oats, vinegar, butter, bread flour etc. on the conveyor belt at the till that I noticed the woman in front, dutifully packing all of her items into a range of “bags for life”, that had been bought at Tesco, Sainsburys and Marks & Spencer.

After you’ve clicked on the links in the last sentence, see if you have the same thoughts about bags as me…

See what I mean, especially that last one?

I can’t remember exactly what she was putting in the bags, but it was an awful lot, and most of it didn’t look like staple foods; more the kinds of things bought to satisfy the endless cravings brought on by a life spent in front of advert-strewn television sets. Now, I don’t want to bash this particular person: look at any supermarket queue and you will see the same thing, and far worse in the form of two-litre bottles of Coke and spring water, multi-packs of crisps, loaves and loaves of sliced bread (especially when the weather’s cold, for some reason), ready meals and prepacked meats and pre-washed vegetables and pre-peeled potatoes and pre-grated cheese, bars of chocolate, boxes of cakes…piles and piles of food in shopping carts, of which about 30% will be thrown away, and the rest gorged upon in an orgy of consumer loyalty. This is normal; perfectly normal.

And it’s fine, because it’s all neatly packed in eco-friendly reusable bags.

I really shouldn’t have to justify my diet — I don’t eat meat, eat a bit of dairy and a few eggs and have a ravenous taste for vegetables of all sorts. In short, I’m a typical healthy adult vegetarian; not a vegan, not a fruitarian, and certainly not a “pescetarian”. The last one is where it starts getting silly, because as far as I, the Vegetarian Society and Viva are concerned, if you eat fish then you aren’t a vegetarian of any sort, regardless of your reasons for eating it.

In terms of ethical hypocrisy, there are few things that sit more solidly in the realm of ethics than the decision over whether to kill something for food. If you buy a processed microwaveable beef lasagna from a supermarket, you are still responsible for the cow’s death — you can’t get away from it. What you eat is your choice, unless it imposes seriously upon others; but if you call yourself a “vegetarian” when you still eat fish, or chicken (yes, people do) then you are are being a hypocrite, and also making life a bit more difficult for real vegetarians.

Here’s an excellent story from the BBC News website, which makes all of this crystal clear.

The conversation usually goes something a bit like this:

“Yeah, I’m a vegetarian.”

“But that looks like fish you’re eating.”

“Oh yeah, I eat fish.”

Confusion, perplexity and occasionally heated debate can follow as the “vegetarian” and their interrogator cover the issue of what is an animal and whether fish feel pain. But the Vegetarian Society, which has acted as the custodian of British vegetarianism since 1847, has a simple definition.

“A vegetarian does not eat any meat, poultry, game, fish, shellfish or crustacean, or slaughter byproducts,” it says. They can make that even more pithy: “We don’t eat dead things.”

The society tackles the issue of fish-eating vegetarians with a page headed in red capitals: “VEGETARIANS DO NOT EAT FISH.”

Juliet Gellatley, director of the vegan and vegetarian group Viva, is also clear on the issue of whether fish eaters can use the term vegetarian.

“They cannot. The definition is very clear. It’s someone who doesn’t eat anything from a killed animal.

“It does cause confusion if someone who calls themselves a vegetarian goes into a restaurant and orders a prawn cocktail.”

Many of the fish-eating vegetarians will be making a dietary exception for health reasons. The government advises the consumption of at least two portions of fish a week, one of which should be oily fish. This intake is thought to help fight heart disease. Vegetarian organisations have to counter by noting that some nutritional benefits of eating oily fish can be gained from elsewhere. They recommend things like flaxseed oil and walnuts.

VARIANTS
Classic vegetarian: Eats no part of any dead animal
Vegan: Eats no animal product
Meat-avoider: Tries not to to eat meat but has occasional lapses
Meat-reducer: Is trying to eat less meat, probably for health reasons
Green eater: Avoids meat because of environmental impact

There may also be a tendency among some fish-eating vegetarians to assign a different ethical equation to the consumption of fish. It is something that is vehemently rejected by vegetarians.

“There is ample evidence in peer-reviewed scientific journals that mammals experience not just pain, but also mental suffering including fear, anticipation, foreboding, anxiety, stress, terror and trauma,” says Revd Prof Andrew Linzey, director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics and author of Why Animal Suffering Matters.

“The case for fish isn’t so strong, but scientific evidence at least shows that they experience pain and fear. Anyone who wants to avoid causing pain should give up eating fish.”

But there is a wider problem of identification.

“Fish don’t invoke the same compassionate response that a calf, lamb, piglet, or duck does,” says Ms Gellatley. “We are mammals, we relate much better to other mammals. When we see a pig in a factory farm and you can see that animal is in pain that has a very direct effect on people.”

