It’s not just greenwash that gets me angry, anything that makes unqualified claims that could end up harming people or the wider environment deserves to be targeted: in this case it is a company I have already challenged on The Unsuitablog, Holland and Barrett. Not content with lying through their teeth about the pathetic efforts they are making to green themselves up, they are now claiming to be able to reduce the risk of Swine Flu.

Now bear in mind that Swine Flu may or may not become a global pandemic of monumental proportions, that an awful lot of people are scared about it (and I believe they should be to a certain extent). Also, bear in mind that H1N1 Swine Flu is the direct result of the hyper-consumer economy and the desire to produce food as cheaply as possible for the most profit. Any backlash should be directed squarely at the commercial world but, of course, not content with creating the conditions for a global catastrophe, the system that created the problem is now seeking to benefit as much as possible from it: such as Tamiflu distribution being the de facto response to any outbreaks; as opposed to the far more logical move of stopping the mass movement of workers, holidaymakers and schoolchildren to and from their respective locations. One of these measures benefits the industrial machine — one of them does not.

Guess which the world’s richest nations have chosen.

On the back of this are the various bloodsucking companies that are trying to make a fast buck from people’s perfectly rational fears of global pandemic. When I see a poster in the window of my local Holland and Barrett saying:

SWINE FLU WATCH!

SPECIAL OFFERS ON SWINE FLU PREVENTION IN STORE

NOW!

I have to wonder whether they are selling anti-viral masks, sensible transmission prevention advice, or perhaps something less than effective from their existing range of “remedies”.

Something like this:

The little I know about Echinacea could be written on the back of my hand, but I do know that it has most definitely not been shown in any objective scientic study whatsoever, to prevent Swine Flu, or any other kind of influenza, for that matter (it may help prevent the common cold, but that’s another thing entirely). But, that’s what the people in my local shop have been told to push as an influenza prevention treatment.

But it’s not just Echinacea, they also appear to be pushing Manuka Honey as a prevention remedy: again, Manuka Honey may well have certain beneficial effects for certain conditions, but as to being a way of preventing Swine Flu…no.

Now, I have no problem with non conventional remedies — I use nettle draught for hayfever and plantain for stings and bites, but when they are pushed for commercial purposes, especially by a company as large and ambitious as Holland and Barrett (owned by, not surprisingly, a giant producer of vitamins and supplements), then I see nothing but bad things on the horizon.

Are you a budding journalist who really cares about the planet?

Do you want to make a splash, while at the same time let people know how badly we are treating the Earth?

Are you a hypocrite?

Then you need to enter the Earth Journalism Awards.

Send us your Best Climate Change Reports!

Print, radio, TV and online journalists, photojournalists, bloggers from around the world are invited to participate in the Earth Journalism Awards.

Send us your best stories on climate change before September 7 2009 (12.00 pm, Paris-time, GMT+2) and win a trip to cover the Copenhagen Climate Summit!

Internews’ Earth Journalism Awards encourage high-quality local climate change coverage leading up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference, December 7-18 2009 in Copenhagen (COP15).

A total of 14 awards are now open for entry:

Seven Regional Awards on current affairs and news reporting on climate change: Eurasia, South Asia, East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East & North Africa, Latin America & the Caribbean, and North America, Europe & Australia.

Six Thematic Awards: The Negotiations Award, The Human Voices Award, The Energy Award, The Forests Award, The Climate Change and Nature Award, and The Climate Change Adaptation Award.

The 14th award - the Global Public Award - will be chosen by the public, which will be invited to vote online for the best story drawn from the winning regional and thematic awards through a social networking campaign on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

Look out for the 7th thematic award - The MTV Positive Change Award. It will be open for entry from June 22 2009 to creative youth between 18 and 28.

Winners will be flown to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen this December, where they will cover these pivotal negotiations and be honoured at a high-profile awards ceremony.

People who care about more than just winning a fancy, polluting prize, need not apply.

In case anyone wants to accuse me of laziness, for using the text from other peoples’ emails and for banging on about Earth Day again (not for no good reason, I hasten to add), I would like to say in my defence that I have to trawl through, read and delete all this damn stuff which comes squeezing its way through my internet pipe every day like lots of little green goo-soaked monsters.

