There’s no time for a review of 2009, it’s happened, we are in deeper shit than we have ever been in, but one of the very few points of light is that the term “Greenwashing” has become common currency. It’s not so easy to greenwash now without being at least identified as a hypocrite; but in all sectors of civilised society, the waves of hypocrisy continue to ensure we still implicitly trust the industrial machine as the litmus test for what is “right”.

Across the UK, as I write, snow is beautifully enveloping the land, producing a swath of picture postcard images that will stay in the minds of so many children for years to come; not to mention the slide rides downhill,the snowball fights and the snow scuptures that feed ordinary people both young and old with excitement and imagination.

For the civilised, adult world, snow is simply a barrier to economic activity: the roads must be gritted, the airports must be kept clear, the shopping malls must remain open, we must all get to work. Our growing, pulsating economy depends upon it, so snowy weather is “bad” weather.

Nothing demonstrates the priorities of this destructive culture better than the twisting of a natural, seasonal phenomenon that can imbue such joy, into a blight upon society that must be dealt with — and now! This is a message that comes directly from the press packs, policy measures and editorial regimes of the corporations, politicians and broadcasters that run Industrial Civilization.

Angry? You bet I am!

2010 was, up to a few hours ago, going to be much of the same for The Unsuitablog, but then I started writing a message to the members of the Anti Greenwashing Action Facebook Group, and realised that there was so much we, and you, could do to undermine the system that tells you how to live your lives; often under a cloak of greenery and false hope. One action a month, by every person who reads The Unsuitablog: that’s a lot of actions that could really drive some terminal nails into the coffin labelled “Hypocrites”, helping to free up the minds of a mislead and brainwashed public.

Here it starts. Very soon, the first Monthly Undermining Task will be posted. I ask, implore you, to carry out this action, and repeat it as often as you feel comfortable doing so. It will not be difficult, and I will provide different levels of risk to account for all sorts of personal situations.

In February there will be another action, and another in March, and so on. Please tell me what you have done (you can remain perfectly anonymous) and if you send me photos, recordings, links to web pages and any other evidence, then I am willing to give them pride of place on The Unsuitablog so that others will be inspired to act themselves. If you have any ideas for MUTs then let me know at news@unsuitablog.org; and also take a look at this article if you want to understand why this is so important.

In 2011 you won’t need to look back and say: “Why didn’t I do something?”

You will be able to say: “Look what I did!”

MONTHLY ACTIONS POSTED:

January 2010 : The Great TV Turn-Off
February 2010 : Time To Break The Ads
March 2010: Throwing Off The Shackles Of Debt

I wouldn’t have written this story had I not been asked to, but I was and so I have. Strangest of all, the person who asked me to write it is the subject of the story and is really angry for most of the time. Confused? I still am. Anyway, here’s the back story.

Last week I wrote an article about a company called BioFuel Africa, who took it upon themselves to plant around 38,000 hectares of jatropha in an area of Ghana replete with rich biodiversity and cultural heritage which would be irrevocably damaged in the event of such an industrial monocultural invasion.

The majority of the article quoted third party sources, primary of these being the web site of the company carrying out the plantation project. There was a little bit of opinion from myself, but as with almost all of the posts on The Unsuitablog, the bulk of it was factual information, along with a chunk of logical extrapolation. However, I did refer to the two buyers of the newly reformed company as “arseholes”, which I have now changed to “ecocidal maniacs” (I’m not going to apologise; what would you call people who want to produce vast amounts of agrofuels for profit at the expense of an ecosystem and a cultural milieu?)

A representative of the company — Ove Martin Kolnes — possibly a director, and definitely a relative (brother?) of the owner Steinar Kolnes, attempted to post a couple of rebukes after the article. My view on comments is that if I feel they are adverts, illogical rants or I simply don’t like the tone or content, then I won’t publish them. It’s my blog, it’s not a democracy (for all that is worth); if you want to say something then start your own blog. In fact, I was about to accept Ove’s comments when Mr Kolnes decided to send me an email, and not just any old email: a very offensive, very angry email.

