The Unsuitablog

This week The Unsuitablog is taking a little holiday (obviously not by plane), so I leave you in the safe hands of Richard George of Plane Stupid*, who has sent me this little gem of a story. Thanks, Richard…

One of the greatest achievements of the Forces of Reactionism^TM is that opportunities to achieve real change have been subjugated by opportunities to do absolutely nothing. Take changing lightbulbs, recycling or using those trendy jute bags: somehow these futile acts became central to any strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while reducing the amount we buy, fly and drive are taboo. That’s why our Secretary of State for Environment seems to think it’s OK to talk about tackling climate change while preserving the right to fly – and to promote airport expansion in his constituency.

Central to this, as The Unsuitablog has consistently pointed out, is an army of greenwash and astroturf groups, which are doing their bit to ensure that what little we’re doing is spent on activities which most support existing power structures. Take the latest helpful email we at Plane Stupid received:

Greenlight Marketing are looking for sites that would be interested in publishing green related content and/or banners on behalf of a number of the UK’s major brands including British Gas and Vodafone.

For a site such as planestupid.com we would pay £60 per month for a small image and text based banner on your homepage, and/or £30 per article, per month for up to 3 unique articles linked to from the homepage. The articles will of course be relevant to your site, and topics could include ‘Five Easy Ways To Reduce Your Carbon Footprint’ or ‘How Energy Efficient Is Your Home?’.

Let’s look at what’s going on here. British Gas and Vodafone, amongst others, are paying blogs which talk about climate change / environmental issues to host articles written by a PR company. These articles are designed to blend in with the actual content, pushing a corporate message from within. People browsing the internet for practical advice about stopping climate change are being advised by neutral-looking websites which are written by the very companies which enable and depend upon rising greenhouse gas emissions to keep their shareholders happy.

To add insult to corporate stoogery, the people who work for the PR company clearly don’t give a toss about the environment, or are too stupid to even read or understand the websites they’re approaching. It’s hard to imagine a world in which a casual reader of the Plane Stupid website would think we’d take part in this offer. Especially as the website they directed us to for examples, www.energysavingnow.com, is littered with adverts for cheap holiday homes abroad…and only offered us £60 a month.

Seriously, that’s only going to buy 3 d-locks and a small tube of superglue. Surely selling our souls is worth a least a couple of hundred?

(*Yes, we have had our differences in the past, but people can change — unlike companies.)