So, given this effort, and how I still don’t seem to have got through to the inane fools sending me so much pseudo-green trivia and corporate PR-puff, here’s my Top 3 Crap Earth Day Emails, in approximate order of hypocrisy:

3. Coupon Sherpa : for uber-trivia - as though coupons are actually a major issue, the promotion of coupons that encourage people to buy more stuff, and iPhones, which are made by a near-slave workforce with virtually no environmental regulation

As Earth Day nears, Coupon Sherpa’s new iPhone application demonstrates how mobile coupons can reduce waste

[Fort Collins, CO] – Envision all the printed coupons you receive via newspapers, magazines and direct mail. Millions upon millions of Americans are bombarded by piles of paper coupons every week. Coupon Sherpa offers an alternative that is friendly to the environment, convenient for consumers and beneficial for retailers.

Introduced in early April, Coupon Sherpa is an iPhone application that allows shoppers to access in-store coupons on their iPhone or iPod Touch. Approved by Apple, Coupon Sherpa (www.couponsherpa.com) is available at the iPhone App Store. There are coupons to over 100 merchants on Coupon Sherpa including Finish Line, Zales Jewelers, Coldwater Creek and Jackson-Hewitt. The coupon categories include clothing, restaurants, pet supplies, sporting goods, home & garden and entertainment.

The debut of Coupon Sherpa is timely, especially since Earth Day will be celebrated on April 22. The waste created by paper coupons is substantial. According to a report by the nonprofit group ForestEthics, “mail advertisements create 51.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gases each year.” [Ed: Mail adverts do not equate to coupons, you moron!] That number is equivalent to the emissions produced by heating about 13 million houses or mowing more than 20 billion lawns.

“We know that paper coupons will not be completely replaced, but providing consumers and retailers with an outlet for mobile coupons is a positive start towards reducing the waste created by the mountains of mail we all receive,” said Luke Knowles, who created Coupon Sherpa with his brother Jesse Knowles. “In the future, an increasing amount of coupons will be presented on mobile devices, and that will be great for the environment.”

2. Kelly Ripa and Electrolux : for being an incredible mix of greenwash and hypocrisy. This is like punching someone in the face and then saying “sorry” in a really sarcastic way.

Kelly Ripa Launches Virtual Campaign To Benefit Global Green

How Green Is This! Talk show host and eco-Mom [Ed: Eco what?! More like Hyper-Consuming Mom], Kelly Ripa launched Electrolux’s newest eco-friendly washer & dryer in limited edition “Kelly Green” just in time for Earth Day and kicked off an online campaign to encourage people to renew their commitment to living green by planting a virtual flower for a friend. For every virtual flower planted at electroluxappliances.com , Electrolux will donate $1 to Global Green USA to support their healthy green schools initiatives across America.

Pass me the sick bag!

1. Lexus and Alicia Keys : for leaving me open-mouthed with astonishment at the sheer level of environmental hypocrisy, coupled with a brilliantly conceived splash of student brainwashing; all for less than the cost of a single car.

To kick off Earth Month, Lexus, the top-selling luxury automaker, and multi Grammy award-winning recording artist, Alicia Keys, will honor Los Angeles’ Thomas Jefferson High School with a $10,000 Grand Prize for its environmental achievements through the “Lexus Keys to Innovation” program. The “Lexus Keys to Innovation” program is a unique way for Lexus and Alicia Keys to recognize and reward students who have successfully implemented innovative environmental programs in their schools and communities.

Through “Lexus Keys to Innovation,” Lexus and Alicia Keys presented ten schools across the country with a $2,000 donation to support existing environmental programs. Thomas Jefferson High School’s “action plan” proposed that the $10,000 Grand Prize be used to create a native “green” space on campus for the students and faculty to utilize as an interactive educational tool.

The mission of the program is to better this South LA high school and community by bringing a much needed green space to the area which is currently dominated by [huge amounts of greenhouse gases generated by vehicles such as those produced by Lexus,] concrete, meat packing plants and factories. Additionally, the space will help to improve the air quality around the campus, and will allow students at Thomas Jefferson High School and nearby Harmony Elementary School to use the Green Space as an outdoor science lab.

The Environmental club at Thomas Jefferson High School will make this project a community effort by partnering with the local Harmony Elementary School to teach the younger members of their community the importance of taking an active role to better the environment.

