They (350.org) refuse to countenance the idea that industrial civilization is the problem – every action leads to the Senate, even requests to non-US “members” lead to the Senate. They are like a stuck record – a really dated record, like Alice Cooper trying to down with the kids when he spends most of his time playing golf. Bill McKibben may once have bitten the heads off proverbial bats, but now he’s just trying to get a clean shot down the fairway with all his mainstream buddies waiting in the clubhouse.

Not a day goes by when the words of the representative of some Environmental Group or other isn’t contacted by a newspaper or television station asking for comment on the story of the day, whatever will happen to sell the most papers or garner the most viewers. Without fail the comments offered are words of the most ineffectual sort, gently admonishing this or that company or politician, and offering the kind of advice that would sit comfortably in the pages of any corporate enviro-speak manual. Only today, a representative of Greenpeace Netherlands referred to the export of thousands of tonnes of electronic waste using the execrable phrase: “The fundamental problem with electronics is that it’s designed in a very bad way.”

Not, “The fundamental problem with electronics is that it is a symbol of an ecocidal consumer culture”, perhaps adding, “and the tide of toxic waste won’t end until that consumer culture comes to an end.” You won’t hear that from Greenpeace, or any other mainstream environmental group.

Not a week goes by without some campaign or other being launched to prevent environmental destruction, or make efforts to put right that destruction. The vast, vast majority of these campaigns are based upon the same “logic” as the vast, vast majority of people who make comments to newspapers or television stations: this is the system we have, so we have no choice but to make it behave itself as best it can. That, of course, is bullshit.

As I have written time and time again, it is an utterly pointless task trying to make Industrial Civilization sustainable or “environmentally friendly”, because the nature of civilization is to destroy, to take what it wants to achieve its aims and only stop when it runs out of energy, people or space. It only stops when it collapses – it never stops of its own accord.

The mainstream environmental movement has never got this, and never will, because its very existence depends on the support of a large number of people both for income and staffing. It also depends on the good will of the system itself, that permits it to protest peacefully, speak freely and generally operate within the Law of the Land. There is an invisible line that separates the words and deeds of the mainstream from the words and deeds of the “extremist”; that same line separates that which is pointless, ineffective action from that which will actually achieve the kind of change humanity requires in order to survive.

This line is never crossed.

If you want to see this entire movement in microcosm, look no further than 350.org and the work they do which has come, in recent months, to define environmental symbolism. I have written about them before, but was moved to write again by the following email that purports to originate from the desk of Will Bates, one of their key campaigners:

Dear Friends,

On the morning of April 21, 2009, as people rallied in thousands in the city of Cochabamba, a young woman walked to the center of the conference, took a deep breath, and improvised a 350 banner, joining a new worldwide call for climate action.

She had worked the previous day to try and convince her friends at 350 to join her, but in the mainstream NGO community, taking REAL action on climate change is a risk that few larger NGOs are willing to take. This was one the smallest actions that day, but one of the most powerful.

And she didn’t stop there. Determined to make a difference, she overcame even more challenges at Cochabamba by calling for no NGO to undermine 300ppm in the plenary sessions and calling for action on behalf of millions of people in Bolivia and around the world.

Unfortunately, not all representatives of 350.org shared her bravery and failed to fight for a fair, ambitious and binding international people’s agreement steering us towards safety below 300ppm.

So she, the activist, with other activists, went back to work.

I spoke to the woman on the phone last week, and she relayed the news that she’s found a group of activists who were inspired by her actions, and together they’re planning to keep calling for support of the people’s agreement out of Bolivia. Temperatures must not exceed 1C and we must get back down to 300ppm.

But we’re not waiting until October to Get To Work–we’re starting now. Ambitious climate action takes a bit of planning–that’s why we’re coordinating a week of local “Climate MeetUps” at the end of August calling for 300ppm. The meetups will be short and casual meetings we can use to make big plans for the coming year.

Think of it as a synchronized, global planning meeting. At your Climate MeetUp in August, you’ll be supporting real activists around the world in unveiling the new 300.org campaign — a Global Work Party supporting the position finalized in Bolivia:

“On a shared vision for long-term cooperative action, the submission calls for developed countries to “take the lead and strive towards returning greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere to well below 300 ppm (parts per million) CO2eq with a view to returning concentrations to levels as close as possible to pre-industrial levels in the longer-term, and to limit the average global temperatures to a maximum level of 1degree Celsius with a view to returning temperatures to levels as close as possible to pre-industrial levels in the longer-term.”

The Global Work Party, supporting our new campaign for 300ppm will be a chance for all of us to show what leadership really looks like — together, we’ll get to work creating climate solutions from the ground up and demand our politicians do the same.

Thank you for making us see the light,

Will Bates on behalf of the entire 350.org/300.org team.
_____________
350.org is an international grassroots campaign funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. It aims to build and protect their brand at all costs. It mobilizes a global climate non-movement united by a common call to protect the current economic system. By not sharing the real climate science with citizens and supporters, and by protecting the status quo, we will ensure that the world’s most vulnerable will not succeed in establishing bold and equitable solutions to the climate crisis. 350.org is what we like to call “ The most powerful brand in the world”.

What is 350? 350 is the wrong number that we tell supporters is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Scientists measure carbon dioxide in “parts per million” (ppm), so 350ppm is not the number humanity needs to get below as soon as possible to avoid runaway climate change. To get there, we need to get back to pre-industrial levels of 278. However – 278 is a different kind of PPM- this is a number which would only be possible by embracing a new economic system based on people, not profits as we build a zero carbon society. Unfortunately, this model representative of social equality is not a model that compromised, well funded mainstream NGOs embrace.

I have no way of verifying whether Will Bates wrote this or not, but if so it would be an extraordinary turnaround by an organisation that was originally set up using a grant originating from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a bit of guilt-shedding “philanthropy” funded from a long history of global oil, construction and banking interests.

Actually, looking at the 350.org website, I see no evidence of this turnaround as yet, and am not the slightest bit surprised because any organisation that would take its seed-money from the same fund that founded the conservative free-market thinktank, the American Enterprise Institute is not likely to bite the hand (or rather system) that feeds it.

The upshot of this is that nothing 350.org – or for that matter WWF, Conservation International, The Sierra Club, Greenpeace and any other mainstream environmental group you wish to name – do, is going to upset the system from which that group gets its money and its support.

One sees occasional glimpses of light, but just as soon as something chances to suggest a genuine desire for real change from the mainstream, the heavy fist of popular support comes crashing down. No wonder all anyone is ever asked to do on behalf of these Groups (often called NGOs) is make a symbolic gesture.

When you take part in a protest that does not directly threaten the thing you are protesting against, you are simply sublimating any anger you might have into whatever symbolic acts you have been led to believe will lead to change.

This process of sublimation is repeated in all facets of Industrial Civilization, from the Government Consultation and the Parliamentary Process through to apparently useful tools as Judicial Review and industrial Whistleblowing; all chances of real change are prevented by an array of gaping holes, channelling our anger into “constructive” activities. Because we followed the recommended course of action – the peaceful alternative – we feel sated and content that right has been done, even when nothing has been achieved.

About 3 years ago, talking to a friend, I had what I thought was a pretty good idea: I would take it upon myself to show the environmental mainstream up for what it is; show to people that groups like WWF, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace are a big part of the problem, not part of the solution. It occured to me that simple exposure of these double-standards might be enough to change the public’s perception of “environmentalism”.

Of course I didn’t realise at the time that I might be falling into the same trap as everyone else in my position, and that simple exposure would not be nearly enough. True, if you tell someone something enough times then they will begin to believe it is true, but all the while these groups have big incomes (often from corporate funding) with which to publicise their work then the small voices that say, “but this won’t change things,” will be constantly drowned out by the mainstream desire to stay within the confines of the ecocidal industrial system.

