Despite being nearly two years old, this is an excellent article about the lengths oil companies (and not just ExxonMobil) will go to keep people buying oil.

Original link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at0T7Fi5l_I

The new ExxonMobil advertising campaign purports to care about its impact on the global environment, yet ExxonMobil continues to lobby hard in order to continue its wantonly destructive activities, while coating it all in a green sheen that people are still being fooled by. If an oil company says it is concerned about the environment, then ask yourslef, “Why is it still pumping oil, then?”

Simple answer: Because it is greenwashing.

United Biscuits are a big snack company: they are worth at least two billion US dollars, and have huge market chare in north west Europe. According to their web site:

UB owns three of the top selling five biscuit brands in the UK. McVitie’s is among the best-known brands in the UK and McVitie’s biscuits are purchased by 85% of UK households. The addition of Jacob’s brands increases UK biscuit market share to 33%.

UB is the leading manufacturer and marketer of biscuits in UK and second in France, Netherlands and Belgium. UB is number two in the UK branded savoury snacks and crisps market.

This information is repeated verbatim on the Roundtable For Sustainable Palm Oil’s web site, for United Biscuits are a member. We met the RSPO on The Unsuitablog a few weeks ago, when it became clear that they were nothing more than an industry talking shop designed to make people think that something was being done about the extraordinary amount of destruction taking place in south east Asia just to provide food oil and feedstock for biofuels.

United Biscuits were happy to talk to me over the phone for a while. I wanted to find out if I could eat McVities biscuits without contributing to deforestation. The answer was pretty clear, and I can say this without fear of comeback:

All McVities biscuits are likely to contain palm oil derived from non-sustainable sources.

Given that United Biscuits have been pushing hard to remove hydrogenated vegetable oils from their products – so that people who can’t stop eating crisps, biscuits and cookies can keep eating them without risking a coronary — UB must be using a huge amount of palm oil instead. But they wont tell me — in fact they have cut off communications. Here is the initial e-mail I received from their head of communications, Bob Brightwell:

Keith

We spoke earlier in the week re palm oil and I mentioned that we were working on a new statement that I hoped to let you have at the end of this week.

Unfortunately it is not yet ready and will probably take a week or two as we continue to explore sourcing options.  On the positive side I mentioned that we had already achieved a 17% reduction in the amount of palm oil we use since 2005.  As I recall you were not that impressed and said that you would have preferred a 70% saving.  Well I am pleased to confirm that with the plans we have in place we expect to more than double our 17% saving by next year so will be more than half way to your 70% goal!

Have a good weekend

Bob Brightwell
United Biscuits
Hayes Park
0208 234 5104

Realising that I couldn’t judge their progress without some meaningful figures — after all, a million tonnes (or whatever) of palm oil minus 17% is still a hell of a lot of palm oil — I asked for clarification…

Dear Bob

Thanks for the update. I have just realised, however, that the percentage figure is meaningless without an indication of the volume of palm oil actually used. A 17 or 35 percent reduction for UB could equate to the total consumption for a small nation. Could you please provide me with the gross volumes for McVities and UB overall for 2005 and subsequent years, along with the projected consumption figures?

Kind regards

Keith Farnish

And there it stopped. Four weeks later, I am still waiting for (a) a response and (b) the palm oil statement that was meant to be ready in a week. The statement hasn’t appeared on their web site, nor has it appeared in the press. Clearly UB don’t have a clue how to get themselves out of the destructive mess they have got themselves in to, but are trying to hide behind silence for fear of revealing the truth about their contribution to deforestation.

I eagerly await a response from them…

Questioning and exposing the greenwashing activities of corporations, in particular, is something that the seasoned cynic makes light of; but sometimes our job is made more difficult, not so much by the quality of the greenwashing being used, but by the sheer weight of apparent “public” opinion supporting the views of the corporations.

For many years, corporations employed IT-savvy PR companies specifically to post items on newsgroups, chatrooms and bulletin boards, putting a positive spin on whatever company line was being trotted out. Much of this was simple global warming sceptic fare, the kind you still see repeated (usually using stock phrases, uncannily similar IP address ranges and men full of straw) in the comment lists of blogs and newspaper web sites.

But corporations don’t stop at that — they have plenty of money, markets to crack and worlds (well, one world) to change. This is why the Astroturf was born. Astroturf is the green plastic stuff that is made of nylon but looks a bit like grass; but it’s still synthetic, still articificial, and no sane person would think of laying it in their front garden if they wanted a lush, natural lawn. From a distance, though, astroturf can look pretty convincing, and an Astroturf can look just like a genuine grassroots organization if you don’t look that carefully.