From: “Ove Martin Kolnes” ovmko@online.no
To: keith@theearthblog.org
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 2009 17:40:37 +0100

I find your article about Bifuel Africa Ltd very disturbing. You are in public calling the founders by names and naming them “assholes” and want people to spam their E mail and fax- machine. I dont know what kind of Idiot U are, but I have left an answer that I asume U are not going to allow to your blog. I see you dont know nothing about what is going on down here you fucking wealthy piece of shit. I am really surprised by your lack of knowledge and politness, but I can not expect more from a man from the UK. I live down here, work down her, employed with Biofuel Africa. We employed over 400 poor people before assholes like you and others started putting out shit about us. Now there is a lot of people suffering, and we “white” on the ground here is trying to heal some of the damages that has been done to our employees. I dont have numbers of how many I had to pay hospital bills for from my own money to save their lifes because of the shit you have published. Well… U can sit in your middleclasshouse in UK and fuck your nice wife and tell your nice little kids about powerty in Africa and think that you actually do something with the powerty in the world, while we “bad guys” in Biofuel Africa actually do something about it, creating working places for the poor people. Anyway.. I expect you to remove names and charactheristics like “assholes” in your stated lies about us… or else we maybe go to some legal steps to remove them.

Ove Mk
Biofuel Africa
Ghana

Well, obviously I couldn’t stay silent about that, so published it as a comment below the post (now moved to here). I responded:

Cool! I’ll be sure to print this.

Then after reading it again, followed up with:

Oh, and if you ever threaten any member of my family again, no legal steps will be enough to stop me.

You have sealed the fate of your company.

The first statement was based on the phrase “fuck your nice wife and tell your kids about powerty (sic) in Africa”, which can be taken a number of ways, including as a threat. The second statement reflected the fact that I would be posting his email on the blog, which would be appalling publicity.

Now it gets interesting. It seems that Ove thought he had a right of confidentiality, sending me emails. Incorrect: anyone who posts a comment has to enter an email address, and their IP address is also shown for moderation (this is standard practice to prevent spamming), neither of which I ever reveal. The same does not apply to emails sent directly to my personal mailbox, unless the sender requests, politely, confidentiality.

This was his response (verbatim):

so.. this is how you work? Im not surprised. How you can “find” a threat in my email against your familily is fantastic.. Get your ass, if your feets can carry you, down at the local police- station and do something about it. I will come to the UK defending myself in the court. We are not a big multi- national company. We are a family- company spending munch of our own money. I get provoked when somebody is mentioning names, calling them for assholes and want people to spam their email, telephone and fax- lines. We too have familiy..you are not the only one knowing how to make children.. and you never know what kind of (left- winger) nut- cases out there wanting to hurt us. You are the first one charactherising people in the company like this with names and want other to do illegal actions against us… thats why I react to your statement…

So dont try getting any sympathy by acting like a poor victim here.. you started this. You have a choise to remove names, charactheristics and wanting people to do illegal actions against us.

“you hav sealed the fate of the company”… he he.. you know nothing. We have assets in the comapany, we could just pack everything down, sell it off, and do something else that is not so taboo in your eyes. I have a good job in Norway waiting for me were I make better money, but we are burning for this, our workers, the community and the project itself so we will try getting this up and going. The people around us depend on us.. and we will try not to let them down. As I told you, we have increased farming land for the farmers in “our” community with almost 10 times. Dont let the lies you read blind you.. internet is full of shit. I invite you to come down one day, maybe time will heal our little dispute.

Omk

My response:

Heal? Ok, I have changed “arseholes” to “ecocidal maniacs”, and posted your previous email in the comments. My readers can decide for themselves what you meant.

As can any solicitor you employ.

At this point, I’m not going to comment about the nature of BioFuel Africa’s business model, nor their philanthropic claims; I’ve already made my opinion (and others’) clear.

The next email from Ove was interesting, to say the least:

Keith Farnish, I demand one thing from you. You should remove the “paste and copy” answer you have put up on your blog. You dont act like a responsible person enough to admin a blog. You signed a contract with me, not revealing my E-mail answering your so- called article. You have violited that contract. You are in right not to make the answer public, but NOT faking it. If you want you can publish my E- mail to you in a new article and put up lies as much as you want, but not fake an answer! I have never seen anything like this “paste and copy” practise in my life…and that is coming from the UK?!? Well.. I know this “paste and copy”- game myself… there is much damage to be done to your name if you know somebodys name and E- mail adress and there is a personal agenda. My name is not important enough, so the damage is not big at all, just to my family, but your name is more in public so the damage to your name will propably be bigger. Call this a threat.. or what you want.. but I know this game very well You started this fraud.. I hope you will end it, and you will never hear from me again. There is a family on both sides here.. and making things public like you have done from the first moment is not ethical like you suppose to honor. Well.. let the game begin… or?

So, I have done as he asked: I published his email in a new article. I wasn’t tempted to put up any lies, nor “fake” any answers — there was too much real stuff to need to fake anything.