During a school-wide assembly [and marketing opportunity] on April 2nd, Lexus’ vice president of marketing, Dave Nordstrom, will present the Grand Prize as well as commemorative, native Californian sapling to plant in the “green” space to Thomas Jefferson High School. As an added “thank you” to the students of Thomas Jefferson, Alicia Keys has videotaped a special message that will be played at the assembly, prior to Dave’s commemorative.

Now, will you all join me in sticking two fingers up at the winners - including our special celebrities. May they all be washed away when the tide turns…

Thanks to Plane Stupid for this article: make your feelings about the pointless, corporate-friendly symbolism of Earth Hour wherever you can.

DON’T TURN YOUR LIGHTS OFF FOR EARTH HOUR! YOU ARE NOT PART OF THE MACHINE!

Sometimes I get sent things that really piss me off. This video (and Earth Hour) is one of them. Earth Hour, for those of you who didn’t get the memo, is a coming together of lots of people who will all turn their lights off for an hour. And then turn them back on again afterwards. Or something.



Now some of us at the coal face of climate change campaigning might choose to describe such an activity as a collosal waste of time that puts forward false solutions that tell people you can stop climate change while keeping all those existing power structures, lifestyles and consumerist nonsenses going. But while we roll our eyes and try to ignore it, the organisers go and put out videos like the one above, which seem to be saying that taking direct action is less effective than sitting in the dark for an hour.

Earth Hour: The Huge Turn Off- Alanis Morissette PSA


Of course they don’t stop there: how about the idea that you can keep flying everywhere so long as you use a freshly-bought green lightbulb? Popstrel Alanis Morrisette thinks that’s the case, and no one at the Earth Hour HQ thought it a bit weird that she’s giving her message of inaction from the inside of a plane.

Don’t get me wrong: if the organisers of Earth Hour want to pretend we can solve climate change by getting “millions of people” to turn their lights off only to turn them back on again an hour later then fine. Just stop polluting the airwaves with your ill-thought out, partisan bullshit.

People aren’t listening: this is the season of supermarket voucher collecting in schools around the UK, and the exortations to “Collect! Collect! Collect!” are coming thick and fast, in every newsletter sent home with students, on every school website, and on posters liberally pasted and hung on the walls of a school near you.

I have tried my best to be analytical and instructive. The Unsuitablog published a series of three articles last year giving details about the operation of, the commercial incentives and the brainwashing imposed by such schemes. Here they are, in case you missed them:

http://thesietch.org/mysietch/keith/2008/10/13/school-supermarket-voucher-special-introduction/

http://thesietch.org/mysietch/keith/2008/10/15/school-supermarket-voucher-special-greenwashing-children/

http://thesietch.org/mysietch/keith/2008/10/17/school-supermarket-vouchers-special-winners-losers-and-fighting-back/

The schemes are back with a vengeance - most prominently the newly rebranded Tesco for Schools & Clubs and the Sainsbury Active Kids 2009 schemes: both designed to teach children and their parents that supermarkets are a force for social good, and not the commercial resource-sucking, community-killing, globalization machines that anyone who pauses for even a short moment would realise they really are.

In the last article I tried to suggest ways of stopping these schemes, and tried a number of them myself, to little effect - all except for one, which worked wonderfully!

All you need is a pair of these:

Take a look at the photo at the top of this article, paying particular attention to how the incidious banners — which provide supermarkets with wonderful free advertising on public land — are attached. Not very securely, are they?

Now, with your wire cutters to hand, pay a visit to any school which has one of these banners, preferably when it is dark, and with just four quiet snips, you can cut down this brainwashing tool, stuff it into a bag (why not use a Tesco or a Sainsbury’s one, for extra irony) and then put it in a bin a few streets away. It’s not illegal, by the way: you are doing a public service, and the banner was a “gift”, rather than part of a contractual arrangement.

Once you have done it once, then you’ll want to do it again: and maybe in a short while, we will have together, given the supermarkets a good kick in the balls, which is the least they deserve.

Oil companies want you to use their products, and despite what they may appear to say, they really want you to use oil. I will repeat this: oil companies want you to use oil. That seems obvious, but you would be forgiven for thinking otherwise - I really would forgive you.