Jim Hoggan, founder of DeSmogBlog wrote a good case study of the Astroturf, Friends of Science, in which he explains how they function:

We have an organization that presents itself as grassroots while concealing its corporate connections. We have an overlapping group of experts who have proved themselves willing to take money from one of the most compromised industries in the world (tobacco), as well as from big oil. We have “scientists” who publish almost nothing in the peer-reviewed press, but who contribute frequently to the nation’s opinion pages and who conduct barnstorming tours of the country, urging everyone from newspaper editors to groups of retirees to fight against good climate change policy.

In a previous Unsuitablog article, I introduced a game called “Follow the Links”, explaining how, with just one link to follow, it is possible to open up a whole web of misrepresentation, self-interest and outright denial from just a single individual or group. PRWatch have an ongoing roll of such groups and webs — I recommend you keep an eye on their pages.

---

How To Spot An Astroturf 

You can easily spot Astroturfs by just checking for two or more of the following:

1.  Are they making claims that fly in the face of orthodoxy, and would corporations benefit financially from these claims being true?

2.  Does the web site look extremely professional, slick and “corporate”, yet does not display name any specific corporations as sponsors or backers?

3.  Does the web site / information pack use “false authority”, with corporate-type logos, formal high-level job titles (President, Vice-President), quotes from well-known authority figures and other ways of pumping up its immediate credibility?

4. Is the name composed of a feel-good and/or geographical part, and an “institutional” part like “Foundation”, “Institute”, “Trust” or “Centre / Center”, e.g. Coalition for Clean Coal, American Choice Foundation, Clear Air Trust?

5.  Do the people in the Advisory or VP roles work for other Astroturfs or groups with similar roles, or have they been exposed recently as being funded by corporations?

6.  When you contact the group, do you have difficulty speaking directly to the authors of articles / opinion pieces in a technical manner; do they have to get someone to make a statement, or arrange a specific interview slot?

7.  Has the group’s entry on Wikipedia been edited by a corporation — you can find out by using the Wiki Scanner?

Other information that you may be able to find out, but not without some effort:

8.  Is the group run by a skeleton staff, despite appearing to be a large organization?

9.  Does the web site / mail server use the same IP address range, or the telephone system use the same number range as that of a known corporation?

10.  Is the group completely absent of genuine volunteers (as opposed to work experience positions)?

---

Once you have found an Astroturf, or a group you strongly suspect to be an Astroturf then make your findings public: make or edit an entry on Wikipedia and SourceWatch; e-mail news blogs and newspapers; add relevant comments to any blogs or articles that mention the Astroturf…make a nuisance of yourself you may be able to get them shut down!

It’s no surprise that India is becoming a hotbead of greenwashing, with the market-friendly government and some of the richest people on Earth starting to understand the power and wealth that can be gained by brainwashing a population of a billion people into the way of industrial civilization.

For alerting me to the blatant Astroturf that is the CSCCC I have Manu Sharma to thank:

Two days ago (Apr 1, 2008) Hindustan Times carried an article titled Climate change not as big a problem: report. Lest anyone should think it as an April Fool’s joke, it was a completely serious piece based on real events. Today (Apr 3, 2008), the same correspondent published a report titled: ‘Sun too causes global warming.’

Both articles are highly misleading, contain factual inaccuracies and at the very least deliberately hide widely known facts that counter its argument to paint a biased picture. In the following paragraphs, I will attempt to highlight the key issues raised by each of the stories.

Climate change not as big a problem: report [1]
by Chetan Chauhan | Page 14, HT New Delhi, Apr 1, 2008 | 353 words

Opening excerpt:

“An international civil society report has debunked the claims of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, saying there is no evidence available to show loss of human life directly due to climate change.
The report of the Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change [CSCCC], to be released in India on Tuesday, says there is no evidence to suggest climate change has caused an increase in diseases.”

Highly Misleading

By pitting CSCCC directly against IPCC, the article creates the impression that both organisations are of similar stature. Nothing could be further from the truth. IPCC is a Noble prize winning United Nations body made up of hundreds of scientists and governmental representatives while CSCCC is merely a coalition of so-called global “think tanks” - corporate lobbyists funded by big oil corporations, the likes of ExxonMobil, to further their interests.

The HT article makes no mention of the background of CSCCC - who comprises the coalition and how are they funded. Unlike IPCC, which was formed two decades ago, CSCCC was only organised a little more than an year back [4] by International Policy Network (IPN) which is a well known recipient of Exxon funding. IPN has received $390,000 from Exxon. Several other members of the coalition have also been a beneficiary.