Vegetarian escalator

And then there’s the issue of depleted fish stocks.

Fish-eating vegetarians used to have their own term – “pescetarian” – although it seems not to be in common use today. But, Ms Gellatley says, there is a rise in the use of a new term for the part-vegetarian.

“The name ‘flexitarian’ is coming into use. It’s fairly meaningless really.”

But for vegetarian activists, anybody taking on the vegetarian badge can be a positive, even if they fall short of the strict definition, says Ms Gellately, alluding to a virtual vegetarian escalator.

“People are moving along a pathway – the positive thing is that they see vegetarianism as aspirational.”

While activists might offer anecdotal evidence for trends like fish-eating vegetarianism, concrete numbers are not easy to come by.

There is a view that after a period of healthy growth in the 1990s, classic vegetarianism is now stagnant. It rose from 0.2% of the population during World War II to 1.8% in 1980, according to the consumer research company Mintel.

The firm’s most recent survey suggested 6% concurred with the statement “I am a vegetarian”. But the Food Standards Agency’s recent Public Attitudes to Food Issues survey found just 3% of the population was strictly vegetarian, and 5% partly vegetarian.

Viva cites a survey done on behalf of the Linda McCartney vegetarian food brand which suggested a figure of 10%.

Easy label

She was raised mostly as a vegetarian, but given fish for health reasons. She became an orthodox vegetarian at university but then returned to eating fish later. It’s now the only meat that she eats.

“I was brought up as a vegetarian. We were given the choice when we were young. It was all about animal rights and how animals were factory farmed. [My parents] told us the the reasons and we agreed with them.

“We were fed fish. It’s important for your brain to have oily fish [when young]. When I became a proper vegetarian I started to get quite ill and tired.”

Her objection is mainly to the way meat is produced, not to the idea of eating an animal. She uses the term “vegetarian” almost for the sake of convenience. If she is dining with people for the first time, it makes things simpler.

One of the reasons it’s so hard to assess the level of vegetarianism is because of the multiple definitions of the term.

It is clear, however, that meat-free and meat-substitute meals make up more and more of what we eat. The marketers and the activists are dealing with new groups of people, known as meat-avoiders and meat-reducers. Outside those who have a clear philosophical platform for eschewing meat, there are increasing numbers of these people, either cutting down on meat or trying not to eat it where possible, but without necessarily ever calling themselves “vegetarian”.

Mintel categorises 23% of the population as meat-reducers, people attempting to eat less meat, probably mainly for health reasons. Another factor of climate change – livestock rearing produces methane, which is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. It identifies 10% as meat-avoiders, people who plan to eat little or no meat but sometimes lapse, and who might well accept the ethical basis of vegetarianism.

“More than a quarter of people say they eat less meat than they did five years ago. There is a shifting change in the diet,” says Ms Gellatley. “A third of our membership are meat reducers.”

Many people will start by giving up red meat for health reasons, then give up white meat, and so on. Despite initially doing it for non-ethical reasons, these people can then take on the philosophical mantle, says Ms Gellatley.

But despite the health messages about certain kinds of meat, and the arguments over the amount of energy it takes to produce meat, the vast majority in the UK still eat meat. And one-fifth, according to Mintel, like to have meat every day.

No comment needed.

When the Stern Review on the economics of climate change was released in 2006, a big crowd of environmental campaigners leapt into the air and waved their arms about. This was not a form of yogic exercise, but a genuine reaction to a document that was meant to radically change the relationship between economics and environmental thinking: no longer could you consider profit margins and growth without considering the effects of climate change. The only problem was that you could still think about profit margins and economic growth – very much so, because the Stern Review was not a report designed to prevent economic growth, it was a report designed to ensure that economists took climate change into account before investing in whatever artifact of Industrial Civilization they were going to invest in.

The Stern Review was not just greenwash, it was a complete whitewash: a way of rebranding economics as a holistic way of looking at the world’s systems, including the ecological systems that we depend on for our survival. Many environmentalists found solace in this: things would get better because economists were starting to care, regardless of the fact that everything in the Stern Review was about maintaining economic growth and keeping the industrial machine ticking over.

This week, New Scientist published a comment by Nicholas Stern called “Decision Time”. I would love to reproduce it in whole here because it screams of a man desperate to maintain his environmental credentials, while clearly not having a clue what he is talking about. To save space, though, I will comment on some of the more pertinant and – quite frankly – scary things he says…

So, whereas our review recommended that atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases should be stabilised within a range of 450 to 550 parts per million of carbon dioxide-equivalent, it now seems that our target should not exceed 500 ppm. That’s if we are to keep down the risks of potentially catastrophic impacts which could result from average global temperatures rising 4 °C or more above pre-industrial levels.