In fact, it would be fair to say that, given the raison d’etre of any oil company is to make money from selling oil, they will consider anything that does not allow them to make a profit from selling oil as commercial suicide. Nevertheless - and this is why I would forgive you - they are doing an incredible job convincing us that they are actually benign, even beneficial, entities. The public at large are very much aware that oil companies trade in death; not only through their greenhouse gas emitting activities, but through their politically smokescreened desire to expand their global reach, whatever the environmental or social cost.

They are prepared to start wars to get oil.

They are prepared to destroy ecosystems to get oil.

They are prepared to displace humans to get oil.

They are prepared to do anything it takes to ensure that they profit from the business of extracting, refining, distributing and selling oil. But looking like a monster isn’t a good thing in these marginally more environmentally conscious days (if only from the point of view of the public), so it is vital to look and sound like the Jolly Green Giant - and the less you look like a giant at all, the more likely you are to convince us all that oil isn’t such a bad thing, and neither is economic growth, mass consumption, ceaseless driving and hyperexploitation of disappearing habitats.

We’re all in this together, aren’t we? Chevron want you to Join Them: “Will You Join Us” they plaintively ask, “we care too.”

One of the most critical environmental challenges facing the world today is reducing long-term growth in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The use of fossil fuels to meet the world’s energy needs has contributed to an increase in GHGs—mainly carbon dioxide and methane—in the earth’s atmosphere. Many think this increase is leading to climate change, with potentially adverse effects on people, economies, and the environment—from coastal flooding, to droughts, to changes in ecosystems and biodiversity. Many governments and businesses agree on the importance of addressing the risk of climate change. The challenge is to do so while still providing the energy required to meet the demands of growing populations and economies.

Time to deconstruct this statement, and see what they really think:

“One of the most critical” It is easily the most critical environmental “challenge”, and unlike almost any other change, is irreversible in the medium term due to the presence of a host of positive feedback loops. They are purposely downplaying the climate crisis because it would not pay to scare the consuming public.

“long-term growth” What about short- and medium-term growth? This is not something Chevron would want to address, because that will mean taking immediate action - they only want to appear to want to change, which is easy to do when you have long-term targets to satisfy.

“to meet the world’s energy needs” This essentially means that the need has to be met; our fundamental consumer industrial behaviour cannot change because this is commercially damaging, therefore, by inserting a baseline proposition (”the world’s energy needs”) we are presented with no possibility of fundamental change.

“Many think this increase is leading to climate change” Notice the lack of any concensus being presented: it must be made clear that there is uncertainty, rather than almost total agreement within the scientific body of evidence, for with uncertainly remains the ability to keep moving the goalposts. This is a very dangerous contention that Chevron are making; but it is no different to that of any other major corporation.

“Many governments and businesses agree” This is clever: by juxtaposing the far more sceptical governments and businesses with the scientific body of evidence, using the same phrasing, Chevron have managed to imply that governments and businesses are doing (or will do) exactly what is required to deal with climate change. The statement “Many governments and businesses agree” is actually true: it is the context that is so misleading.

“while still providing the energy required to meet the demands of growing populations and economies.” This is essentially a repeat of the opener, but in more strident terms, and with a twist: by bringing population into it, you actually reveal the “inevitability” view that corporations have to maintain. The “inevitable” growth of population and the economy is what corporations need to maintain their business, and by presenting this as a fait accompli, we are led to think there is nothing we can do about them; which is a blatant lie.

I was led to this horrible, cynical campaign by an emailer, whose comments, I think sum the campaign up rather well:

In train stations, at bus stops, online, even on our coffee cups, Chevron ads are trying to convince us that the key to ending our energy crisis is individual action. Over pictures of everyday Americans, taglines from Chevron’s “Will You Join Us” ad campaign read:

“I will leave the car at home more.”
“I will take my golf clubs out of the trunk.”
“I will replace 3 light bulbs with CFLs.”
“I will finally get a programmable thermostat.”
“I will consider buying a hybrid.”

All good ideas, certainly, but no matter how many clubs they’re carrying in their golf bags, no matter how many light bulbs they change, no matter how hard they consider that hybrid, the folks at Chevron could probably do a little more.

Like go out of business, perhaps?