Paul Reiter, the expert cited in the article, for example, sits on the “Scientific and Economic Advisory Council” of an organization called the “Annapolis Centre.” What is Annapolis Centre? It’s a US based “think tank” that has pocketed $793,575 from ExxonMobil and has been very active in playing down the human contribution to global warming.

Reiter doesn’t have anything too substantiative in his research papers published in scientific peer reviewed journals to back his claims of lack of relationship between disease and climate change. It’s unclear how many other claims of CSCCC report are backed by research in peer reviewed journals.

Yet, here’s a newspaper that reaches out to a country of one billion, publishing unsubstantiated “research” of corporate lobbyists that have a direct financial interest in sensationalising their so-called findings; and pits them against a neutral, highly conservative group of scientists and government representatives whose work is completely based on pure scientific research published in peer-reviewed journals…

I strongly recommend you read the rest of this well-researched article here.

Astroturfs are not new, of course, and they are such powerful tools of business that I have a separate category for them on The Unsuitablog. The CSCC is notable, though, for purporting to be a truly international body, representative of “46 member organisations from 35 countries”. When you did down a little you find that these “46 member organisations” are also astroturfs or even more obvious corporate lobby bodies, making the CSCCC a Super Astroturf.

---

Time For A Game 

There’s a fun game you can play, trying to find out why they are members of CSCCC — it’s called “follow the links“.

I picked the very first body on the list, the Alabama Policy Institute.

Go to http://www.alabamapolicy.org/ for the main site, then click on “About Us“. Nothing particularly exciting, except some stuff about wanting to bring religion into politics. Click on “Press and Media” instead, to find out that their President is Gary Palmer. Click on his biography and you find:

“Gary co-founded the Alabama Policy Institute, formerly known as the Alabama Family Alliance, in 1989. Gary was previously employed by Rust International in cost analysis, and prior to that with Combustion Engineering in the environmental systems division.”

A man of business clearly, and also someone who is very fond of religious censorship. But Gary isn’t our main man, it is Vice President Michael Ciamarra :

“a widely published columnist and a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council’s National Task Force on Tax Policy and The Heritage Foundation Resource Bank. He is an advisor to the National Center for Health Transformation.”

Let’s go to the American Legislative Exchange Council at http://www.alec.org. Here you will find, under ALEC Initiative > Internation Relations :

“Free trade is central to ALEC’s vision of the way nation states should relate to each other. In order to fully realize a broad and deep free market that reaches across the Atlantic, we need to mobilize strong leadership from legislators on both sides, as well as our business communities. Now, more than ever, conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic need to continue their challenge to over-taxing, over-borrowing and over-governing.”

Hmmm, wonder why preventing climate change would be a worry to ALEC then? What about the Heritage Foundation Resource Bank?

With a little digging around…bingo! Here’s a brilliant (well, crap) piece of straw man thinking:

http://theheritagefoundry.org/2008/05/19/the-polar-bears-are-coming/

And there are many more: have a look at this lot.

And finally, the National Center for Health Transformation. Take a look at their members! Clearly it’s the public whose concern is foremost in CHT’s mind — surely nothing to do with ensuring the market economy is vibrant and all powerful.

It’s a great game that all the family can play, and I think I’ll be playing it a lot more in the future.

Ever get the feeling you’ve been had? It’s an iconic quote from a punk legend, but as with all great sayings, it can be applied in many different places. This is one example: the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, an industry talking shop if ever there was one and, like the ineffectual light-green environmental groups who “fight” for changes to government policy and send out gleeful press releases whenever a corporation promises to behave itself, the RSPO are actually making things far worse than if the public were left to their own devices. Sustainable palm oil is simply snake oil in a clever diguise: it doesn’t exist and it never will do.

Here’s how it works.

1) As a group of big businesses whose primary interest is to ensure the expansion of the lucrative palm oil industry – retailers, traders, processors, growers, investors; that sort of thing — set up a shell organisation that claims it is going to make the industry “sustainable”.

2) Call in some gullible (yes, I said “gullible”) NGOs and environmentalists and say that they can have a seat on this august, influential body if they allow business to continue as before — but they will be allowed to suggest changes to the industry providing it doesn’t affect the business model.

3) Repeatedly announce to the world, through member companies such as Sainsburys and Unilever, that agreements are being reached and work is moving on swiftly to make plantations sustainable, but that we have to give them time because this is a tough job, and there are so many products that contain this oil it is just “impossible” to do this any other way.

 4) Do almost nothing for years while counting the massive profit that has been made from cheap oil being grown on recently deforested land using cheap labour.