This is dangerous garbage. 500ppm is close to a guarantee of runaway global warming. The only reason he is comfortable, as an economist, with this figure is that it is well within the capabilities of Industrial Civilization to — at first — level off carbon levels at this figure. The environmental impact of 500ppm is ignored (see this paper by James Hansen), as is the result of such a high concentration of carbon dioxide causing numerous positive feedbacks in the soil, oceans and permafrosts, increasing the figure to something far greater and more catastrophic.

He goes on to say that global emissions must fall to “half their 1990 level by 2050″, again denying the reality of required emissions reductions.

This requires policies and measures that remove barriers and provide incentives for technological development over three timescales.

First, action is needed to further spread existing low-carbon technologies, such as “green” household appliances. This can be done by creating carbon markets in which the price of emitting carbon reflects the potential impact of those emissions, and by introducing energy-efficiency standards to incentivise innovation, for example.

Creating a global carbon market is the primary outcome goal of the Grantham Research Institute, of which Stern is chair. The GRI is funded by billionaire investor Jeremy Grantham, whose raison d’etre is to make money quickly for very rich ($10m+) clients. Carbon markets exist to allow corporations and governments to buy their way out of reduction committments.

Second, we need more support for the development and scaling-up of technologies that could become commercially viable within the next 15 years, such as second-generation biofuels – which do not directly affect food production – and carbon capture and storage.

CCS is crucial for countries with fast-expanding economies, such as India and China, which currently rely on coal-fired power stations for growth. We need about 30 CCS demonstration projects, on a commercial scale, carried out in developed and developing countries over the next 10 years. This technology needs to spread through international and public-private collaborations.

Second generation biofuels may not directly affect food production, but they most certainly do directly affect habitat: millions of acres of switchgrass at the expense of what? For this and CCS, you only have to turn to page 30 of the same New Scientist to hear what James Lovelock thinks:

Your work on atmospheric chlorofluorocarbons led eventually to a global CFC ban that saved us from ozone-layer depletion. Do we have time to do a similar thing with carbon emissions to save ourselves from climate change?

Not a hope in hell. Most of the “green” stuff is verging on a gigantic scam. Carbon trading, with its huge government subsidies, is just what finance and industry wanted. It’s not going to do a damn thing about climate change, but it’ll make a lot of money for a lot of people and postpone the moment of reckoning.

What about work to sequester carbon dioxide?

That is a waste of time. It’s a crazy idea – and dangerous. It would take so long and use so much energy that it will not be done.

Never forget that Nicholas Stern is an economist: he was Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of the World Bank for 4 years, and has seemingly not lost his touch for pretending to care while serving the market system he so adores. When Stern speaks, he is speaking for the economy, and nothing else.

I have a lot more time for small companies than big ones; one reason is that they do not generally conform to a corporate aspiration of global dominance (although I suppose the owner might have such dreams), they exist to serve a much smaller market and therefore are far more receptive to positive change. There is no chance of a corporation ever being sustainable, but there is every chance of a small company becoming something that can potentially be sustainable: it has to get rid of the profit motive before it can actually be sustainable in any sense.

Given that, it does make me extremely frustrated, not to say angry, when a very small business that says it is making efforts to be sustainable decides to choose only one facet of sustainability, makes a really big deal of it, and ignores the bigger picture. In effect it is choosing its ethics to suit a particular image: it is greenwashing, however innocuous that may seem.

One example I came across recently (and I bet you can thing of lots of them) is a very small American retailer of baby products. I won’t name them, because they are just one of many, and there are far larger baby product retailers who do far worse things — this is just to illustrate a point. This company have, as their Unique Selling Point (USP) the use of “non-toxic” materials:

While searching for safe feeding gear, I realized how limited the information was and how few options were available. What started as a growing awareness of toxic plastics, became a mission to care for my own children and newborn nephews. A highly motivated search team grew out of my concerned family members and now we work together to find the highest quality non-toxic baby care products for our children and yours.

I then came across an item on their web site which must have been in response to the concerns of a fairly large number of people, otherwise it wouldn’t have been displayed quite so prominently. This item explained why the vast majority of their products were made in China, emphasising that the products were no less safe for that, and still remained “non toxic”. I thought about this for a bit and, basically because I realised they were digging a hole for themselves, sent them this email:

I was very interested in your statement about Chinese made products, and very disappointed indeed upon reading it. I take it from what you say, that the only factor in you stocking a product is that it is toxin free, but does that really imply that you don’t care at all about the toxins that are created in the supply chain, and the fate of the sweatshop workers in the manufacturing zones where your products are created? Are you aware of the appalling state of health amongst children whose surroundings have been blighted by the runaway expansion of industrialization in the Chinese development zones? Are you aware that 90% of China’s electricity (which makes your products) is produced using high-sulphur coal, meaning that Chinese electricity produces around 40% more carbon dioxide than American electricity and produces vast quantities of toxic ground level gas (Mexican electricity is nearly as bad, being based around coal and fuel-oil, in case you were thinking of going there for your cheap imports)?