It’s time for a buttock-clenchingly terrible email from a PR company who have found a brilliant way of promoting lots of companies’ products at the same time - yes they are telling the recipients of spam emails how green these products and services are! What? Are you not overcome by the exciting possibilities of this wonderful new concept? How very cynical: anyone would think you see this every day…

Dear Sir or Madam,

Green is all the talk around the globe these days, whether it’s about making green, saving green or protecting green (the earth that is). We’ve come up with a list of top websites and new technology that are must have green gadgets that save both money and the planet’s resources - for families and businesses alike. And if you’re smart enough - there’s a money game bonus that may allow for extra discretionary spending - like a family vacation at the end of the year!

Right, so that’s four uses of the word “green” in the first sentence; and who are you, anyway? And this “money game bonus” makes no sense at all - you save money and then you spend it; that makes lots of sense.

Gadget & Website Round-Up That’ll “Save Green”

What the f*** does “Save Green” mean??!!! You have just inserted a random verb in front of the word “Green” in order to…I’ve no idea, my head hurts.

#1: Don’t blink when you open your monthly bills! Reduce every one of your utility bills by 10%. Automatically save 3% on your energy bill by lowering your thermostat by one degree. You’ll never notice the difference in your house, but you will notice the difference on your bill. Change your calling plan or get rid of your landline unless it’s a must have. One upcoming gadget that will help you detect just where you need insulation is the Thermal Leak Detector from Black & Decker. It’s a small hand-held device that measures the temperature as you move along walls, floors, ceilings and so on, and tells you when there’s a drop in temperature, helping you hone in on any drafts.

First plug, for that purveyor of leaf blowers, leaf suckers, electronic wotsits and mechanical gizmos that every year we are tempted to buy and which will sit in the shed or attic for years having used them once. It’s the disposable economy, except it just fills up your own home rather than the beaches and riverbanks of India.

Now, I have a brilliant Thermal Leak Detector idea: it’s called YOUR HAND!

#2: Even Oprah’s doing it. Video chat and “virtual boardrooms” are emerging as a viable and budgetary solution for businesses families and job seekers alike, as well as other communities, (such as the deaf, students, military), and is becoming a daily routine that allows for free “face-to-face” communication that allows you to see everyone, without leaving your home! ooVoo (is a unique video communications solution as it allows up to six people to participant in the same conversation (3 people for free), offers file sharing and the ability to record video chat sessions.

Oh well, that’s it! If Oprah’s doing it then there’s no question at all that every person on Earth must do it as well. And what the hell has this got to do with “Saving Green” (or maybe it has lots to do with it, because I still have no idea what it means)

#3: Flying these days can be very expensive and damaging to our environment. Start-up, global car rental company VroomVroomVroom helps consumers go green while saving green. The site allows rates and amenity comparisons for all classes of vehicles from major car rental companies-Alamo, Avis, Budget, Enterprise, Hertz, National and Thrifty-with a lowest price guarantee. And no matter what the needs of your trip - a hybrid or compact car for better fuel efficiency, or an SUV to fit the family and your luggage– the site offsets carbon emissions for every car rented through the site, at no cost to the customer.

Yes, flying is damaging to the environment; and how precisely is this linked to car rental? You don’t say. I went to VroomVroomVroom (presumably “VroomVroom” was already taken) and what do I see on the front page? Car hire from London Heathrow Airport - way to go!

#4: Buy used gadgets. Buying a pre-owned electronic accomplishes two excellent goals. First, you help to extend the lifetime of the gadget, lowering its carbon footprint, and secondly, you save money. With the rate at which manufacturers churn out new gadgets, buying barely used gadgets in great shape is an easy task and usually is much less expensive, even for the latest gear. There are great buyback companies such as TechForward that sell refurbished electronics, and places like Craigslist and eBay are also good places to look. Of course, the manufacturers usually offer refurbished gear at reduced prices as well. You might even find what you’re seeking free of charge on networks like Freecycle.

What lovely comforting words, and she is having a go at the manufacturers who “churn out new gadgets”. Let’s go to the TechForward website: oh! They are saying “Accelerate Your Digital Lifestyle”. That’s not going to “Save Green” is it?

#5: Play a money game. Pick a quarter, a nickel or even a penny. Whenever you get that spare change, put it aside. You’ll have more money saved before you miss a dime. While, most banks will no longer count change for you, they will accept pre-rolled coins as deposits. CoinStar, on the other hand, will cash out change for you, but they have a 10% surcharge. Why not just sort and roll them yourself? Use FastSort Electric Coin Sorter and when you go to the bank, take in a bunch of coin rolls and deposit them. Over time, the device pays for itself over the amount you would lose using CoinStar.

