I have a confession to make: about 18 months ago, when I was still part of the economic machine, I spent some time calculating the carbon footprint of the company I worked for. To help me, I used the guides provided by the Carbon Trust a, what I thought then, fairly reliable and objective agency of the UK Government working for, I thought at the time, reducing the overall carbon emissions of the UK.

How stupid was I?

In these times of economic downturn and the promise that the runaway consumer culture may be on a crash course in all sorts of ways (hooray!) this apparently earnest organisation turns out to be nothing more than a cheerleader for business growth. Take a look at the advert above or, if you dare, some of the other promotions. Superficially you might think that what they are saying is that, by reducing your energy consumption, you will improve the profitability of your existing business. In actual fact they are pushing something very bad indeed: business growth as an incentive for reducing emissions. A display advert of theirs says:

“Last year consumers bought £4.3bn worth of low carbon goods in the UK alone. Good news if you’re in the market for new customers”

Do you see what they’ve done? In effect they are not cutting emissions at all because all that is being done is allowing more wriggle-room for business to boom, while increasing the carbon intensity of the business – less carbon per monetary unit, but no less carbon overall.

You might think that this is a good thing: after all if business keeps growing then it’s better to reduce their impact. But that’s not the point at all – why should businesses grow at all? Profit is simply the result of excess consumption, which feeds further growth which leads to further consumption – profit drives the capital economy which actively discourages (nay, suppresses) any attempt to merely sustain or reduce consumption.

In March 2008, The Carbon Trust joined hands with HSBC, one of the largest banks in the world, to provide funds for renewable energy projects in the public sector; in other words a bank was allowed, through a government agency, to start driving funding for public sector projects while at the same time making themselves look like they were doing good. HSBC were given a great deal of power over public policy for a pittance (£18m).

It was so obvious that HSBC were greenwashing but stupid is as stupid does – I remember one great thinker saying (ha!) – which would explain why Greenpeace grabbed the bait with both hands and immediately clarified their position on private interference in public life:

“This is an excellent example of private finance delivering real emissions reductions through innovative partnerships. It also demonstrates that significant cost effective renewable energy potential exists at all levels rather than simply in industrial scale wind power, and that a viable business case can be made for this investment. Within the context of the UK’s demanding emissions reductions targets, we sincerely hope this is a sign of things to come.”

“Industrial”, “Hope”, “Innovative partnerships”, “Demanding emissions reduction targets”? Welcome to the corporate world of Greenpeace: and perhaps goodbye to a few Greenpeace subscription renewals…

Here’s an enigma: you come across an environmental campaign which, on the surface, looks well meaning, but on closer inspection is so weak in its “solutions” and so diluted in its ambitions that you actually start to question the motivation of the people running it. We Can Solve It (or “we” for short) has both of these attributes, and looks extremely polished to boot…all the hallmarks of an Astroturf. Could it be that “We Can Solve It” are a front for an industry lobby group?

No, in fact it’s worse than that.

We Can Solve It is:

“a project of The Alliance for Climate Protection — a nonprofit, nonpartisan effort founded by Nobel laureate and former Vice President Al Gore. The goal of the Alliance is to build a movement that creates the political will to solve the climate crisis — in part through repowering America with 100 percent of its electricity from clean energy sources within 10 years. Our economy, national security, and climate can’t afford to wait.”

So, it’s an Al Gore project, or rather a project run by people who slavishly follow the Al Gore principles, basically meaning that they will always push for “solutions” that sit firmly within the orthodoxy — lots of local “campaigning lite”, no civil disopedience, no sabotage, no radical life changes, politicians and businesses being politely asked to change and being heartily applauded for shuffling in their seats a bit…that sort of thing.