I say again: it is an utterly pointless task trying to make Industrial Civilization sustainable or “environmentally friendly”. The big environmental groups don’t get this and they never will.

What is needed – if you are willing to do this with me – are a range of different tactics that will inject a hefty note of dissonance into the pitiful messages of “change” that the mainstream perpetuates. I will give you an example: let’s suppose that the email above was a fake; produced, in fact, by someone who wanted to show the truth behind the nice, civilised press releases that 350.org churn out. It would not take a huge effort to alter an existing email, then forward it on – thus masking the original email header – as a piece of “news”. How many false press releases would need to be circulating before people started asking questions of the originators of those messages?

I consider this to be low risk, for how can such an act be libellous if it contains more truth than the original message – the one that said that small reductions in carbon dioxide over decades are sufficient; the one that said that writing to or petitioning politicians would change things; the one that said we can continue having a growing economy and also protect the biosphere? That’s three lies that are commonly written, or at least implied in huge number of press releases. How can your amended version be libellous if it contains more truth than the original message?

Plus, who would want to admit that they had been lying in the first place?

As the Environmental Groups pat each other on the back – notice how they hardly ever criticise each other, that would be like criticising yourself – tell each other what a great job they are doing, and pouring another glass of celebratory fizz, they might not spot who is sneaking in the door, switching the music off and turning on the bright lights of reality.

Low Risk

Ok, there’s a small chance you might get lynched, but what about starting at a real party, like the one Greenpeace is holding near to Heathrow Airport on Saturday 28th August. Here, you can have my personal invitation if you want. There are all sorts of events like this, celebrating pyrrhic victories, such as the cancellation of a third runway west of London (is this really a “local” party, considering WWF, Greenpeace and RSPB are involved?), at the same time as as airport expansion pushes ahead in Edinburgh, Bristol, Cardiff, Manchester and to the east of London. Plus what about campaign launches, updates and anniversaries – there are so many to choose from all over the world.

Perhaps the most subversive thing you can do at these events is to ask questions of as many people as you can; questions like, “What will/did this achieve?” “Why are you doing this?” “Why do you think it will work?” “What’s the point if the system stays the same?” and so on. Creating uncertainty is the key here for, certainly at every meeting I’ve ever been to, the attendees are in search of answers, but rarely ever question the ones they are given. For instance, events to organise marches – as though marches ever achieve anything – are always framed in such a way that the march will happen anyway, and it is just the detail that is being discussed. Ask the questions – challenge the received “wisdom” that marches change anything: create uncertainty. Then leave.

I want to make it clear, I have plenty of time for the research work and dissemination of information that many groups do, even WWF produce some excellent papers. What I have a problem with is what happens when we know this: what do we do? We do what we are told, because we have been led to believe change will happen…and it never does.

Local and national radio stations are ripe areas for undermining the mainstream message of inaction. Care is, of course, necessary here because you don’t want to be undermining the fact that environmental destruction is taking place; but right from the off, the message that a representative of Greenpeace or Sierra Club will give is that humans are causing the damage – not civilization, not the industrial system, but humans. In many cases a news story based phone-in will welcome a representative of an environmental group, and you can be that representative. As the show starts, call the station, let them know that you represent whichever Group is relevant to the story (all the better if the story is about the group itself!), give a false name if you like, and then go on the show.

Remember, what you are getting across is essentially what the group is afraid of saying: that there is no point appealing to politicians and businesses, there is no point marching, signing petitions, holding candlelit vigils; all of this is just grist to the mill. No, your Group is going to change its tactics and denounce the entire industrial system because the industrial system is the problem. You will refuse to work with politicians and business, and embrace communities; give the say back to the people, not tell them what actions to take from some head office. In short, you are telling the world that you have failed and something entirely different is needed.

(On a specific note, and one that really rankles with me, if you can go on as a spokesperson for PETA, then mention that you are no longer going to use sexist, misogynist campaigns that focus on bare female bodies – that ought to stir a few pots.)

Even lower risk, there is always the option of sending a letter to a newspaper, magazine or journal playing the “representative” card. Most publications don’t follow up on letters, so you can use the published addresses of the mainstream group you are choosing to (I was about to use the word “defame”, but in the circumstances I reckon you are simply showing them the light, as it were) undermine. Friends of the Earth have conveniently produced a guide to getting your letter printed – just remember the salient points that civilization is what is destroying the planet, and no amount of pandering to the system is going to change things; and away you go!

Medium Risk

This article cannot hope to cover more than a tiny number of the possible actions, so please take some time to read this list for more ideas – and send me some more if you have them. But now it is time to move on to a few higher-risk actions, that aren’t for the faint-hearted, but which could really undermine the mainstream message.

One such type of action – a logical step on from pretending to to work for mainstream groups – is actually working for them, then turning the cards. It’s dead easy to volunteer to work at a Group and get involved in small scale public-facing activities like street stalls and leafleting – in my experience, though, because such activities are so ineffective, it is likely that simply telling the public the truth about campaigns (i.e. they are just making people think the Groups are on the case, when they are not) will be even more ineffective. The real undermining as a volunteer is to be done in group meetings or at conferences – which you will need to work at to get invited to – when you will have the opportunity to strike at the heart of the “activist” community, and lead a few people to a better place. The risk comes if you get a chance to speak on behalf of a local branch – and will therefore make quite a few people upset – and then tell the truth about the way the group is operating. If you want to really speak on behalf of the Group itself at conferences etc., with bona fide credentials, then you will almost certainly need to already be working for that group: trust takes a long time to build up. Once in a position of trust, though, the opportunities for telling both the people inside the Group and the public in general the truth about mainstream “activism” are considerable. If you want to hang around for a while, then you might be best concentrating on subtle messages or “accidental” slip-ups in press releases and speeches; but if you are already sick and tired of working for the Man, in the guise of an NGO, then you can be as blatant as you like.

You may only have one shot at this before being unceremoniously dumped, and be unlikely to ever work for such a Group in the future; but then why would you want to work in the environmental mainstream if you consider them to be acting hypocritically? Then again, your bona fide newpaper article, or radio / television interview could completely change how the environmental mainstream is viewed by both the corporate and political world (“One of us”) and those people who really want a future for humanity (“Not one of us”).

Many mainstream Groups work with, and get money from, corporations. The largest groups like WWF, Conservation International and The Nature Conservancy take money from large companies as a matter of course, and there is no doubt at all that such a relationship has a deeply adverse effect on the modus operandi of the groups themselves. Johann Hari puts it like this:

The green groups defend their behavior by saying they are improving the behavior of the corporations. But…the pressure often flows the other way: the addiction to corporate cash has changed the green groups at their core. As MacDonald says, “Not only do the largest conservation groups take money from companies deeply implicated in environmental crimes; they have become something like satellite PR offices for the corporations that support them.”

It has taken two decades for this corrupting relationship to become the norm among the big green organizations. Imagine this happening in any other sphere, and it becomes clear how surreal it is. It is as though Amnesty International’s human rights reports came sponsored by a coalition of the Burmese junta, Dick Cheney and Robert Mugabe. For environmental groups to take funding from the very people who are destroying the environment is preposterous – yet it is now taken for granted.

I went through a period of masquerading as corporations in order to find out what steps NGOs would be prepared to take in order to get finances with which to continue their operations. What I found was often revealing and disturbing. Up to now I have not linked directly to a phone call that I made to The Woodland Trust, but feel it is time to demonstrate how easy it is – by nature of the cosy relationship with corporations – to get such information from hypocritical NGOs. The recording can be found here:

http://www.archive.org/details/WoodlandTrustAcceptDubiousCorporateSponsorship

There is something exhilarating about getting such blatant admissions from what is apparently a “green” group; and if you are able to carry out such subterfuge from the comfort of your telephone (the techniques are described here) then I can assure you, you will remain hooked. If you are not willing to publish your findings to the wider world, then you can always send the recordings to me and I will publish them on your behalf, with as much negative publicity for the Group as I can muster.