“Oh bugger”, says Alyssa, “I forgot to send out the promos for CoinStar. How can I do it on the cheap? I know, I’ll include them in this “Green” email and maybe people won’t notice that there’s nothing green at all about them. And as a bonus, because they are in an email which is all about being green people might think CoinStar are a bit green, even though they are not.”

For more information, hi-res images or interviews with leading CEOs that are seeing a “green return” on their eco-friendly business models, please contact me at Alyssa@pjinc.net or call me at 212-629-8445.

Thanks!

Alyssa

Go on, give Alyssa a call, or send her an email, telling her how much you enjoyed reading her email.

I want you to forget about April 22, 2009. Just do whatever you normally do on that day; don’t write anything in your diary; don’t put a circle round the date on your calendar; don’t make a special effort to talk about the environment. Why should you? If you are not a hypocrite then Earth Day will mean nothing special to you because like all other days it will just be sustainable living as usual.

Alternatively - like the idiot businessman who gives up his daily aircraft commute to “respect the Earth”, but just on that one day - you could treat it as something special, a day to make huge symbolic waves that, miraculously, make no one wet, and leave no one with a long-lasting feeling that they are living lives that are not their own. If you think I’m being overly cynical, don’t forget that Earth Day 2008 was a horror story of excessive consumption on behalf of The Planet™, and it is looking like Earth Day 2009 is going to be even worse:

April 22 will mark Earth Day, an annual event celebrated around the world as the greenest of holidays. Established in 1970, it was created to call attention to the environment.

Earth Day coverage has grown exponentially over the past decade and will get substantial coverage in most media outlets — including national television, radio, newspaper, magazines, blogs, etc.

Earth Day creates an excellent opportunity for companies to promote their environmental activities and concerns to a broad base, as well as to their local community.

What will your company do for Earth Day to stand out to its base and capture the attention of its public? How will you let your customers, prospects, employees and/or shareholders know about your efforts to reduce carbon emissions, use more eco-friendly materials, reduce waste in packaging, start a recycling campaign, cut emissions, etc?

My suggestion: Don’t forget the kids. Children are Our Future.

A national research study commissioned by the National Environmental Education Training Foundation noted that children placed the environment third in a list of 10 issues behind only AIDS and kidnapping. This contrasts greatly with adults, for whom the economy, crime, and drugs are of greater concern. Children worry about long-term issues such as damage to the ozone layer and destruction of the rain forest.

Did you know that 99% of children in America today have access to environmental classes in school, and 31 states require schools to incorporate environmental concepts into virtually every subject in all grade levels?

Reach out to children. Children have influence over parents’ buying habits. as well as being an influencing force for recycling and conservation activities.

If you have a local business, work with a school district and get imprinted eco-friendly promotional items, which are educational, into the students’ hands. Try to target elementary or middle schools for best response and maximum impact.

I genuinely feel sick, reading this. I encourage you to post your own blogs, and send your own letters in about what you think of this kind of cynical, bloated marketing behaviour. Earth Day has become the perfect example of why business has no place in the future of this planet!

Environmentalists like polar bears, and it’s not hard to appreciate why: not only are they extraordinary hunters, survivors and an integral part of the polar ecosystem, they are a vital marker to indicate the impact of global warming on this ice-dependent species, and they look pretty good on campaign posters too — if that’s your kind of thing.

Coca-Coca loves polar bears, and it’s not hard to appreciate why: they are a powerful symbol of survival in a isolated environment, they make great TV and they look really funny and quirky with a bottle of carbonated soft drink stuck between their paws. Since 1993, Coca Cola have made the most of the “Aah!” factor of polar bears.

It’s no surprise that the Coca Cola Corporation have a big carbon footprint: 7.4 million tonnes in 2007, according to their own carbon disclosure, which is the same as the emissions for Honduras. Along with this they have a terrible history of extracting water illegally, or otherwise taking far more than is sustainable, along with all sorts of other unacceptable social and environmental behaviour (see this damning report by War On Want for more information).

So along come WWF Canada to take Coca Cola by the hand and lead them into a better place…except it’s not WWF who are doing the leading, despite what they would like to think. Despite WWF’s clumsy attempts to suggest that by partnering with such a nefarious corporate monster, the monster can be tamed to be a good environmental steward, and even assist with the preservation of the polar bear, Coca Cola are clearly laughing on the other side of their collective face.