What makes it even worse (if that’s possible), is the list of “successes“, proudly displayed on their own page. Here’s a sample:

– We Members Forward National Dialogue with Letters to the Editor
– Thousands Urge the Press to Ask Questions on Global Warming
– Stunning Response to Calls for a Global Treaty
– State Department Feels Public Pressure in Run-up to Climate Conference
– How a Climate-conscious County Official Is Helping Arlington County
– Florida Governor Taking on Climate Change
– Colorado Voters Pass Renewable Energy Standards; Governor Doubles Them!
– Ceramic Tile: A Handcrafted Art Form Drives an Eco-revolution
– Trucking Goes Green!
– Pennsylvania Entrepreneur Follows Her Passion for Solar Power
– Wind Energy Is Replacing a History of Oil in One Texas Town
– US-Based Company Helps Denmark and Israel Get Behind the Wheel of Electric Cars

They range from the utterly symbolic (letter writing and “questions”) to the trivial (someone deciding to go into the solar energy business) to the superficially interesting, but ultimately disappointing (“Florida Governor Taking On Climate Change” – actually a piddling 40% cut by 2025, which I managed in a year in my house!) These are the kinds of changes that are apparently saving the world; yet the vast majority of them are (as I said) simply kow-towing to politics and big business.

Moreover, this kind of thing is exactly what I wrote about in A Matter Of Scale, and which seems to be getting worse:

What we are seeing in a so-called age of Environmental Enlightenment is actually a set of basic ideas about the way we need to act and the reasons for acting, being mutated out of existence in the cacophony of competing ideas, which no one can seem to agree upon. This is in part due to the presence of the powerful commercially-funded body of sceptics; but made worse by a huge range of environmental groups that are each trying to compete for a slice of the “we helped save the world” pie. The ideas and messages are changing so often that there is currently little chance of a genuinely effective idea dealing with the competition.

How about some solutions that really will make a difference; the kinds that stick two fingers up at the bodies that caused all the problems in the first place, placing the ability to make decisions in the hands of the people who actually want this planet to be survivable in a couple of generations? You won’t find them in the mainstream, and you certainly won’t find them at We Can Solve It!

Children should get out more; they need to discover the world for themselves, connect with this world and understand that life does not exist in a bubble of technology or commerce. In fact, under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, article 31 states:

1. States Parties recognize the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.

2. States Parties shall respect and promote the right of the child to participate fully in cultural and artistic life and shall encourage the provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic, recreational and leisure activity.

Pretty unequivocal. In the UK (for this is the focus of this article), a charity called Playday, also have this to say:

– All children need opportunities to take their own risks when playing; they need and want challenge, excitement and uncertainty in play.
– Through play, children can learn how to manage challenge and risk for themselves in everyday situations.
– Opportunities for children to take risks while playing are reducing, as increasingly health and safety considerations are impacting on children’s play.
– Adults should provide for children and young people to have adventurous play opportunities.

Which reinforces the UN Convention in a very positive way. In short, children should be playing as much as possible, without interference.

Interestingly, Article 32 of the UN Convention says the following:

1. States Parties recognize the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child’s education, or to be harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.

For a while now Persil, or rather the manufacturer of this detergent, Unilever, have been running a campaign called “Dirt Is Good”, the implication being that it doesn’t matter how much mess kids get into, it’s all part of being a child. Of course, by running a campaign that links such a positive message with what is — if we are being perfectly honest here — a bunch of cleaning chemicals, Unilever get big kudos for their positive attitude but, more importantly for them, get big sales.

Is this child exploitation? According to the UN Convention Article 32 any such exploitation would be completely unacceptable — and while this is bread and butter to a huge corporation, a charity like Playday really should know better than to let commercial interests get in the way of good clean fun.

Then there is this list…

Pentasodium Triphosphate Builder
Sodium Silicoaluminate Builder
Sodium Carbonate Peroxide Oxidising Agent
Sodium Dodecylbenzenesulfonate Surfactant
Aqua Bulking Agent
Sodium Carbonate Buffering Agent
C12-15 Pareth-7 Surfactant
Sodium Acetate Tablet Disintegrant
Tetraacetyl Ethylene Diamine Oxidising Agent
Sodium Silicate Builder
Sodium Sulfate Bulking Agent
Sodium Stearate Surfactant
Ethylene Diamine Tetra Methylene Phosphonic Acid Ca/Na salt Sequestrant
Maize Starch Bulking Agent
Parfum Fragrance
Citric Acid Builder
Cellulose Gum Anti-redeposition Agent
Dimorpholinopyridazinone Optical Brightener
PVP Dye Transfer Inhibitor
Sodium Acrylic Acid/MA Copolymer Structurant
Simethicone Antifoaming Agent
Sodium Chloride Bulking Agent
Sodium Bentonite Softness Extender
Sodium Polyacrylate Structurant
Glyceryl Stearate Emulsifier
Protease Enzyme
Sodium Polyaryl Sulfonate Surfactant
Amylase Enzyme
Lipase Enzyme
CI 74160 Colourant