Finally, you might have noticed that a number of activities listed in “100 ways” go beyond what most of the Mainstream Groups are willing to do; but that doesn’t mean these actions cannot be carried out “on behalf of” such Groups. We are talking about the kind of things they would not condone themselves, such as barracading shopping malls, or send out radio or TV blocking signals during advertising breaks – to undermine the consumer society. If you can leave a relevant “signature” in the course of your action, then two advantages come into play: first, you are less likely to be found out (it won’t incriminate the group as there won’t be sufficient evidence) and, second, it will force the group to admit they wouldn’t do such a thing, thus undermining their own credentials as activists*. The risk of this area of activism depends on the action being carried out, and is only limited by your own imagination.

I suppose it is fortunate that there are no truly high risk undermining actions that can be taken against mainstream environmental groups – assuming that you are not dealing with psychopathic supporters – but in the event that the combined efforts of Underminers does lead to the downfall of such organisations as wish to see the burgeoning power of corporations and their political puppets continue; to anyone still in awe of the Sierra Clubs and WWFs of the world this is a hugely risky strategy. As far as I’m concerned, it’s about bloody time millions of genuinely caring people stopped being relentlessly asked to carry out pointless tasks on behalf of these groups: it’s about time we decided for ourselves what real change looks like.

*Make sure the action is effective, not just symbolic: hard-core activism that does not have a useful outcome is no better than softly-softly symbolic action.

“I dreamed early on in the BP crime-event that The Gulf Gusher could NOT be stopped. I woke up shaking, sweating, my heart pounding. I knew this was information more than merely a dream…I think we have a hole in our heads when we talk about effective action, and we’ve got to think more seriously about what effective action is to stop the destruction of the only planet we have and need…”
(Roxanne Amico)

Yesterday, myself and probably thousands of other bloggers and activists received a press release from New York PIRG, explaining what they would be doing about the horrors of the Gulf, the ravenous appetite of the industrial world for oil, and the continued scorched-Earth policy that all governments pursue in the search for wealth and continued economic growth.

MEDIA ADVISORY – For immediate release

Lauren Schuster, NYPIRG Staff Attorney
347.729.4729, LSchuster@nypirg.org

HUNDREDS TO DEMAND AN END TO OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING AND AN IMMEDIATE TRANSITION TO CLEAN RENEWABLE ENERGY WILL HOLD “HANDS ACROSS THE SAND” AT BRIGHTON BEACH

On Saturday, June 26th, hundreds of students, volunteers and members of NYPIRG’s 1Sky New York Campaign will gather on the shore at Brighton Beach to demand an end to offshore drilling and an immediate transition to clean, renewable energy sources. The activists, standing in silence, will clasp hands along the shoreline, in a stunning visual display of solidarity. The Brighton Beach Hands Across the Sand event is part of a national campaign with hundreds of events taking place in almost every state in the country. For more information about the nation event, please visit: http://www.handsacrossthesand.com.

Who: Hundreds of volunteers and activists from the NYPIRG/1Sky NY Campaign
What: Hands Across the Sand at Brighton Beach
When: Saturday, June 26th at 12pm
Where: Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, NY
Visuals: Hundreds of volunteers clasping hands along the shore
Photos: Photos of the event will be made available for those who are unable to attend

This is part of a national (i.e. USA) event, currently being held in 26 states, which no doubt will be attended by hundreds of thousands of people who for some reason feel that forming chains of people across beaches will do the job, will make things all better again.

> What is the point of this, Lauren?

Keith

Hi,

Thanks for your question. The event is taking place in almost every state
in the country at the exact same time and we are standing together to show
solidarity with the Gulf Coast. We will send the message that we want an
end to offshore oil drilling and we want clean renewable, energy now. I
think that sums it up. If you have any other questions or would like more
information, please feel free to call or email. Thanks!

Warmest Wishes,

Lauren Schuster, Esq.
Staff Attorney
NYPIRG | The New York Public Interest Research Group
9 Murray Street | 3rd Floor | New York, N.Y. 10007
LSchuster@nypirg.org
p. 212.349.6460 | f. 212.349.1366
http://www.nypirg.org/enviro/1sky/

Thanks for replying, Lauren. I still don’t understand how this will actually change anything – who will get the “message” and what do you honestly except them to do with it?

Keith

Hi Keith,

That’s a fair question. So, we hope to and already have started attracting a fair amount of media attention, which is the first step. We are also collecting petition signatures at the event which demand comprehensive climate and clean energy solutions. We will deliver these petition signatures along with pictures of the event and a letter urging out leaders at every level of government to support climate and clean energy legislation next week. Hopefully, the force of hundreds of people from hundreds of organizations across the country doing this at the same time will demonstrate that we’re serious. Finally, bringing people together at an events like this makes everyone feel energized and engaged in the issue. We are going to need a lot of passionate people who are ready to help us move mountains to get climate and energy done. At the end of the day, it’s really about about bringing people together.

With that said, you should come out, see what it’s all about and then you can be involved with the follow up so you can see how a little hand holding can have a big difference.

Warmest Wishes,

Lauren Schuster, Esq.

I think the key word here is “hopefully” – which suggests that even the organisers give little chance of it actually achieving anything. Do you have any examples where such actions have created the kind of change you are asking for? I personally, cannot think of one. All successful actions I am aware of have involved some element of direct action, including sabotage and/or mass disobedience.

Best

Keith

(Cartoon courtesy of Code Green by Stephanie McMillan)

The dialogue continues below – please join in…

UPDATE: Just received this comment from Chandra (see below) who seems to have uncovered some interesting information about the founder of Hands Across The Sand, Dave Rauschkolb. I don’t have the resources to verify everything here, but if it is all true then the movement would seem to be walking on quicksand:

As for the mastermind behind this protest, Dave R., he’s recently announced to our local community that he has ordered the new Nissan Leaf to show his commitment to renewable energy. I once had a conversation with Dave about Peak Oil, of which he had never heard. That’s innocent enough, we were all there once. Dave has personally been invited to numerous sustainable forums over the last few years, of which I don’t recall him ever attending. He’s a very busy man. Dave is a three restaurant owner surf dude, who jet sets all over the world and has been known to indulge in poker excursions to Las Vegas. Dave lives in one of the most affluent developments in our county. I seriously doubt that Dave has evaluated any of his menus for sustainably acquired seafood, yet Dave claims to love the Gulf and care deeply for it’s inhabitants. Dave cut down a vital stand of old sand oaks from the dunes that were impeding the beach views from his latest restaurant endeavor. Dave is now regarded as a local hero and face of environmental stewardship and activism. Dave is planning yet another Hands Across the Sand event for next year. Be sure to get your T-shirt!

This had to be republished, for it reinforces many of the things The Unsuitablog has been going on about for years now. As I said a short while ago, the reason I keep raising the hypocrisy of so-called “environmental” NGOs is because organisations like The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, WWF and Greenpeace are doing far more damage than good with their slavish adoration of the corporate world.

It has to end, and it will be ordinary people, like us, that do it.

WaPo’s story yesterday about the cozy ties between BP and the nation’s leading environmental groups has let loose a deluge of angry comments from members of the Arlington-based Nature Conservancy and other groups that have taken millions of dollars from the disgraced oil giant.

Here’s a good one from Cindy D., a Nature Conservancy member who last night accused the organization of censoring comments to its blog: “Why are my comments not being posted? Are the moderators afraid to leave up criticism of NC? I notice that my posts and those of others who are critical of NC have been removed. Even more reason to revoke my membership. Oh, and remember, you don’t moderate the world; there are plenty of other venues in which to expose your hypocrisy.”

You can read more of the e-wrangling between the group’s executives and its members here (provided these comments have not been similarly erased).