It may seem that you can turn a blind eye by thinking “at least the end-product is safe”, but a major reason the Earth is in the perilous state it is in, is that we have learnt to conveniently ignore whatever we cannot see; globalization has made this so easy. Just keep using your “non toxic” products, so long as you forget about the people at the other end of the supply chain, dying to make them.

The response was disappointing to say the least, and underlined my concerns: they basically washed their hands of the bigger ethical concerns, blaming the USA chemical industry and globalization for everything:

While I agree with some of the statements that you’ve made about the supply chain of products made in China. It always interesting to me how much brainwashing that we employ in the US. Do you really think that the chemicals are really made overseas? Most of the toxic chemicals are actually made in the US. In fact, we are producing chemicals that have been banned by every country on the globe and can’t even export some of our products to Mexico, which most people view as a third-world country. There is zero question that a world-wide clean up in necessary and we recommend it and wholly embrace it…

Which didn’t address my concerns at all. What about slave labour? What about carbon emissions? What about China’s huge, unregulated chemical industry (does he not realise)? Sadly it comes down to that USP again: we sell “non toxic” products, that what we do, and if we have to do it at the expense of other ethical concerns then that’s not our problem!

You cannot pick and choose your ethics, however passionate you feek about something: things don’t go away if you ignore them, and often they keep getting worse.

Greenwashers don’t want to be exposed; exposure is dangerous because they no longer control the message, and if they cannot control the message then they cannot control what people think and do. My job, as the author of The Unsuitablog is to wrest control of the message from the greenwashers, and free us from the lies that are relentlessly paraded before us. In the light of truth, we are free to make our own minds up, rather than being made to see these purveyors of harm in the way they would like us to see them.

I want you to be able to do this as well: not only recognising the hypocrisy and the greenwash*, but taking part in exposing the liars for yourself. It’s not always easy, but with a bit of help we can really take them on.

Critical to the act of Exposure, however you do it, is Investigation. Without investigation you have little or nothing to back up any claims you make, nor will you be sure of the accuracy of the information you present. Investigation is also critical because it can often lead to the discovery of far worse things than you may have initially expected, giving your effort far more justification, and potentially preventing extremely destructive activities. Feel free to — like I sometimes do — have a cheap shot at your Target, but if you want to do something really worthwhile, you need to investigate.

The Target

You can take two approaches to deciding on your target: there is the ad hoc approach, which involves identifying greenwash as it happens, regardless of the source, in order to pick off the most vulnerable targets; there is also the targeted approach, based on a set number of targets that most interest you — this may be because you have a personal grudge against a company, politician etc., are interested in a particular area of study, or because the target is simply very worthwhile — such as a major polluter.

Once you have identified your Target, you need to check that they are greenwashing. Your instincts are very valuable, as is the nature of the Target, in telling you quickly what is up. However, if you are going to investigate further, you need to be pretty sure that the Target is, indeed, greenwashing — using this guide will be of great help in most cases.

Before you embark on the investigation, you should also have some understanding of the nature of the Target’s operations: if it is a company, public body, charity, religion or other organisation, you need to know how they operate both within their “marketplace” and internally; if an individual, then you need to know a bit about their history and their personal life. Having prior experience in the area in which they operate is extremely valuable, and will always give you a head start.

Casing The Joint

Investigating greenwash is akin to carrying out a crime, in that you are trying to do something that runs counter to the desires of the Target. Anyone with experience of carrying out nefarious activities (whether strictly legal or not) will already have a fair grounding in the activity known as “scoping” (i.e. the research process), but if you have experience in preventing such activities (e.g. as a PR professional, or a security expert) this can be equally valuable, and in some cases moreso. Even if you don’t have personal experience, though, it doesn’t rule out doing the dirty on the greenwasher: someone with sufficient nous and a set of tools (see later) will be able to get along fine, and with practice become highly adept.

The dictum “know your enemy” provides an excellent guiding principle here, and underlines the first rule of investigation, namely that you should never go into the role unprepared.

Scoping can be a long and highly drawn out process, and the level of research you carry out depends on many factors:

- How risky the exposure is likely to be to you
- How much prior experience you have
- What level of damage you wish to inflict on the Target
- How difficult the Target is likely to be to penetrate / expose
- How much time you have

I cannot tell you how much research to do and precisely what to look for — remember, it’s your investigation — but the more you do, the better your chances of success. However, if you need to get something out into the open very quickly, then you may be restricted in how much you can do, in which case try and minimise the risk to yourself.