That is the full ingredient list for the best selling form of Persil, the biological liquid. I’m not going to go into the chemistry of this list, but it would be fair to say that to blindly go into a trusting relationship with this product, containing all of these substances — whether as a parent, charity or most importantly, a child who usually has no choice over what their clothes are washed in and what substances pour into the waste water system and eventually into rivers, lakes and seas — is pure folly.

Persil is a commercial product; it exists to make money for business. Never forget that.

It hurts me to write this as I have been a member of the Woodland Trust for many years. They don’t just buy and protect native woodland in the UK and sensitively plant up large areas of former farm or grazing land, but they are also at the forefront of research into the effects of climate change on woodland — the study known as phenology.

Yes, they have taken the corporate shilling a few times, particularly around Christmas when they involve companies like Tesco and WHSmith in collecting cards for recycling, but in the main they have been — as Austin Powers would say — sound as a pound.

Until I got this through the post:

Obviously it was time to call them up…

…ok, to give them their due, unlike WWF there was no rush to grab the money — the Woodland Trust are clearly being a bit careful, and the list of corporate partners doesn’t read like a Who’s Who of corporate villains; but it is still not a great list.

Barclays are one of the largest banks in the world, who purport to comply to the already weak Equator Principles, yet still have a record of past and present bad lending, causing massive environmental damage.

WHSmith missed chance after chance over the last decade to improve their environmental reputation, for instance failing to stock any recycled materials — I have personal experience of how stubborn they can be.

Parcel Force have moved their local delivery network into a set of major hubs in order to save money, leading to a massive rise in road travel miles. They have all but abandoned their rail-based distribution system in favour of lorries.

Timotei, or rather Unilever, are one of the largest food and toiletry manufacturing corporations in the world. They have a catalogue of bad practices hanging over their heads, not least being a major user of palm oil, (thought you might spot that one, Woodland Trust) and the production of one of the most blatantly racist products on Earth; Fair and Lovely.

Here’s a loud and clear message to all you “environmental” NGOs who are thinking of taking on corporate sponsorship: in the first place, don’t! Corporations exist to make money above anything else, so the net effect of taking the corporate shilling is a net reduction in environmental and social conditions.

Secondly, don’t give them a free greenwashing ticket — you are trying to do good, they are not.

Finally, it will come back and bite you, so think very carefully before you take money from anyone or anything — you could find yourself on The Unsuitablog, and who knows where after that.

Just be careful.

So, as I suspected all along; according to an article in todays Independent, the public don’t support “green” taxes.

More than seven in 10 voters insist that they would not be willing to pay higher taxes in order to fund projects to combat climate change, according to a new poll.  

Wow! What a revelation: people don’t want to pay money to save the planet. For some bizarre reason the mainstream environmental movement still think that money and the planet mix, and that if they can only persuade governemnts to impose taxes to change behaviour then everything will get better. For instance:

It’s tax time – time to fight global warming and save yourself some green at the same time.

Federal, state, and local governments offer a range of tax incentives, grants, and loans that will help you save energy, fight global warming, reduce your energy bills, and let you keep more green in your wallet after Tax Day comes around.

That’s our old friends The Sierra Club, talking up the “green dollar”.

Increasing taxes on fossil fuels is an essential weapon in the Government’s armoury for tackling climate change. And if Alistair Darling used these extra taxes to cut those on people and jobs, it would be extremely popular too. It’s time the Treasury played its full part in delivering a low-carbon economy.

Friends of the Earth this time.