Yes, what else would Coca Cola do but make some fantastic commercial capital out of this partnership — or should I say, sponsorship, because that’s what it is.

Since 1993, the Coca-Cola Company has celebrated the polar bear as a symbol of holidays and togetherness. Sadly, the polar bears are now at risk from the effects of climate change. As the Arctic warms, the sea ice is melting, limiting their abilities to successfully reproduce and feed their cubs.

Deck Your Halls…

…with exclusive polar bear downloads, plush bears, holiday ornaments, and more! There’s something for you, and everyone on your holiday list.

Buy Stuff.

Who needs irony when you have WWF?

I won’t be posting for a while because of Christmas; we have people to see, fun to have and just a few presents to give - the vast majority of them either second hand or handmade, because I really can’t bear to buy new stuff any more - when you have been writing about hypocrites for so long it becomes almost a physical impossibility to be one yourself.

It wasn’t always that way, and I am not ashamed to say that I was once a consumer; I used to do Christmas shopping with relish, and take great pleasure in wrapping and stacking all sorts of fancy new stuff under the tree, and far beyond it. It took the cathartic experience of writing an article called “The Problem With…Christmas” a couple of years ago to shake me out of the consumer mindset and realise that the “need” to shop, especially in November and December, was simply a system-led exercise in corporate brainwashing, eagerly followed by the hive mind of the Behemoth Consumer. Take a look at the illustration on Hobbes seminal (but horribly flawed) work “Leviathan”, and imagine the body politik constructed of television sets, electronic games, perfume, DVDs and kitchen gadgets and you have a fairly good impression of our new “consumer politik”.

The Emma Maersk - a 45,000 tonne container ship from China, renamed the “SS Santa” in honour of its mission - arrived in the UK on 4 November 2006, loaded with thousands of shipping containers full of toys, books and computers. A Chinese Online News service managed to obtain an oddly wistful quote from an English bystander : “It’s like a dream to see such a mountain-like ship floating on the sea, and all the more incredible to learn that the ship is bringing Europeans with Christmas made mainly in China,” which sounded more like a quotation from a Chinese Government press release. 3,000 of these containers were unloaded and the toys, books and computers distributed to warehouses and then sent out on their next leg to fill the shelves of Toys ‘?’ Us, Tesco and the mysterious back rooms of Argos. On Christmas Day 2006, carefully wrapped packages were hurriedly opened by children, teenagers and parents, their paper discarded, and the keys to temporary enjoyment revealed in all their glory.

This year I am receiving emails, urging me to advertise and to buy “eco gifts”, as though somehow our consumer frenzy can be sublimated into a kinder, more caring form of consumption — as though it makes any difference; as though, somehow, by buying “green” we become better people, while still being the rabid consumers we are continually urged to be. These people are not trying to save the planet, they are just trying to make you feel better, while the consumer machine keeps grinding away, desperate that no amount of recession, resource depletion or ecological destruction will stop it.

Dear Keith,

The holiday season is too often characterized by overconsumption and waste, rather than the spirit of giving. From conception, SpaRitual has been committed to creating eco-friendly products crafted to raise environmental awareness and cater to the conscious consumer. “As a brand, we are passionate about safeguarding the environment, reducing waste and limiting the use of non-renewable resources,” says Shel Pink, creator of the SpaRitual brand.

Therefore it is only fitting that the eco-luxury brand would gift its customers with a donation to Trees for the Future, which benefits people living on threatened lands.

With each purchase of SpaRitual products, consumers are making a choice that directly and positively benefits the planet,” Pink says. “By treating ourselves with consciousness, compassion and caring, I realized that the creation of this brand could be a vehicle for extending a larger sense of caring for each other, for our communities and for the world.

Happy Holidays from the SpaRitual Team

What can you say, given all you know about the consumer machine except:

If you’re so bothered by overconsumption at Christmas why…

a) are you sending this email advertising your products at Christmas

b) are you selling this pointless stuff that no one needs at all?

Pure hypocrisy. You don’t lose the consumption yoke by trying to make your company seem ethical - you are selling product, end of.

Keith

Have a wonderful Christmas, Yule, or whatever festival you may be celebrating at this time — and please remember, it’s not what you buy, it’s what you do that matters.