(For more information about risk levels, read the section on Sabotaging in A Matter Of Scale.)

The Internet is your friend in the scoping process: not only can it provide you with official information about the organisation or person you are targeting, it can also give details about the best people to contact, lots of background information from third party sources (Sourcewatch being a particular favourite of mine) and may even be able to put you in touch with other people trying to achieve the same aims. Beware, though: this kind of work is often best carried out alone, and you should only reveal your true aims to people you implicitly trust.

Spend time on the Target’s website, if there is one, to get a good feel for the way it presents itself publically — this is very important for The Sting, as you will see — and, in the case of a large company or public body don’t be afraid to call up their helpdesk or customer service team just to make innocent enquiries. One very useful exercise is “follow the links” which I describe in some detail in this article — it is surprising where a bit of lateral thinking can get you.

Make plenty of notes on paper (ensuring you shred everything afterwards), along with asking rhetorical questions along the way (e.g. will I really get the information I need from that person?) to ensure you are gathering the information you need and have enough of it. Once you are confident you have enough information to allow you to ask the right questions and/or to access whichever aspects of the Target you need to, then you are ready for The Sting.

The Sting

The Sting is the process by which you verify your suspicions and, in some cases, uncover things far worse. It is entirely possible to expose greenwash without carrying out this process — by doing so you minimise personal risk — and much of the exposure on The Unsuitablog is of this nature. Scoping information is also very useful for others who wish to go further, so on its own can be very useful. However, if you want to really rock the boat you are likely to have to get information right from the horse’s mouth.

You already know who you need to speak to, what to ask, and approximately how to probe further if the opportunity presents itself, and I am assuming that most of this communication is going to be carried out by telephone and, possibly, by e-mail. You may be using other methods, but I am not going to discuss, for instance, entering premises, hacking or interception, largely because I am not in a position to take responsibility for any repercussions. The information about Sabotaging, linked to earlier,, will help if you wish to do such things.

To carry out The Sting you need, as I have said, to have done your homework; but you also need two more key things: Tools and Techniques. These are not only beneficial, but without some of them it may be impossible to get the information you need at all, and you may also put yourself at far more risk than is necessary. The second key rule of investigation is to avoid getting caught.

Tools

If you wish to present information formally, or use it for reference later, you will need to record this information. All large organisations, as a matter of course, record incoming telephone calls and do not have to state that this recording is taking place if it is for the purpose of crime prevention: as you are investigating environmental crimes, albeit not crimes as the system would necessarily judge them, you are morally justified in doing the same. If you use internet phone software then any audio capture tool will record the conversation, but remember that you will need to mask your identification (see later). For recording telephone calls, either land or cell phone, then there are a number of devices on the market, including this Sony microphone, which can be recorded to a tool like Audacity.

If using email, make sure you keep anything sent by the Target in its original format — if you convert or copy emails, you potentially lose valuable tracking information.

Because you are communicating in a two-way manner, you must always conceal your identity to avoid comebacks. By telephone this can be carried out either by using a known privacy prefix (in the UK it is 141, check with your provider for the code) or going through the main switchboard of the organisation you are calling — switchboard transfers almost always mask the caller’s number.

Obviously you should use a pseudonym during this stage, not forgetting at any point that you are operating under an assumed name! It is best to keep the same pseudonym for a while, so you get used to being referred to by that name.

When using email, never use your primary email address or give it out, unless you are doing low risk work (you need to decide if it is worth the risk): create one or more pretend accounts, either by owning your own domain, so you can create any prefix you like, e.g. fred.smith@mydomain.com, or using Hotmail or Yahoo! Don’t forget that if you are using your normal mail client, your return address may expose your identity!

If you are using public internet or telephone access, remember that your history or call information (and even the call itself) may be stored centrally. Never go beyond the scoping process if you are at work, unless you are prepared to lose your job!

Techniques

These techniques are primarily for the purpose of getting the Target to give away more than they would like to, so it goes without saying that more experience you have, the more likely you are to extract the proverbial “golden egg”. That said, there is no reason you won’t get lucky first time. Be aware, though, some of these techniques are risky, and may damage your chance of following up should you wish to.

As I said, you need to cover your tracks, so apart from the technical means, you also need to make sure that you are in control of the communication: this means using such tactics as asking for names and numbers in order to call back later; only offering your contact details (fake ones) as a last resort and having a cache of useful excuses for conducting the conversation on your terms (“I’m using someone else’s phone” or “I don’t know where I’ll be in an hour”).