It’s a funny subject, because governments are loathe to impose punative taxation on environmentally damaging activities — well, that would mean taxing everything, really — which would seem to suggest that “green” taxes are actually a good thing for the environment. Sure, a 100% increase in fuel duty might make people think twice about buying fuel, but it would also be a guaranteed vote loser. In an age of apparent environmental awareness, why should that be?

The simple fact is that the whole of civilization is geared towards making money.

Who wouldn’t complain if someone tried to take it away from you — for environmental reasons or not. The environmental mainstream are terminally stuck in a mindset that says it is possible to make things better by working within the system — imposing “green” taxes, making business “greener”, buying “green” products — the very system that is nothing without economic growth.

Fools!

Back to the Independent article:

The results of the poll by Opinium, a leading research company, indicate that maintaining popular support for green policies may be a difficult act to pull off, and attempts in the future to curb car use and publicly fund investment in renewable resources will prove deeply unpopular.

That’s not news — that’s just the way things are in this consumption culture.

I sometimes get the feeling I’m shooting fish in a barrel, writing this blog — not that I would ever shoot a fish — with the targets getting easier and easier to pick off. This is never so true as with the “environmental” charities that huddle up, all cosily, with business in the vain attempt to get them to play nicely.

They really don’t get it — business doesn’t want to “play nicely”, business wants to do business, and will not do business if it doesn’t make a profit. In order to make a profit the business must get more more out of a process than it puts in; and if you are a manufacturer or a producer of raw materials then that extra either comes from cheap labour or the extraction of something you didn’t have before — like oil or timber. If you are a retailer or an investment bank, the profit you gain is dependent on selling something for a greater value than you bought it — you are dependent on the manufacturer or producer of raw materials having something you can resell at a profit, so they must reduce their costs as much as possible. In order for these costs to be reduced they must cut corners, so they treat workers badly; pollute the land, water and atmosphere; use their commercial muscle to ensure they don’t have legislation to comply with…and so on. If you are an advertiser or PR company, your job is to make all these companies look good.

In short, business is unsustainable, at all levels.

If you are the Nature Conservancy, one of the largest and most respected environmental charities in the world, then it would make sense not to work with profit making businesses, especially not the most damaging of them…you know, companies like Alcoa, BP and Cargill — really, really bad companies.

Actually, if you are the Nature Conservancy, you say the following:

The Nature Conservancy works with the business community to find common ground between conservation and industry. We accept their financial and land donations, engage in cause-related marketing, foster direct conservation action, and participate in event sponsorship.

As you can see, they really think there is common ground between business and conservation, and will happily provide branding for any company that pretends they are doing good things. They are good enough to provide a list of these companies — here are some really nasty ones:

Alcoa — massive polluter and consumer of energy
American Electric Power — coal burning (73%) electricity producer
Bank of America — will invest in anything, regardless of impact
BP — oil giant and greenwasher supreme
Cargill — food giant, GMO user on massive scale
Caterpillar — provides military equipment to repressive regimes

And many more, including Monsanto, Proctor & Gamble and Georgia-Pacific. All of the nasty companies The Nature Conservancy have partnered with continue to be nasty — but look great, because of their links with TNC.

In fact the history of the Nature Conservancy shows that they were only able to grow as they did in the 1960s because of a cash injection from Ford Motors, which allowed them to employ an IBM executive as their first President. Now please humour me and read this web page about their cosy relationship with General Motors, and tell me if I am being paranoid:

http://www.nature.org/joinanddonate/corporatepartnerships/partnership/generalmotors.html

I think I need to lie down…

I was having a bit of a browse yesterday looking for useful environmental groups that might help out with a project I am doing and stumbled across the World Environmental Organization. They don’t do things by halves, these guys, clearly the domain name www.world.org didn’t come cheap, and to proudly proclaim yourself as the World Environmental Organization, i.e. an organization that represents the environment of the world, must mean you have a truly global presence.