The British oil conglomerate has spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the last decade to transform its image from that of a dirty old oil company into “Beyond Petroleum” – a company so environmentally friendly it had transcended oil drilling (and spilling) for happy, sunny and clean technologies such as wind and solar. Never mind that the so-called “renewables” never received anywhere near as much investment as the company puts into exploring for and extracting oil and gas.

Most of the money went to the advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide but, as the Post’s Joe Stephens points out, the oil giant has shelled out to prominent environmental groups – including several headquartered in the D.C. area. The Nature Conservancy has received nearly $10 million from the company. Crystal City-based Conservation International has received millions more and even gave BP chief executive John Browne a seat on its board from 2000 to 2006. (Browne relinquished his seat about the time a sex scandal ended his reign at BP.) And, the company has had dealings with the Sierra Club, Audubon, Environmental Defense Fund, among others.

While it may seem incongruous to their mission, the environmentalists haven’t tried to hide the corporate dough. They have, in fact, trumpeted their ties to corporations, arguing that these partnerships lead to better corporate environmental policies and less damage to the planet.

So it’s understandable that BP’s latest environmental debacle does not look good for its environmentalist friends – many of whom have been partnering with the company for a decade or more.

For BP, it’s been a decade replete with felony charges, criminal fines and consent decrees with various federal agencies. The Department of Justice ordered BP to pay $70 million in criminal fines and restitution to settle felony charges related to an pipeline leak on Alaska’s North Slope and an explosion at its Texas City, Texas, refinery that left 15 dead. And that ’s just a partial recap of BP’s various run-ins with the feds.

The unraveling of BP’s “green” marketing efforts would almost seem comical – perhaps poetic justice – if the accident wasn’t wreaking so much havoc in the Gulf of Mexico. By some estimates, it’s already gushed more petroleum than the Exxon Valdez. But much has changed in corporate-environmentalist relations in the 21 years since the Valdez hit a reef and spilled more than 10 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound.

The most telling quote in Stephens’ story is from Justin Ward, a Conservation International vice president: “Reputational risk is on our minds,” says Ward, eluding to the risk that people may lose all faith in environmental groups that get too close to corporate polluters.

Well, duh! But the interesting thing is the way Ward expressed the growing angst at the conservation group. The term “reputational risk” is a buzzword of companies like BP that have given lavishly to nonprofit organizations as part of their quest to be seen as (but not necessarily to become) “socially responsible” corporations.

It kinda makes you wonder if the environmentalists have been influencing the corporations or if it’s the other way around.

Take a look at the video above. On the right is a person who has the guts to appear on the BBC and say, without embarrassment or political correctness, that people just need to stop flying so much. The Plane Stupid representative’s comments are brilliantly amplified by Jeremy Paxman’s priceless question to the representative of the budget airline industry:

“How do you balance a stag weekend in Prague against millions of people dying in Africa?”

I came across this video searching for the point at which Greenpeace’s de facto poster boy (and that’s coming from people inside Greenpeace) and Guardian columnist, Joss Garman, went utterly mainstream. Recall in the video the level of anger from Joss against both the airline representative and, later on, Jeremy Paxman himself. Now read this extract from Joss Garman’s opinion piece in last Sunday’s Independent, which is related to the new Conservative – Liberal Democrat environmental policy:

Upwards of £150bn will be needed for new energy infrastructure and efficiency over the next decade because a third of our power plants are coming to the end of their lifespans. Nick Clegg said the Lib Dems would put up more than £3bn for a proposed Green Investment Bank, plus £400m to upgrade our shipyards to accommodate an offshore wind boom. But Mr Cameron has offered no new money for clean energy, and won’t even say if he will protect existing spending in this area.

Talk of “localism” sounds good, but only central government has the big economic levers to drive investment in clean technologies, to build an offshore super-grid in the North Sea, and to regulate dirty coal stations.

Similarly, many solutions need to be international. Driving down our car emissions will be done only by co-operating on efficiency with our European neighbours and by sharing energy infrastructure such as the proposed carbon capture and storage pipelines under the North Sea. And the electricity cabling that would allow us to trade with our European allies, to make energy cheaper, more secure and greener, can be effected only in harness with Brussels.

This piece is written in the name of Greenpeace, and thus underlines Greenpeace’s own views on the future of energy, to wit: “We need to have a huge amount of energy available in the future, and that can only be achieved through massive industrial projects and big government. There is no way we will reduce emissions without large-scale techno-fixes.”

Where is the call to make draconian reductions in energy use in the immediate future? Where is the bile against big business and the political hedgmoney that keeps the energy industry sucking the life out of the planet? And in case you think I am maybe over-egging the point about scale, look at the key – sickening – phrase in the middle: “Talk of ‘localism’ sounds good, but only central government…” At a stroke, the author kicks community and individual efforts in the teeth, including the thousands of local activists which are the core of Greenpeace’s campaigning base.

Sometime between stating on BBC Newsnight in 2006 – with reference to techno-fixes and climate change – “The science says you can’t do that!” and his Independent article in 2010, stating “There is no way we will reduce emissions without large-scale techno-fixes”, Joss Garman underwent an ethics transplant.

Sometime between these two events, Joss Garman became the key media spokeperson for a mainstream environmental organisation.

Over the last few months I have become ever-strident in criticising the hypocrisy of “environmental” groups, especially those with corporate ties. Like a green slick of goo being pumped from a burst hypocrisy pipe at the ocean’s bed, the tide of greenwash keeps coming to the surface, engulfing all the good it touches.

There is a deep, philosophical reason behind this rage I feel towards the hypocrisy of a movement that pretends to speak for the Earth; I explained it in an Earth Blog article last year, and feel I should publish it again, in full in The Unsuitablog, lest this rage be misunderstood:

In the 1970s life became simpler. The Age of Aquarius was the stuff of satire and the hippy dream of a world full of love and peace had died; ironically killed off by a war in a country that few in the West had heard of until the body bags started coming back, and new terms like Agent Orange and Napalm seeped out of the jungle. In the Summer of Love, groups of free-thinking individuals thought about a new way of living – many started down that path, making tracks towards a life that nature found less objectionable and which was fulfilling in a way that no amount of kitchen gadgets and sunny holidays abroad could ever match. Then we got distracted, again and again: we “grew up”, we got jobs, we sent our children to school, we had “responsibilities”, we didn’t have time to think beyond our next holiday…as the years passed we got distracted so many times that it became too late to fix the problems we thought we might be able to solve back then.

Perhaps.

We need a cure for cancer: it’s your job to find it. What will you do?

Convention would suggest a combination of chemotherapy, radiotherapy and excision to be the best course of action, depending on the nature and progress of the disease. This costs money, so you campaign for more funding to provide medicines, machines and reduced surgical waiting lists. The treatment often works, but the cancers keep coming. So what of the cure? You need to ensure money is put into research for better treatments, and the possibility of a vaccine against virus-borne cancers; you also want to provide extensive information about how to avoid carcinogens and reduce your chances of developing cancer, through lifestyle changes. But the cancers keep coming. Think out of the box! You start stepping outside of the comfort zone that most cancer charities confine themselves to: you find evidence that the cause of many cancers is in the air, the water and the soil – carcinogens expelled by industrial processes responsible for the production and disposal of the goods and services the same people suffering from the cancers avidly consume. You work to close down the worst of the factories, plants, incinerators and industrial farms: victory in the courts! New rules are drawn up; the worst offenders are told to change. But what of the cure?

What of the cure? Surely your job is done – others continue the fight, but you have done well to drill down to the heart of the problem; further than the “mainstream” campaigners ever thought of going. Did anyone ever consider shutting down the reason for these toxic processes ever existing in the first place?

We need a cure for the inexorable destruction of the global ecology, and the potentially catastrophic changes in the climate that will add to the burdens being piled upon our already weakened life-support system. What will you do?