Remember when I mentioned knowing about the Target’s public presentation? One important aspect of this is knowing what their audience is: for instance, if a suspect advertisement was placed in a professional journal, then you will be best playing the part of the type of professional in question — this can be very tricky; if you see a suspect product in a supermarket, then pretend you are a customer. What this does is make the recipient of the call comfortable, so that you can ask leading questions without them becoming too supicious (remember, you are recording this). If you can really act stupid then hit the Target with a killer question they may be caught unawares and give too much away.

Another useful technique is “hitting below the belt”: basically this involves talking to employees or representatives at the lowest possible level. It is sometimes said that the people who know most about an organisation are the people who work in the post room, so why not get friendly with them (just ask to speak to the Post Room from the switchboard)? You may be lucky and find a disgruntled employee who wants to dish the dirt. There is little point in going to the top: directors and senior managers are usually trained in dealing with the media, so rarely give much away; their assistants, on the other hand, could be useful.

One final technique that sometimes yields stunning results, is using the CC function on email. This has limited applications but, say for instance you send an email (from your fake mailbox) to a senior person, while CC-ing a number of other senior people in an organisation: their training will mean that they are liable to contact each other to ensure that everyone stays “on message”. If your CC list is long enough then you can bury your own address in the middle of the list, so when they click “Reply All”, you also become the recipient of that sensitive email!

In the final article of this series I will describe different ways of Exposing greenwashers, but having read this far, I strongly suspect you are already keen to get on and do some investigation yourself. Have fun, and do some damage!

(*for this article, I use “greenwash” as a generic term for all types of environmental hypocrisy and other acts of environmental harm. The information in this article is specific to greenwash investigation, but may be used for a wide variety of other investigative activities.)

A strange determination struck me while on a run this morning: it was while passing a front “garden” that had been block-paved, leaving a little space for a minuscule flower bed and, get this, a patch of grass four feet by one foot. This was not just any grass, though, it was astroturf! What could have passed through the minds of the people who laid this tiny eccentricity in front of their house:

“You know what, we’re going to have too much paving in the front, we need a bit of greenery.”

“But we need to park three cars.”

“Ok, let’s plonk down a few petunias in a tiny brick flower bed, and some astroturf.”

Maybe the conversation didn’t go exactly like that but, as I say, the thought of this made me determined not to let readers get smug about the various environmental crimes that corporations and authorities are carrying out — your own back, or front, garden is probably not that rosy either: you are probably greenwashing.

- Every time you do the recycling and you think it’s ok to generate waste, you are greenwashing.

- Every flight you take and you offset your emissions, use public transport to get to the airport or do some other act of servitude, you are greenwashing.

- Every piece of electrical equipment or furniture you buy new and then take your old one to the charity shop, or sell it second hand, you are greenwashing.

- Every car journey you take during which you decide not to use the air conditioning to save fuel, you are greenwashing.

- Every tree you plant, while putting your money in a bank that makes money out of deforestation, you are greenwashing.

- Every time you say to someone else that you care about the planet, then go on and do something environmentally irresponsible, you are greenwashing.

- Every time you do something that damages nature and then carry out some minor act in order to assuage your guilt or make you appear “green”, you are greenwashing.

I am not about to cast down every trivial act of environmental improvement, in some cases they may be useful first steps, and sometimes you don’t have a choice in this society but to do something a little damaging; but in many other cases these acts of Domestic Greenwashing simply act to attach you to the way of living that has caused the global environmental catastrophe in the first place. By making yourself feel that trivial positive actions permit major negative actions, you are assisting Industrial Civilization in its relentless grinding down of natural processes in order to fulfil a hopelessly outdated dream.

You don’t have to be part of that dream, and you don’t have to be a hypocrite. You are better than that.

A don’t really have a problem with Facebook; it’s becoming pretty ubiquitous, but so far I haven’t seen any reason to damn it to hell. It’s not trying to be something it’s not; unlike most of the other things I feature on The Unsuitablog.

I even have a couple of groups of my own; one for Green Seniors, and one for A Matter Of Scale. Feel free to join!

No, the problem I have with Facebook is the users. More specifically the users who think by sending electronic versions of natural artefacts, messages of hope and pointless games, that they are actually going to make a difference. Nothing is further from the truth.

Here is a short list of the types of messages I have had from otherwise well-meaning and nice people recently:

1 save the earth invitation : a fun and addicting game that helps support green causes. Just by joining you will be saving 10 square feet of rainforest.

(Actually it gives a bit of money to the Nature Conservancy, a friend of big business. 1 acre is 44000 square feet, so they need 4400 users to protect a single acre!)

1 tree nation invitation : Tree-Nation.com is a free online community which purpose is to plant trees to fight Climate Change. We receive the full support from the United Nation Environment Programme (UNEP).