WEO don’t exactly say a lot about themselves: they seem to have just the one office, which is in Washington DC, and a board of directors that includes Jeff Gold as Chair. Jeff made lots of money from selling internet domains, particularly go.com and q.com, and he currently holds solar.org which is “A project of the World Environmental Organization”, and is also a showcase for GE Energy products. Now I don’t need to tell you what GE have done for the planet, I’ll let Corporate Watch do it for me. I wouldn’t let GE, or any of the other energy behemoths anywhere near my work.

What really pisses me off, though, is the list of sponsors which WEO shows on its site:

Like WWF, which I featured a while back, it seems that for a small stipend, and despite any history that company may have, they can be associated with an “environmental” organization (the World Environmental Organization, no less) and thus an extra layer of slippery green oil can be applied to their filthy, polluting bodies for the cost of a big corporate lunch.

And if having a list of highly dubious sponsors wasn’t enough, WEO (or rather, Jeff Gold) has gone on to trademark everything on the site: the logo, the domain and even the name; despite World Environmental Organization being a widely discussed global concept that could potentially be vital for overseeing the activities of the greenwashers that blight this planet.

As it is, WEO is a small, very worthy, East Coast USA based setup that really should learn to be a little more modest, and careful with the people it decides to do business with.

Disturbing, but not at all surprising, considering what I have been uncovering in the last few months…yes Earth Day 2008 is nearly upon us and right on time the “green” groups and “green” campaigners are cashing in on the potential bonanza. Proof, if proof be needed, that it’s money and not good intentions that runs the industrial world.

Take a look at this, from the Earth Day Canada web site:

Earth Day Canada Hats.

Bucket hats in natural colour, 100% cotton garment-washed, embroidered with the Earth Day Canada logo. Also available in natural with navy trim.

Baseball hats in natural or navy colour. One size fits all. Embroidered with the Earth Day Canada logo.

1 – 11 hats   $15.50 ea
12 – 24 hats $14.25 ea
25+ hats      $12.95 ea

Obviously they are organic, Fair Trade, and all that — no? They also sell a lovely Garden Tote Bag, a steal at $36, or if you can’t afford that then just show your support by buying a gold plated (where did this gold come from?) lapel pin for only $4.

You can have lots of fun looking around for more examples like this, some from charities and some from blatantly commercial companies, although I’m having more and more difficulty telling them apart lately.

One thing that particularly bugged me was an e-mail from a publisher pushing a book who wrote:

From: <giwilks@aol.com>
To: <keith@xxxx.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2008 5:43 PM
Subject: This Earth Day go green while saving the green

Green is in and protecting the environment and its natural resources has become a universal effort.  For many consumers, “going green” will not only help save Mother Earth it will help save money, too.  Greg Karp, author of Living Rich by Spending Smart: How to Get More of What You Really Want (ISBN: 978-0-13-235009-9, $17.99, February 2008) and a syndicated personal finance columnist, offers tips for consumers that will help protect the green spaces and the green in their wallets.

Well, way to go, Greg Karp; give your promoter a big pat on the back for green exploitation at its worst. I responded, of course:

This is so superficial. I don’t need to spend $18 to get a pile of money-making, pseudo-green tips: I could give you a thousand of these tips and still be no closer to a better way of life. We are not consumers, we are people: modern society has given us labels and all the time we accept those labels we are prisoners of that culture.

Strangely, I didn’t get a response. If you want to do something this Earth Day, then go ahead — but make sure it doesn’t involve screwing money out of people, otherwise you stand a good chance of being called a hypocrite.
 

(STOP PRESS: I’ve just received a kind invitation to advertise an Earth Day event taking place at Universal Studios, that well known bastion of green thinking mind-melding media behemoth. I have a funny feeling I will getting a lot more of these self-promoting bandwagon messages over the next 2 weeks.)

“…said representatives of the campaign group, Plane Stupid.” The words fell out of the mouth of Jeremy Paxman, the UK’s most acerbic newsreader, like a river of foul-tasting spittle. I know how he feels.

With aircraft emissions rising exponentially, promising to undo any carbon reduction measures that governments put in place because they fawn in the face of business might and the “right” of people in the industrial West to fly, you would think that a key enemy of the environmental movement would be the entire flying culture. But we see Sierra Club sending their supporters around the world by plane, government ministers and their advisers flying by their thousands to “environmental” conferences, and (I have it on good authority) leaders of mainstream environmental organisations taking holidays across the world by jet because…well, I can’t think of an acceptable excuse – can you?