As it happens there were lots of emails from Ove, some of which overlapped, so here is this one to fill in the gaps:

hehehe.. I am not surprised your way of working… and you are trying to be taken serious? I see now that you are a totally jerk. You did not put public my response to you, but my email to you. Well.. this is the kind of idiots we are facing every- day… people that can not answer when we are telling our story.. I thought people from UK were honest ones, but you are acting more corrupt than anything UK created down here in Africa. Well.. I am not a director.. I am just a simple farmer.. but I see I have really stepped on you.. You dont have any power in your pen, since you are laying down for me … a simple farmer drom Norway.. I must laugh You.. afraid for my pen???

put out my telephone- number too so people can call me down here +233249649737

This was sent at about the same time as the email that began: “so.. this is how you work? Im not surprised.” Yes, it’s getting a bit confusing, but it’s important to give the whole story, as Ove is so keen on. By the way, I’m not sure how a relative of the owner, and the person listed as the primary Ghana contact on the web site could be a “simple farmer”; but what would a “fucking wealthy piece of shit” know?

Then the threats began:

by the way.. I must see in any way how I can stop you now. You are running this blog, stating that you will not publish any e-mail when anyone is replying. You are editing my answers, you are a cheater and a lier..but worser, you are putting out my e-mail in public when you are doing a “contract” with your readers not to do so…. so now just put out my telephonenumber too..

Very confusing: he asked me to publish his phone number, then keeps on about the email address…

So, bringing these together, I responded:

What contract?

You sent the email, I published it. That is not libel.

If you want to make issue, make it with the people who published the original article about your activities, or The Independent who also published (see the link on the article) information about your activities.

I will happily publish your email to me. Again, you sent it, so can hardly claim it was fraud.

By all means send a solicitor’s letter, but make this personal — and by the way *I* didn’t reveal the names of the people in the company in the original article, you did, by publishing them on your web site and sending me emails that any sensible person would publish.

Keith

P.S. It’s my blog, I reserve the right to delete comments or shorten them. I don’t have to publish anything if I don’t want to.

The last main bit of my response was a bit garbled, I meant to add “– and I will not be happy.” Anyhow, he responded, and I was starting to become impressed with his typing speed and the sheer volume of information in the emails. At no point in my original article did I mention financial corruption, so why is he making such a big deal of this. It seems — and this is not just idle speculation but based on exchanges I have had with companies in the past — that the ecological and cultural damage of the BioFuel Africa project is less important in his eyes, than the financial situation; such is the nature of capitalism…

when I answered the article.. there is a writing that my E-mail is required, but will not be published. Its like a contract, I accepted to make a comment, but only if my Email was not published. I trusted this so much that I even gave a correct E-mail… but I see that I was too naive trusting you. You can publish my Emails as much as you want, but not as it is an answer to the article with copy and paste. You are in fact an editor, you are responsible what you are putting out in public.. you are inviting people to comment.. its a fraud when you false this answers. It was a general E-mail to you as an editor were I was angry at you mentioning single persons as assholes, it was not an answer to your article. If you want to publish it, make a new article instead., just an advice…. Well, its your blog, do whatever you want, keep up the work insulting people in public.

When it comes to the source of this lies its a consultant that did not get a assignement with us.. he tried to blackmail us.. and got money to publish the story in the biggest newspaper in Ghana and on internet. Media in West- Africa is some different than in our world. You have to pay to get any story in the newspaper. I have journalists every week to my house wanting to write a story, but its all about money. When a lie has come to internet its impossible to stop it.. then Der Spiegel picked it up, Norwegian television, ..you name it…now 2 years after Independent wake up from their sleep and publish it. There is much more to say about this issue, and we are not people that does not do mistakes.

The bankrupcy were not because of this lies from this consultant. The bancrupsy were because Statoil(Norwegian oilcompany), not with the best story when it comes to corruption, should invest first 10million dollars in our project. We had worked over 2 years with them finalizing the investment. The day before the formal signing they come up with some story about us..I have it here, a story with AA, BB, in the country Y, doing some moneytransaction to officials. We were shocked, because the story did not suit the country we were in, we did not get any information were they get this from. They had outsourced! the investigation to a UK, London based, investigation company.. and by contract with them not allowed to reveal their name. It was therefor impossible to clear our name..and therefor it was impossible to get replacement in investment. We had to lay off all of our workers the same day and declare bancrupt. Now we are on scratch, trying to get it all up again. By the way, our own investigasions here in Ghana show that the investigation- company is named “Kroll”. I know that this company dont have clean hands tehmselves…

Anyway.. do what you want. Its your blog. I dont have time trying to spoil your name.. but I get pissed off.. and lose some more of my naivity about decent people.

Good night.