(A project partly sponsored by Unilever, Alcan, Chaumet, Nexus and other commercial interests in order to do a bit of cheap greenwashing)

1 wildlife reserve request : Rescue endangered animal babies, send them to friends for rescue, raise them in your own Wildlife Reserve and release them into the wild, or sending mating request to breed babies!
(Meanwhile, real habitats are being destroyed as you play – and WWF are also corporate hypocrites)

1 earthkeepers invitation : Plant virtual trees and share seeds with your friends. Each tree grown to adulthood will be planted in the real world to fight deforestation, desertification, and drought.

(Looks like a great way to spend your time – how about just planting some trees? Oh, and the whole application is just an advert for a Timberland boot.)

And now I’m really sick of these apps. The best thing you can do is block the applications as soon as they get to you, and if you really want to make a difference, get out there are do something in the real world.

I threatened to do it, and I always carry through with my threats (being a good parent, ecologist and all round pain in the backside) so, with great fanfare I would like to induct John Reed into the EcoSpam Hall Of Fame¹

John Reed is Creative Director of Elevator Communications, a mainstream and not at all different (despite the claims) PR company. He started sending me spam a few weeks ago, and didn’t stop, regardless of my appeals. As a former IT Security bod, I know it’s risky responding to spam, but this guy has his picture on the website, and doesn’t hide any communication details — not your ordinary spam merchant, or so you would think.

He sends out spam pertaining to be ecologically sound. Here is a sample:

INTERVIEW: Lewis Buchner, CEO of EcoTimber, Inc. (San Rafael, California) is available to talk or meet with you.
NEWS: a new, patented, woven bamboo flooring product has just been introduced by EcoTimber. This new flooring product is significantly harder and more stable than most tropical hardwoods and can be used in residential and commercial applications.

California’s Solar Pioneer and his “Green Business”, Berkeley-style Story Notes:
Interview: Gary Gerber, Founder and President of Sun Light and Power is available to talk with you. As 2008 President of CALSEIA – the California Solar Energy Association – he can talk about the growth of the solar energy industry over the past 32 years, pending legislation, potential roadblocks to the growth of solar and the future of this industry in an age of $137 a barrel oil.

Publicly traded Carbon Sciences, Inc (Santa Barbara, CA) the developer of a breakthrough technology to transform harmful carbon
NEWS AND STORY IDEA, SUMMARY:
Publicly traded Carbon Sciences, Inc (Santa Barbara, CA) the developer of a breakthrough technology to transform harmful carbon dioxide (CO2) into high value, earth-friendly products, Monday announced that it has signed a joint research agreement with Abo University, Finland. This new technology converts CO2, a greenhouse gas, into commercially useful products and providing a technological alternative to the unknown consequences of sequestering (burying) CO2 under the land or oceans. Due to the unique geology of Finland, underground sequestration of CO2 is not an economically viable option.

And so on. The usual eco-bollocks of the highest order. When you look into the kinds of people this guy represents, then you realise that his motivation is rather suspect, to say the least:

University of Tennessee Mouse Brain Library : The MBL consists of high-resolution images and databases of brains from many genetically characterized strains of mice.

KrispyKreme! : Junk food purveyors to the working business breakfast.

Shea homes : Largest private house builder in the USA. Lots of big luxurious pads.

TAG Oil : Canadian-based petroleum company with more than 1,000,000 acres of exploration land in New Zealand.

Along with many other companies you really wouldn’t want to rub shoulders with. I’m not alone in feeling the pain of EcoSpam. Here is the slightly twee, but harmless Green Living Tips on the same subject:

Today I received my first piece of “green” spam. The subject line was “Don’t invest in gold, invest in green”. It was touting yet another miracle, totally natural and sustainably produced exotic fruit drink that would do all sorts of things for me; probably including some of the incredible and pretty much impossible physical, umm.. enhancements, that other types of spam offer .

Green spam will only increase; so be really careful when receiving unsolicited email about earth friendly products that you research whatever is being hawked thoroughly before reaching for your credit card.

(Actually, the last thing I would do when receiving spam would be to reach for my credit card — the “Delete” key will do just fine.)

A slightly more caustic response (and hooray! for that) from Intemperate Remarks:

G Ananthapadmanabhan, Executive Director of Greenpeace India is sending me spam every few days. The mails come from fake Gmail accounts like greenpeacetree@gmail.com, or from their domain IDs like tree@in.greenpeace.org or sapling@in.greenpeace.org

This a*shole wants me to plant a tree. To save the world. Before it’s too late. I understand the gravity of the situation, with evils like Global Warming, Global Prosperity, Capitalism and all running riot. Considering that such high stakes like the survival of green beetles in sub-Saharan Africa are involved, it is understandable if this jerk has given up basic decency like not spamming unknown people’s private email IDs, and joined the league of snake-oil salesmen offering oriental remedies for towering erections.