Then we have Plane Stupid: the brainchild of a number Climate Camp protestors along with Greenpeace staffers, who have been in the press recently for unfurling a couple of banners on top of the Houses of Parliament, and who are now organising a “flash mob” for the grand opening of Heathrow Terminal 5 (see above, sort of ;-) ).

“Be at T5 International Arrivals at 11am to put on (or strip to reveal) your brightly coloured ‘STOP AIRPORT EXPANSION’ t-shirt: a visible presence of public opposition to the madness of airport expansion. Wander round, have a coffee, leave when you like.” (from http://t5flashmob.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/flashmobflyer2.pdf)

You may well ask me: “What’s wrong with that?” Nothing, actually, if there was any chance of any of this activity making any difference whatsoever. As I have written on The Earth Blog:

“It becomes increasingly clear – the more you look at them – that most of the campaigns fought by large environmental groups not only sit squarely in the comfort zone of that group’s supporters and leaders, but also conveniently sit in the comfort zones of the very companies and governments the campaigns are targeted at.”

Where, in any of Plane Stupid’s materials, in anything they say in the media (after all, media attention is what they crave) is a direct call for the public to stop flying NOW because if they don’t stop then the airports will keep expanding, the planes will keep flying and the Earth will keep heating? Where is the advice to keep on at your friends and relatives to stop their senseless airbound journeys? Why are the media who promote air travel not being attacked for being tools of industry?

I’ll tell you why.

It’s because organisations like Plane Stupid / Greenpeace, Friends Of The Earth, Sierra Club, WWF are scared of alienating their audience, their friends in the media and, most of all, their own people who still can’t bear to admit that they are as much a part of the machine as big business. I know people who have been sacked from and ostracised by these organisations for daring to suggest that protests, petitions, banners and marches don’t work. They don’t, and neither do Flash Mobs.

And the sad thing is, the organisations know it – but still won’t admit that they have wasted decades trying to do things the nice way.

The Unsuitablog having a go at Greenpeace? That can’t be right, can it?

Yes it can. Since its formation in 1971, Greenpeace have been right at the heart of the modern environmental campaigning movement: amongst their many victories have been putting the protection of whales on a global footing…

Well, that’s all I can think of. I admit to having considerable empathy with the fearless anti-logging campaigners in South America, and the work of some of their more underground activists who rarely get much credit in the PR-ridden world that has become “Nu-Green Campaigning”, but I have more than a little antagonism for the people running the campaigns in the rich countries which contain most of Greenpeace’s member base.

The list of crimes is too many to go into detail here: needless to say, numerous battles have been lost due to their recent practice of kow-towing to the consumer culture. In a nutshell, there is no-one in a position of power at Greenpeace who is prepared to say, “This civilisation sucks, we should be bringing it down.” Let’s face it – the world is run by wealthy individuals in government and especially in business who are driving us down the road to self-annihilation.

What do Greenpeace do in the UK? Spend most of their time pushing for people to have solar panels and wind-turbines in their towns. Everything will be fine if we just take our energy from renewables, and ignore those nasty people who keep selling us stuff; brainwashing us into thinking this is the life; making laws to control us according to the wishes of corporations; pretending they can be trusted to save the planet when they just want to squeeze every last drop of resource out of it.

Here’s the spiel from the UK web site:

“EfficienCity is a virtual town, but pioneering, real world communities around the UK are using similar systems. As a result, they’re enjoying lower greenhouse gas emissions, a more secure energy supply, cheaper electricity and heating bills and a whole new attitude towards energy.”

“While our government promotes the fallacy that we need coal and nuclear to keep the lights on, innovative councils, businesses and individuals are taking the leap into a cleaner, greener future with decentralised energy.”

Cheaper electricity! Innovative councils and businesses! Talk about being in hock to the market economy. For goodness sake, Greenpeace, do you really not have a clue why this planet is being killed?