I didn’t start this tale in the 1970s by accident. In 1972, following the efforts of four anti-nuclear activists in trying to prevent the testing of nuclear devices in Alaska, Greenpeace was formed. They were undoubtedly a group focussed on a small number of issues, presenting a small number of point solutions: with only a few resourceful and enthusiastic individuals available to try and make a difference what else could they have done? In 2009, Greenpeace worldwide has millions of donors and, perhaps, hundreds of thousands of activists working on its behalf across a range of issues related to reversing environmental damage. In the last year, Greenpeace UK has campaigned on climate change, deforestation, over fishing, GM crops and nuclear proliferation. It lists among its solutions: decentralisation of energy production, creating marine reserves, changing government and business practices in timber use, encouraging organic agriculture and pushing for global disarmament treaties. Greenpeace is widely considered to be among the most radical of the world’s large environmental organisations.

In 2009, WWF boasted a membership of around 5 million worldwide. It has a similar focus to Greenpeace, although GM and Nuclear issues are absent from their headline roster, and WWF does spend a significant amount of effort on academic research. Among its solutions for individuals, it encourages people to use less electricity at home, to recycle, to buy goods with less packaging and attract wildlife to gardens. It also sells carbon offsets for people who wish to fly. Its larger scale solutions have business at the forefront, with a number of corporations, including banks, advertising agencies, consumer product manufacturers and mining and extraction companies, partnering with WWF to improve their globally destructive practices. WWF is widely considered to be one of the less radical, and most business friendly environmental organisations.

If we are to take this to its logical conclusion then, surely, the solutions to the global environmental crisis lie somewhere along the spectrum occupied by the environmental mainstream, from the business-led approach of WWF at one end to the “radicalism” of Greenpeace at the other. Except that there is no logic to this at all: the logic completely breaks down at the point where you start to analyse the worth of the “solutions” that these groups propose. Even if we take Greenpeace’s approach – rather than that of WWF – the potential success of creating marine reserves, for example, is minimal unless those marine reserves occupy around 40% of the world’s oceans (this, ironically, is based on a study carried out by WWF), and that fishing in the remaining areas does not exceed sustainable biological limits. Given that there is very little chance of even a single-digit percentage of the world’s oceans being formally protected (due to corporate power and government protectionism), let alone the ecological diversity and size required to halt marine collapse, the proposal by Greenpeace is doomed to failure. And that’s just the proposal: how they intend to achieve this is another matter entirely. The range of activities includes petitions to government ministers, leafleting on High Streets, the symbolic planting of flags in the sea bed and parliamentary lobbying. Greenpeace say:

“We must do all we can to make sure that our (sic) politicians deliver a large-scale network of fully-protected Marine Reserves through European and national legislation.”
(Source: Greenpeace UK website)

They do not say: “We must not eat any fish we do not catch ourselves.”

You see, while there is a sliver of a chance that the governments of the world might superficially support the creation of a series of inadequate reserves, even while lobbying on behalf of their own industrial fishing industries to prevent any reductions in catch, Greenpeace and other mainstream (not “radical”) environmental organisations will pursue this avenue. Why? Because no one of any significance in the organisation’s hierarchy can accept that it is the system of Industrial Civilization that is the root of the problem; that the only way to prevent global marine collapse is to completely abandon the way that civilization fuels its insatiable demand for energy. Governments and corporations are not going to stop doing things in the way that has led us to the brink of ecological collapse, because that way is the way civilization works: it would be like a person cutting off one or more of their limbs.

Greenpeace, WWF, the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and every other mainstream environmental organisation believe that you can “fix” the problems inherent in the system, to make this planet a better place; that you can appeal to the goodness of politicians and industrialists to make them curb their destructive behaviour; that you can bring about a sustainable society by urging people to change their light bulbs, shower instead of bath, travel a bit less, offset their emissions and recycle.

They are the acceptable face of environmentalism in the eyes of the civilized majority, and so what if the occasional publicity stunt makes the odd company or politician squirm? So long as the public remain Good Consumers then the environmental groups can carry on pushing their “solutions” to as many people as they like.

“Government needs to regain control of big business to give rights for people and rules for big business…Big business must improve its environmental and social performance.”
(Source: Friends of the Earth website)

So, I ask you again: What is the cure for the inexorable destruction of the global ecology, and the potentially catastrophic changes in the climate that will add to the burdens being piled upon our already weakened life-support system?

More pointedly: Do you really think that the environmental organisations that claim they have the solutions and the means to carry them through are going to save us; or are we going to have to do this ourselves, individually and in small groups taking a completely different approach to the way we are living our lives?

I have no doubt that the vast majority of people believe humanity and the global environment can be saved through conventional means: for this the mainstream environmental groups have to take much of the blame; they are as much villains of the piece as the corporations and governments who, at least up until recently, never claimed they were going to “save the world”. Unless the environmental mainstream makes a radical about-face, rejecting the civilized orthodoxy that says the system can be fixed, and leading us in completely the opposite direction, then we have no choice but to reject them and make our own way along the path to a sustainable future.

A bit like the hippies.

Here is the key phrase:

“no one of any significance in the organisation’s hierarchy can accept that it is the system of Industrial Civilization that is the root of the problem”

Next time you read a press release or opinion piece from an “environmental” group or their spokeperson, keep that in mind…

An impending sense of dispair tends to fall over me when I open my mailbox in the morning. Alongside the genuine spam comes a pile of cut-and-paste guff that spews from the keyboards of public relations firms who have been paid a few bucks to send out sycophantic press releases on behalf of their clients: rather like opening a tin of spam and finding, rather than the glutinous pink stuff you expected, it has also acquired a green fungal glaze.

I have been holding back from opening one particular mail for a few days, maybe expecting it to gently expire and bury itself in my Junk folder. But it refuses to die, and so I have just opened something entitled: “Girl Meets Green”. Even the title is wrong: did “Girl” come across a pulsating blob of verdant matter and politely introduce herself? Maybe “Girl” fell in a vat of paint, was heroically rescued, and has looked in the mirror for the first time since this life-changing event.

Or maybe it’s just lazy PR-speak for another light-green bit of eco-hypocrisy

Hi Keith,

Get ready, because the world is about to get a little
greener, thanks to one ambitious 17-year-old.

The “Green Teen,” a.k.a. Ally Maize, and founder of the Green
Youth Movement is joining forces with the internationally-recognized
environmental company, RecycleBank, to change the world, one city at a time.

Would you like to read the full press release and find out how?

Best,

Annie

What would be the point of reading an even longer version? I’m off to the website of the Green Youth Movement, to see how they are going to make the world greener.

Green Youth Movement’s goal is to educate kids all over the world on living green, and to one day establish this very important information as part of the curriculum in our elementary schools. The mission of GYM is to educate kids and teens about environmental awareness, eco-friendly behavior and small steps that collectively embraced by this age-group can make a big difference for the future.

My name is Ally Maize and I am passionate about the environment and I am taking a stance to help with issues regarding global warming. I have built this site not only as a resource for those people seeking information but for those people who want to try to make a difference and help our environment.

As founder of GYM, I hope to one day garner the support of politicians and educators to create a practical and research based environmental course of study that would ultimately become integrated in every elementary school education curriculum across the nation.

It is my belief that providing youth with meaningful and practical methods of conserving and utilizing resources is the key to changing the direction of global warming. As the effects of global warming continue to advance from a theoretical construct to a reality, it is necessary that each of us assume responsibly to make a difference. Establishing The Green Youth Movement has been my way to embrace what I regard as one of the most significant issue that plagues our future.

GYM aims to enlighten young children and their parents about the vulnerable state of our environment and challenge them to think about the world around them.

I have met some incredible young people with vision, passion and the willingness to stick two fingers up at the system in order to create some kind of change. I have learnt from some young people what it feels like to be a concerned person in a society that values shopping, celebrity and vacations above the fundamental need to have a functioning ecosystem. I have seen young people cry – including my own children – at the thought that certain types of humans are capable of such horrific acts in the pursuit of wealth and status. Oh, that I had such knowledge at such an early age – what could I have done by now?