So that, would appear to be that. I was going to respond, then didn’t, then finally did, because I had finally understood what he was getting at with regards to the email privacy issue:

This will also be my last response. I never publish email addresses when people post comments; there is, however, no such agreement when you decide to send me a personal email, which you did, especially one that is so offensive.

Regards

Keith

I didn’t expect this response:

ok Keith.. I find your charactheristic of persons also so offensive that I have to take som steps further… Calling people for assholes and even worser IN PUBLIC like you did, inviting people to spam their emails and fax is very offensive. You can not just delete it and believe that everything is ok. Remember, you have brought everything to public. You have edited everything… you are the editor.. you are responsible bringing this to the public. I propably find some time anyway to bring things public about you to then. By the way, calling me a director..hehe.. Well as you said, its your blog.. Im just sitting in a slum in Africa wondering how I will attack all this You really provoked me with this last E-mail

Why would clarifying a point be so provocative? Anyhow, I have no intention of deleting my blog, and I’m quite tempted to reinstate the word “arseholes” except neither of the people alluded to in the article have chosen to write to me in such a way.

Finally, late last night he sent the following:

Maybe you should take a look at this one. http://blogethics2004.blogspot.com/2005/03/cobe-revised-form-based-duties-in-blog.html#comments Its about blog- ethics. You are a radical (raddis) fundamentalist that does not want any reflection or new knowledge. No discussion is allowed, all should be in the hands of you. The meaning of life should be to learn something new every day. Well.. I have learnt something from you yesterday, thats for sure
Well… read this list. I think the one about promoting free expression and the one about deceiving others should be read carefully.

Anyway.. you have gotten me into this blog- thing. I will propably create my own, inviting you, since you will be my first subject, to a comment I will handle my blog in an ethical way, free expression. I even think I will make it more popular than your own.. I dont think you have so many visitors.. propably because you dont let them speak… Well, I will contact you when I am up an going

He went on to list the COBE, which you can read via the link above. Well, I have my own form of ethics, and it’s rooted in Natural and Common Law, along with basic social politeness: in short “Be nice, unless you have a very good reason not to be nice.”

This may be continued…

I’m feeling weary and need to recharge for a while: it’s not much fun being bombarded with hypocritical rubbish every day (and I do get it every day), and The Unsuitablog only gets to see the tip of the iceberg, as it were. Trust me, working to undermine the greenwash industry and all of its powerful players takes it out of you

While I’m away, staying a few hundred miles away in a windswept and beautiful part of England (in case anyone was interested), I would like every Unsuitablog reader to take the time to read my book “Time’s Up! An Uncivilized Solution To A Global Crisis“. One of the most critical aspects of creating positive change is getting people to connect with the real world, thus realising your place as one component in the web of life – one component that is fundamentally important to you, and which is utterly dependent on almost all other forms of life, large and small. In the next week, I’m going to be connecting with the sea, the sky and the land: finding some solitude, and also letting my children enjoy the deep connections with nature that we all must understand in order to make our way successfully, and sustainably, through life. Our inability to connect, as Civilized Humans, is the reason we are pulling the plus on our life-support system.

The Unsuitablog exists in order to remove some of the noise and lies that prevent people from connecting with the real world.

Time’s Up! makes it clear that this undermining process is key to giving humanity a chance of survival – but there is a lot more to it than just accepting we need to change; people have to want to change: I believe that the book can make this possible.

There are quite a few ways you can get hold of Time’s Up!:

1) You can buy it. Lots of people prefer to read a book rather than a screen, so if you want to buy it then you will be able to find it at almost any online bookstore (although, at the moment, it is only being printed in the UK). Here are a few places I know it is usually in stock:

Green Books
Waterstones
Amazon.co.uk

2) You can ask your library to stock it. This is really important to me, because I think that libraries are some of the last bastions of free thinking in the mind-control industrial system: if your library does not hold it, then please ask them to.

3) You can read it on Google Books for free. I have just opened it up so you can read the entire book through this medium, which uses the original proofs directly from the publisher; not a word is different. As I have always said: if you believe in something that strongly, strong enough to commit to the page, strong enough to commit a huge chunk of your being to, then why then make people pay for it?

More information about the book can be found at www.timesupbook.com.

And please pass this information on to everyone you think may be responsive to change: we owe it to ourselves to give humanity a chance.

Take a look at the category I’ve put this under: it’s not “Good News” but simply “Unsuitablog News”. It might not seem like a big thing, but to most environmental organisations and campaigns a year of operation would be heralded as an achievement — well, if you count writing lots of words in the Blogosphere an achievement then I can give myself a big pat on the back, but to be brutally honest I can only honestly say The Unsuitablog has achieved something if there is an absolute improvement in the condition of the planet’s natural systems directly resulting from it’s activity.