You see, this EcoSpam is just another branch in the ever-expanding world of electronic marketing. Just because it says it’s green – as you well know if you read The Unsuitablog regularly – doesn’t mean it is green. Any company wishing to sell a product for a net profit, regardless of its pedigree, is contributing to a net degradation of the global ecosystem: end of story. It may take money away from more damaging products, but it still perpetuates the market economy and takes us ever further away from the things that really matter — like having a real life.

1. Possibly to be repeated

My inbox has been overflowing with love and best wishes to the planet from all sorts of people recently — one of them is no less than Tony Blair, that great peacekeeper¹, climate saviour² and lover of human rights³ is pushing his big plan (yes, another one) to return the planet to its former health. It’s called “Breaking The Climate Deadlock” and you can read the latest report here⁴.

The e-mail from Tony (well, there were three kisses at the bottom, so it must be personal) said:

TOKYO – Tony Blair today (Friday) published the first report from the ‘Breaking the Climate Deadlock’ initiative which will set out the framework for a new global deal for a low carbon future.

Mr Blair presented Prime Minister Fukuda with a copy of the report in his role as host of the G8 summit this year. The report has been drawn together with a group of recognised climate change experts, under the direction of the former British Prime Minister. It answers a series of practical questions about how the world can move to a low carbon economy.

It identifies the actions and questions that need to be resolved by political and business leaders over the next 18 months to achieve a successful outcome to the UN climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in December 2009. The report contains a warning for the world to get on this path now or face irreversible damage and much more cost later. But the report also contains a message of optimism that success is possible and the technologies, the capabilities, the resources, and the ingenuity and entrepreneurship of people around the world exists to create a new low-carbon future.

Tony Blair said this report is all about trying to unite the scientists and experts with the political leaders and decision-makers.

Interesting. Uniting who with who? Didn’t mention “businesses” did he?

So who is running Mr Blair’s show at the moment?

Tony Blair came under heavy fire today for accepting a lucrative job with a Wall Street bank.

Mr Blair, who quit as prime minister in July, is to become a part-time adviser to JPMorgan on a salary rumoured to be at least £500,000 a year. It puts him on course to become the richest former premier in recent history.

He also revealed he expected to take a “small handful” of similar jobs with other companies in the near future.

So, between his various jobs providing expert advice about how to dodge and weave your way around the political system and negotiate great deals with foreign nations, former Prime Minister Blair is intent on saving the world. So long as it’s on his terms: like ensuring he goes everywhere by private jet…

“those wishing to book him on the international lecture circuit are routinely told that providing Mr Blair with his own airliner is a non-negotiable requirement.”

Clearly a man not prepared to budge his principles, nor one who is prepared to see others budge on theirs, considering he famously stated that he didn’t think it “realistic” that people should stop flying on holiday. A dose of realism — like perhaps the Arctic ice caps being free of ice this year; or increasing regional food shortages caused by extreme weather; or the sudden drop in the ability of tropical soils to absorb carbon dioxide — seems to be in order here. But we are talking about a man that fervantly refused to ever place the UK business lobby into an uncomfortable position, preferring instead to demonstrate the power of the free market in regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

And what a dismal failure that has been. It was bound to be — he did it because Blair is a corporate man, through-and-through. Read the report I mentioned earlier, and for which the e-mail was so lovingly sent to me, and you will see the truth:

Just as there is a large body of evidence on the risks of climate change, there is also a large body of evidence on what we can do about it. There is a growing consensus that emissions can be reduced without damaging prosperity in either the developed or developing world. Reducing emissions will require a transformation of our economies, but not giving up on growth.

And there’s the rub: protecting the planet, but not at the expense of economic growth. Continued growth, which keeps the corporations happy, so they keep offering Tony his lucrative jobs; increased “prosperity” which makes people believe they are going to get a better life, despite the definition of “prosperity” having little to do with the Declaration of Human Rights, and everything to do with the acquisition of material goods. Let’s make it clear — economic growth is NOT SUSTAINABLE. It never has been, and never will be. In order to grow an economy, you need to use resources at an increasing rate.

But let’s just duck that small issue, while there is still money to be made. Just remember, Mr Blair, your cash will be of no use to you at all when you have to scrape a living from the remnants of the planet you pretended to care about. Fancy changing your mind about economic growth?

No, thought not. Moron.

1) Need I mention Iraq? Thought not.
2) Oversaw the UK actually increasing its carbon emissions despite the rhetoric of global leadership.
3) Opposed the setting up of Collective Tribal Rights under the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights
4) From The Climate Group; more about their sponsors later.