Well, if I had been Ally Maize, I could have got to meet Miley Cyrus, Renee Zellweger and that prime example of eco-conscious thinking, Paris Hilton. I could also, as per the above introduction to GYM, have become utterly deluded that small, superficial actions create big change; adopted the lie that politicians have any part to play in a sustainable future; in order to alienate part of my audience entirely, I would have referred to “teens” as “young children”; and finally, I would have got my parents to by me an electric car for when I passed my driving test – well, she does live in Beverley Hills…

Oh, but it gets worse – far worse!

The web site is packed full of tips for a Green Lifestyle, the vast majority straight out of high school textbooks, but also plenty that have been conveniently melded to suit the high-flying, Beverley Hills lifestyle that all Green Consumers should also aspire to. Here’s some classic advice on standby power:

Most people think that when you turn something off, it actually turns off. Most people assume that it stops drawing power. Unfortunately, that’s not true in the case of most electric devices. Most of them just hover in standby mode.

The “Phantom load” is the energy that is sapped by appliances when they are plugged in, but not turned on. By turning everything off or unplugging, you save big on your energy bill. In the average American home, 40% of all electricity is used to power appliances while they are turned off.

* Turn off lights, TV, computer, DVD player, cell phone charger, and stereo when finished using them.
* Reduce your demand. Do you really need 2 TV’s in one room?
* Remove chargers from the wall when you’re not charging.

So what does this actually tell us? First, that it’s ok to have loads of gadgets in your house as long as you switch them off, and by “loads” I mean a TV in every room (so long as it’s not TWO TVs in every room). Second, that despite other advice talking about air conditioning (“Installing a programmable thermostat to keep air conditioning at 78 degrees F when it’s hot outside”), somehow devices on standby (or rather “turned off”) consume 40% of electricity in the home – clearly utter nonsense!

Let’s see what GYM tells us about travel – I would assume it would be to avoid flying and driving, and to try to base your life around your local area as much as possible:

The greening of the travel industry-whether away for business or pleasure is now required.

Here are some tips to help you choose where to spend your travel dollar and green-up your trip:

* Greening your travel starts even before you leave home by unplugging unused appliances, turning down the thermostat of the hot water heater, adjusting your AC/heater thermostat and stopping your newspaper.
* Book flights electronically and book flights with airlines that recycle the waste created when serving food and beverages to passengers.

Stop right there! Why are you booking flights, electronically or otherwise – and what difference does it make how you book “your flights” when you are intent on taking a hunk of metal into the air in opposition to gravity? Ah, I see, it’s ok if the airline recycles their waste – don’t worry about the carbon dioxide. Do I sense the Beverley Hills lifestyle clouding Ally’s view of what sustainable travel is?

I would also love her to explain why she is heating water in her house when she has gone on holiday…

Sprinklers:

Use a sprinkler timer. Timers will automatically shut off your sprinkler system after a set period so you dont have to remember. Also use sprinklers that emit large drops of water, low and close to the ground (not the sidewalk or street), and water early in the morning. This will ensure that the water soaks into the soil instead of evaporating.

Whoa! Where did that come from? Ok, it came from the section called “Green for Home and Work“, which strangely omits to mention the option of using water butts, watering cans and getting rid of that water-hogging lawn because LIFE IS NOT A FASHION SHOW!

Some might say I’m being harsh on a 17 year old, but then not all 17 year olds have their Mom and Dad to buy them an electric car with custom plates, employ a huge “Board of Advisors” or pay for a PR company which doesn’t even bother to check the nature of the people to which they send out press releases – yes, it was sent to news@unsuitablog.org.

If this is the face of the future then I would rather sew my eyelids together.

Our good friends The Sierra Club are at it again – this time with regards to motor transport. The Sierra Club believe you can have “clean cars” as demonstrated by this press release, emanating from the new radical Executive Director, Michael Brune (didn’t take long for him to become a member of the establishment, did it?):

New Global Warming and Fuel Economy Standards for Autos a Major Win for America

Washington, D.C.—The Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Transportation today finalized important new combined global warming emissions and fuel economy standards for autos for the years 2012-2016. The new standards will bring fuel economy to 35.5 miles per gallon and carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced to 250 grams per mile. The efficiency gains in the autos sold under these standards will save 1.8 billion barrels of oil. This is the first time the Clean Air Act has been used to directly tackle global warming emissions and is also the first significant increase in fuel economy standards since the original 1975 CAFE standards.

Statement of Michael Brune, Sierra Club Executive Director

“These standards are a grand slam: billions of dollars in consumer savings at the pump, a huge reduction in oil use, significant cuts in pollution, and they will help a more sustainable domestic auto industry thrive. Sierra Club pushed hard to pass the California law that set the stage for these standards, our members pushed for the Calfornia standards to be adopted in more than a dozen other states across the country, and we defended them all the way to the Supreme Court. The ambitious standards being finalized today were made possible by these years of hard work and we are delighted to see them become the law of the land.

“Today’s new national standards are the result of state leadership and the leadership of President Obama and his cabinet, including EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood. Driving vehicle standards forward to 35.5 miles per gallon in 2016 is a result of President Obama’s work to bring together automakers, state leaders, environmentalists, and labor unions to secure a win for the nation.

“The new tailpipe standards, promulgated under the Clean Air Act, demonstrate the Act’s power to spur innovation, fuel economic growth, protect our air, make America more energy independent, and fight global warming. Instead of using this and other important tools in the Clean Air Act to accelerate our transition to a clean energy future, some in Congress want to slam on the brakes and actually shift the country into reverse by gutting the Clean Air Act. We cannot allow this happen. It would be bad for the environment, bad for the economy, and bad for America. The only people it would be good for are Big Oil, big polluters, and America’s enemies overseas who continue to profit from our dangerous dependence on oil.”

Consumer savings? Helping the auto industry thrive? Fuel economic growth?

Not surprisingly, those people who have their hypocrisy detectors switched on, are furious at the double (triple) standards being shown by Sierra Club in this latest industrial-political love-in. Jan Lundberg, editor-in-chief at Culture Change, and expert on the oil industry wrote the following on a climate change forum which deserves to be published – with his permission – as widely as possible:

The Sierra Club is the quintessential “Liberals in Volvos with bumper stickers” imagining that reforming the system will fix inconvenient crises. I don’t mean to minimize good work, especially by Sierra Club chapters. But nationally the Club would not join our Alliance for a Paving Moratorium all through the 1990s because they thought that their anti-sprawl campaign could somehow be effective when more roads were allowed to be built or widened! And if the Club ever opposed a road project, the “solution” was to have the roadway plan relocated so as not to damage a sensitive ecosystem quite so much (as if a nearby ecosystem could be sacrificed instead).

Jan

Environmental groups used to be funded largely by their members and wealthy individual supporters. They had only one goal: to prevent environmental destruction. Their funds were small, but they played a crucial role in saving vast tracts of wilderness and in pushing into law strict rules forbidding air and water pollution. But Jay Hair–president of the National Wildlife Federation from 1981 to 1995–was dissatisfied. He identified a huge new source of revenue: the worst polluters.

Christine MacDonald, an idealistic young environmentalist, discovered how deeply this cash had transformed these institutions when she started to work for Conservation International in 2006. She told me, “About a week or two after I started, I went to the big planning meeting of all the organization’s media teams, and they started talking about this supposedly great new project they were running with BP. But I had read in the newspaper the day before that the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] had condemned BP for running the most polluting plant in the whole country…. But nobody in that meeting, or anywhere else in the organization, wanted to talk about it. It was a taboo. You weren’t supposed to ask if BP was really green. They were ‘helping’ us, and that was it.”