How many campaigns can say that?

(Ans: Probably none)

To quote a recent Bulletin produced by Green Seniors:

It can be very frustrating at times knowing whether the work you do is having an impact. Try as we might, there are very few ways to know for sure whether Green Seniors is influencing people to make a change in their lives. Typing in “Green Seniors” in Google is one way, but people are unlikely to mention us as their inspiration (as nice as that would be), and even less likely to post the fact online. So we plug on, taking comfort from the kind e-mails, mentions in magazines and newsletters (another 2 or 3 this month), and the general way that the environment message is at least getting across – if not actually having a big positive impact as yet.

So why do I bother working my socks off at this, if at the end of a year I’m going to beat myself up about it?

Simply because, like Green Seniors, it’s an important — if very small — part of the combined effort required to change humanity’s priorities from economy to ecology; from commerce to connection; from suicide to survival. Greenwashing exists, primarily, to make people think something that is fundamentally destructive is actually benign: greenwashing is denial of reality; it is out and out lying in order that the system can continue its pursuit of mindless destruction. If you greenwash then you are playing by the rules of the Culture of Maximum Harm.

If The Unsuitablog even has a small chance of — to quote an earlier article — “making greenwashing as socially unacceptable as taking hard drugs in front of your grandmother”, then it will continue in its attempts to screw up the toxic messages of the corporate, political and even the well meaning, unwitting hypocrites.

For as long as it takes for things to change.

The results of a fascinating survey have just been released by the PR company Chatsworth Communications, which show clearly that Britain’s journalists, bloggers and other “opinion formers” are not being fooled by the tide of greenwash slopping over the nation’s shores. The press release states:

The results reveal an increasing cynicism as to whether UK business will ever aim for anything more than ‘greenwash’ without clear leadership and legislation from the government on environmental issues.

Nick Murray-Leslie, Chatsworth, comments: “The general public is much more aware of both the issue and the role big business has to play. As a result they are increasingly scrutinising businesses’ sustainability programmes. It should be every company’s priority to make sure they communicate honestly and effectively.

“Supermarkets continue to come under particular scrutiny because of their prominence in our day to day life. Our findings shown that the brands with the most well-publicised sustainability campaigns are also thought of as green washers, so the correlation between investment in publicity and a positive perception by the public does not necessarily always apply.”

This is really enlightening news — the message of The Unsuitablog and the many other sources of information that are helping expose greenwash is most certainly getting through. It also shows that perhaps the public aren’t so taken in by faux-green messages because the stark environmental warnings of the last few years are also getting through.

Some of the comments made with reference to certain companies most certainly echo this site’s sentiments; three of those below have already been featured here:

Let’s keep the ball rolling, and keep greenwashing out of society.

It’s always interesting to see what happens when the target of an Unsuitablog article reads that article. I know they do, and I have had a few interesting responses from companies in particular, as well as a couple from political offices. I made the decision from the outset that nothing would be exempt from this site if there was a good reason for including it: there are lots of reasons ranging from simply exposing a hypocritical company to making an organisation question their motives.

On the occasion of publishing this item I was prepared for a backlash. Some of the most stubborn personalities exist within environmental groups, and unlike businesses who take criticism as part of the job (no CEO genuinely believes they are doing business for the good of the planet), NGOs and the like really think the way they operate is for the best: or rather, the people who run the NGOs think they know what is best. I know several committed current and former NGO members who really are doing the right thing, but from all my dealings over the last umpteen years with these groups (I have taken part in more actions than I can remember), it is clear they are in the minority.

Stubbornness can be directed in a positive way, as can anger: in fact, anger and stubbornness are vital elements in ridding the world of a system that constantly seeks to brainwash and coerce individuals into thinking that the way of life it promotes is the only life you can have. When anger becomes disproportionate, and manifests itself in petty threats, though, then you realise that the perpetrator is feeling both threatened and out of control. Here are two examples:

http://thesietch.org/mysietch/keith/2008/03/07/plane-stupid-plane-pointless/#comment-304

http://thesietch.org/mysietch/keith/2008/03/07/plane-stupid-plane-pointless/#comment-309

I’m big enough to look after myself, but am not going to waste time taking up the offers: I have far more important things to do than try and convince an angry person that they are targeting their passion in the wrong direction; when they have calmed down then that will be the right time. But better than that, I believe that the person in question is genuine, and just needs to understand that their symbolic actions are fruitless – the system will not change, people have to reject the system entirely and work towards something better. How that happens is manifold, but it must happen.

Expect a few fireworks from the people who think “Green” is just another marketing term…