5) After a few years say that the there are so many plantations that no more deforestation has to take place. Meanwhile the South East Asian rainforest has ceased to exist, carbon levels through wood and peat burning have boosted the greenhouse effect, and people have still not realised they have been well and truly greenwashed.

Alternatively, you could, like Meridian Foods, just take palm oil out of your products until it is sustainably produced. I’m not in the habit of promoting companies, but you have to give them credit as they didn’t even publicise the change.

The RSPO have an impressive roster of members, but it’s the board that matters, so here is their board membership, in full:

President:
Unilever : Jan Kees Vis (massive food multinational)

Vice-President I:
WWF Malaysia : Darrel Arthur Webber (NGO — history of corporate partnerships)
 
Vice-President II:
Indonesian Palm Oil Producers Association (GAPKI) : Derom Bangun (growers and producers trade body)
 
Vice-President III:
Malaysian Palm Oil Association : Mamat Salleh (growers and producers trade body)
 
Vice-President IV:
New Britain Palm Oil Limited : Simon Lord (Papua New Guinea’s largest oil palm plantation and milling operator)
 
Treasurer:
Aarhus Karlshamn UK : Ian McIntosh (Palm Oil trade “solutions” company)
 
Members:
 
Federation of Migros Cooperatives : Robert Keller
IOI Group (Malaysia/Netherlands) : Don Grubba
Cadbury Schweppes plc : Tony Lass
WWF-Indonesia : Fitrian Ardiansyah
Oxfam International : Johan Verburg
Sawit Watch : Rudy Lumuru
HSBC Bank Malaysia Berhad : Paul Norton
FELDA : Mohd Nor Kailany
Co-operative Insurance Society : Samantha Lacey

You will notice that there is only one organisation represented on the board management that has any interest in ensuring the palm oil becomes sustainable, and that organisation is one of the most business-friendly NGOs in the world. Overall, NGOs and small growers are outnumbered three to one on the board. They will always lose in voting.

Add to this their pathetic “aspirations” as a body:

RSPO is an association created by organisations carrying out their activities in and around the entire supply chain for palm oil to promote the growth and use of sustainable palm oil through co-operation within the supply chain and open dialogue with its stakeholders.

In other words, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil is an industry body that has absolutely no intention of producing or using sustainable palm oil all the time there is more profit to be made from the type that comprises 100% of all palm oil currently being produced. Clearly they also have no intention of scrapping the use of palm oil all the time it is unsustainable.

Americans for Balanced Energy Choices: it sounds sensible enough, balancing the different kinds of energy with the need to massively reduce the amount of energy consumed. Except that ABEC is doing nothing of the sort. Like the Oregon Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Heartland Institute (notice that they are all “institutes”, a nice homely monicker, but also rather close to “institution”) before it, Americans for Balanced Energy Choices is a very public front for the coal industry.

The idea of such setups is to provide a friendly face for something that is inherently unfriendly: the coal industry in the USA is responsible for 36 percent of all national carbon emissions. This has been the same since 1990, despite the headline claims that the coal industry is getting cleaner - and that is precisely why I have changed the image above from the ABEC website to read 0.0% CLEANER rather than the absurd 70% CLEANER on the original front page. You can find out more about their claim here.

Except you can’t, because they don’t justify the “70% cleaner” claim in any way: maybe it’s sulphur dioxide, maybe it’s sooty ash, maybe it’s something else - it most certainly isn’t carbon dioxide, the pollutant that really matters!

So, who are these Americans who want “balanced energy choices”. Do I have to spell it out?

AMEREN Corporation, American Electric Power, Arch Coal, Inc., Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation, Associated Electric Cooperative, Inc., Basin Electric Power Cooperative, BHP Billiton, Buckeye Industrial Mining Co., Buckeye Power, Inc.,Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., CONSOL Energy Inc., CSX Corp., Detroit Edison, Duke Energy, First Energy Corporation, Foundation Coal Corp., Hoosier Energy, Norfolk Southern Co., Peabody Energy Corp., Southern Co. , Tri-state Generation & Transmission Assn. Inc., Union Pacific Railroad, Western Farmers Electric Cooperative.

Hmmm, wonder what all of these companies have in common?

ABEC is what is known as an “Astroturf”:

Campaigns & Elections magazine defines astroturf as a “grassroots program that involves the instant manufacturing of public support for a point of view in which either uninformed activists are recruited or means of deception are used to recruit them.” Journalist William Greider has coined his own term to describe corporate grassroots organizing. He calls it “democracy for hire.”

(from Sourcewatch)

I urge you to explore these Astroturfs when you find them: you can have great fun working out what they don’t say. As for ABEC — they are downright dangerous, and deserve every bad-mouthing they get.