(extracted from Johann Hari, “The Wrong Kind of Green“)

Looking at the summary above, one is tempted to abandon the idea that NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisations) have any part to play in the removal of destructive actions upon the natural world. I think that’s a fair assumption. None of the NGOs come out of this well, not even the apparently “radical” ones like Greenpeace and RAN who are still batting on the side of industrial civilization; but if you had to choose which ones to really steer clear of, and relentlessly attack and expose, a surefire way of choosing is to look for the names of “Corporate Partners”.

If an NGO partners, or receives money from a corporation, then thay are not to be trusted.

Here is one excellent example, that I found while trawling the web:

Team Earth is all of us, working together to make our world a place of clean air, fresh water, plentiful resources and a stable climate, today and far into the future. Team Earth is companies, schools, non-profits, you, your family and friends – everyone who wants to help make sure the Earth is healthy enough to support us all.

It’s about smart, sustainable actions (call it “S-squared”) that each of us can accomplish in our daily lives. Actions that, when multiplied by our social networks, and the cross-section of people that make up Team Earth, will have a huge impact on the health of the planet we call home.

We are setting out to tackle the big challenges of our planet and to our lives – climate change, clean water, healthy food, the ways we are using our resources, and more. Each of us can make a difference, and by working as a team, we will all live better, healthier lives.

This is straight out of the corporate style book; almost excruciating in its “Hey guys, let’s put on a show, right here!” mentality. Alarm bells! Scroll down a few lines and the rationale becomes clear:

Who’s on the Team?

You. Me. The neighbors down the block. Your boss. Parents and kids across the country. People in big cities and small towns.

We are companies like Starbucks and Wrigley. Students and teachers in thousands of classrooms and schools.

Team Earth is anyone and everyone who wants to do the right thing for our shared home, united by a joint commitment, so that when each of us makes a small, personal contribution, the cumulative impact is huge.

Nice bit of community togetherness, and then “WE are companies” – you might be “on the team” but “Team Earth” is a group of companies who are greenwashing as though their survival depends upon it.

Not their ecological survival – nothing as trivial as that, you understand – but their financial survival. They have to be seen to be doing good. And who better to get to run your Astroturf than Conservation International, who proudly display their logo at the top of each page. Mentioned above as a truly dishonourable stain on the reputation of NGOs everywhere, Conservation International are quite possibly the most corporate-friendly NGO around; and if you don’t believe the quotation, have a look at their roster of Corporate Partners which is have the extreme displeasure of reproducing here:

3M
Alcoa
Alpargatas (Havaianas)
Aveda
Bank of America
Barrick Gold
Bella Figura Letterpress
BG Group plc
BP
Brunton Inc
Bunge Limited
Cargill
Celebrity Cruises
Celestial Seasonings
CEMEX
Chevron
Coach, Inc.
Coca-Cola
Compendium, Inc.
Daikin Industries Ltd
Daiwa Securities Co. Ltd.
Darden Restaurants
Dell
DreamWorks Animation
DuPont
ePals
FedEx
FIJI Water
Ford Motor Company
General Growth Properties
Givaudan
Gold Reserve Inc.
Goldman Sachs
Hamilton
Harrah’s Entertainment, Inc.
Hyatt
Intel
International Paper
JPMorgan Chase
Kango
Kimberly-Clark
Kraft Foods Inc.
Marriott International, Inc.
Matter Group
McDonald’s
Monsanto
Newmont Mining Corporation
Office Depot
Organic Bouquet
Pearl Jam
Peter Gillham’s Natural Vitality
Rio Tinto
Royal Caribbean
Save Your World
SC Johnson
Seeds of Change
Shell Group
Sony Computer Entertainment America
Sotheby’s International Realty
Starbucks Coffee Company
Toyota Motor Corporation
United Airlines
United Technologies Corporation
Volkswagen
Walmart
Walt Disney Company
Weyerhaeuser
WhiteWave Foods
Wrigley Company
Yves Saint Laurent

That’s a pretty good rundown of all that is bad in Western commerce – they only need ExxonMobil and BHP Billiton for a full house, but I’m sure they’re working on it as I write.

As for Team Earth, well it’s just another lump of corporate bullshit masquerading as ordinary people who care. The really sad thing is, the people who fall under their spell are likely to think that Team Earth are getting down and doing good work on their behalf, when all the “Team” are doing is making a load of corporate Earth killers look slightly less murderous.

STOP PRESS! Team Earth have a Facebook Group which I would encourage you to join. They have a nasty habit of blocking people who don’t agree with their point of view, and deleting anything that runs counter to their corporate worldview. You might want to post the link to this article, or perhaps this image, which tells the truth about Conservation International…

(click for downloadable full size)

Ever get the feeling that people just aren’t getting it? This is one of those occasions when the email tells the story – especially the responses, which are beyond dumb and show Earth911 up to be just another green smokescreen for business as usual.

Earth911 is Looking for Cool, Green Products
Get involved in our Earth Day 40/40 Giveaway!

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, Earth911.com will feature 40 products and tips about how to recycle them in our Earth Day 40/40 Campaign, as well as host a Giveaway of green gifts to its readers.

Why we’d love to have you: Every year, the weeks surrounding Earth Day constitute the highest influx of traffic on Earth911.com. In exchange for giving a prize to be part of the Giveaway, your company will receive recognition on our site: We’ll announce your organization’s participation in our Giveaway through editorial coverage on Earth911.com, as well as through Twitter and Facebook. You’ll also be featured in our announcement of the winners on Earth Day itself, giving you elevated visibility. Translation: Free advertising during the most popular time on our site!

If you want to learn more: Email Jennifer (below) for more details. While we may not be able to take everyone who wants to participate, we are open to checking out any products that have a “green” spin, especially those that incorporate recycled or recyclable materials. We also have paid sponsorships available as well for an even better deal!

CONTACT
Earth911

Jennifer Berry, Public & Strategic Relations Manager
O: 480-889-2650
C: 602-692-1721
jberry@earth911.com

Our mailing address is:

Earth911.com
1375 N. Scottsdale Rd
Suite 360
Scottsdale, AZ 85257

I had a little think about this, and realised what the ideal prize would be. Ok, I’m not a company and don’t have products with a “green spin” but surely there are some gifts that say far more than others…

Dear Jennifer

Thank you for your email. I am writing on behalf of the anti-greenwashing site, The Unsuitablog, and we would be delighted to take part in your giveaway.

We are offering an empty, plain paper carrier bag filled with life-giving air. Should the owner decide to put purchased goods of any type in the bag then the life-giving air will be forced out of the bag, replaced by an item that required energy to manufacture and transport, not to mention the resources required in its production and the damage caused by the extraction of the fuel required to provide the energy. Thus, the empty bag, unfilled, symbolizes no net increase in greenhouse gases or environmental degradation.

The bag will be pre-owned, and as it starts to degrade naturally it may be composted, thus returning it’s constituents back to the soil.

Please let me know where you would like the item to be sent.

Kind regards

Keith Farnish
The Unsuitablog
Rayleigh, Essex, England.

Hmm, no response…

Hi Jennifer

Could you please acknowledge this – my email was deadly serious.

Regards

Keith

Hi Keith,

My lack of response didn’t indicate any inclination on my part that you weren’t serious. I’ve simply been quite busy as this week has moved along :)

We won’t be using your gift as part of our giveaway. But thank you for submitting it, and please don’t hesitate to reach out to me in the future if I can be a resource to you in any way!

Thanks,
Jennifer Berry

I felt the need to reach out to Jennifer…

Hi Jennifer

Could you tell me why you will not be using my gift? Surely it is far more environmentally sound than any other gift you have been offered.

As I said, we are offering an empty, plain paper carrier bag filled with life-giving air. Should the owner decide to put purchased goods of any type in the bag then the life-giving air will be forced out of the bag, replaced by an item that required energy to manufacture and transport, not to mention the resources required in its production and the damage caused by the extraction of the fuel required to provide the energy. Thus, the empty bag, unfilled, symbolizes no net increase in greenhouse gases or environmental degradation.

The bag will be pre-owned, and as it starts to degrade naturally it may be composted, thus returning it’s constituents back to the soil.

This seems like the best possible symbol of good intentions.

Yours

Keith Farnish
www.unsuitablog.com

I mean, how could they refuse the most environmentally friendly gift I could think of? Surely Earth911 is all about preventing global catastrophe…

Hello Keith,

My name is Raquel Fagan and I am the Executive Editor of Earth911. Thank you for your email. We will not be using your submission for following reasons:

Though we appreciate the gesture, we do not believe that the value the gift will provide the winner will be worth the approximately 38 pounds of carbon it will take to transport the package form London to Phoenix (calculated using CarbonFund.org).

It would be much more environmentally sound to simply have people use a bag they already own, then to send them a bag via postage.

From our home composting system to our re-purposed home decor prizes, we promise that we have given this contest much consideration. We are doing our best to assure that it honors Earth Day as much as possible while still providing people with objects designed to remind them of their personal impact during the other 364 days of the year.

Thanks again, and have a nice day.
—
Raquel Fagan
www.Earth911.com
Executive Editor
1375 N. Scottsdale Rd.
Suite 360
Scottsdale, AZ 85257

480.889.2650 P
480.889.2660 F
—
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(I had to leave that “iPhone” signature in)

Hmm, I get the feeling that I’m not really communicating what I want to, here. They are happy to accept crappy gizmos made in the Far East by underpaid wage-slaves, then transported halfway across the world, but my paper bag…no, that isn’t nearly “green” enough.

I had to say something:

Dear Raquel

Thank you for your response. Did you think I was going to fly it? I would never do that, it would go by sea and surface. Better than that, I could get a friend in the USA to send one of their bags to you; that should cover any concerns you may have.

Of course, as you think it would be much more environmentally sound for people to use a bag they already own, why is it ok to give away other items? I thought that compost bins or wind up lights, for instance, would require rather more than 38 pounds of carbon to manufacture. They might honour Earth Day, such as it is, but they don’t honour the Earth.

Could it be because the idea of zero-consumption doesn’t fit with your organization’s agenda? I’m assuming those great bastions of green action that sponsor you – BP, Kmart, ExxonMobil and the American Chemistry Council for instance – might sit uncomfortably with “saving the Earth”; certainly I would feel *very* uncomfortable to be taking money from them.

Sort of puts my potential 38 pounds of carbon into perspective…

Kind regards

Keith

No response so far.

(By the way, I checked out how much carbon my paper bag would require to transport, and it’s actually just 2 pounds by ship based on http://www.carbonfund.org/business/calculator#Office. But if you only think by plane, how could you imagine other people not using a plane?)

From COMMON DREAMS, January 4, 2010

There has never been a better moment for natural gas. It is the “other” fossil fuel, touted as a clean alternative to coal and oil. It may be non-renewable, proponents argue, but it is a bridge or transition fuel to a happier future. Not surprisingly, the industry has gone to great lengths to persuade local residents, members of congress, and the public at large that there’s nothing to worry about. Chesapeake Energy Corporation, one of the major players drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale, which stretches from New York to Tennessee, has successfully billed itself as an environmentally friendly operation.

Accidents do happen, Barrett told me. It’s part of the price of doing business. Something McClendon and the Sierra Club’s Pope might like to acknowledge as they make the case for an industry whose green credentials are far from certain.

“But we have to find a cheap alternative to coal!” Scream the denizens of Industrial Civilization, scared that perhaps the foundations of their beloved, energy-hungry world are starting to crumble. Keep screaming, one way on another it’s going to end in tears.

You may have heard of the 10:10 Campaign, founded by “Age Of Stupid” director Franny Armstrong, and currently sweeping across the UK with its message of a 10% reduction in carbon emissions by the end of 2010. In essence, such an idea is a good thing: a 10% reduction in carbon dioxide every year will, if taken up by the world’s emitters, and continued until 2030 will lead to nearly a 90% cut overall. This is almost enough to stave off the threat of irreversible climate change.

There is one fundamental problem with this, and it isn’t that 10:10 is only in the UK (you can hardly blame the organisers for that); the problem is that 10:10 only runs until the end of 2010. To quote the web site:

What happens after 2010?
10:10 is a year-long campaign to get the ball rolling on the move away from fossil fuels. We hope that this will be the beginning of a journey that finishes in a world that is no longer threatened by runaway climate change. But for now the important thing is that we stop talking about what happens in the future, and start cutting the carbon.

The lack of a meaningful endgame and the inclusion of the weasel-word “hope” is a major sticking point, because the first 10% of any reduction is really easy. Just by changing the lightbulbs around your house from incandescant to energy saving, and turning your heating down 1 degree in the winter will achieve this. But isn’t easy good? Actually, no. Easy sends the message that we don’t have to really change the way we live, as reinforced by the point, again within 10:10’s FAQ:

Does signing up require a major change in your lifestyle?
No. 10:10 is about getting started on the transition to a low-carbon society, and unless you’ve already slashed your emissions, reaching 10% will be easy. It’s all about not wasting energy at home and cutting down on unnecessary journeys and it will save you money.

How does making a fairly trivial change set you on the path to a low-carbon society? What is missing is the process that takes people’s assumptions about the way they should live (i.e. as part of the globalised industrial consumer society) and moves them into a different state of mind (i.e. the globalised industrial consumer society is fundamentally unsustainable) with a different goal — local, non-industrial and self-reliant. 10:10 does none of this.

Oddly, they seem to recognise the potential for criticism, while simultaneously failing to address it:

Is this just another greenwash campaign?
To really make 10:10 happen we have to get everyone on board, from primary schools and residents’ associations to local authorities and big brands – perhaps even government departments, if they are brave enough to try. This is a project to start making genuine changes to British society, changes we need so that we can leave our children a future we can be proud of. That’s why 10:10 does not recognize any form of offsetting as counting towards the 10% target.

And with that announcement that sustainability is to be achieved while retaining the corporate and political status quo, a whole bag of nails is hammered into the coffin marked “10:10 RIP”.

To be fair, there are very few people anywhere in the mainstream environmental movement, of which Franny Armstrong is most definitely a part of, that see beyond the “one right way to live” delusion. It is all very well people like me harping on about the ills of Industrial Civilization, when the vast majority of people living in the civilised world are not aware that for most of human existance there was no such thing as civilization and that there are a multitude of different ways to live only limited by the imagination; but if people don’t accept this position there is little chance of genuine alternatives being sought. In short, I am probably on a hiding to nothing, should gather up all the like-minded people and go and live somewhere untainted by civilization.

On the other hand, at least I don’t accept the support of companies that make killing machines:

In a potentially controversial move, the campaign has accepted MBDA Missile Systems, a UK-based arms manufacturer, after it pledged to meet the campaign’s single aim – to cut its carbon emissions by 10% in 2010. But 10:10 has rejected Manchester Airport Group.

The campaign’s leaders said the decision to accept an arms manufacturer had caused considerable debate, but it could not exclude an organisation operating lawfully on the grounds of ethical objections to its product.

MBDA, which counts BAE Systems as a major shareholder, produces more than 3,000 missiles a year, including the Exocet. It has 10,000 workers employed across four European countries and sells to more than 90 armed forces worldwide.

Franny Armstrong, the campaign’s founder, said: “Of course arms manufacturers can reduce their emissions by 10%. What they do with the rest of their time is a different matter, on which we couldn’t possibly comment. 10:10 is about reducing emissions right across British society, and that means everyone. As long as arms manufacturers are a part of British society, it’s just as important for them to reduce their emissions as it is for the rest of us.”

[silence induced by disbelief]