You have to hand it to the UK Government; time after time they have pretended to care about greenhouse gas emissions, world peace, deforestation, toxic dumping, overfishing, human right abuses and all sorts of other things that a truly “caring government” would normally do positive things about (ok, some of you will have spotted the contradiction in terms), and time after time they have been exposed as brutal hypocrites, slavishly obeying the wishes of their corporate masters. Yet they keep coming back with ever more extraordinary claims about how they are just doing things because “it’s the right thing to do”.

Top of the list at the moment is carbon capture and storage, which is a way of ensuring we can keep burning coal — feeding the machine we have to remain tied to — while pretending all the emissions are going to be safely locked away and really won’t ever escape, no they won’t, no way, honest.

Coming up close on the heels of CCS is the unremitting desire to get genetically modified organisms into the food chain, thus satisfying the demands of many of the largest corporations on Earth: Cargill, BASF, Syngenta, Dow Chemicals and Monsanto — to name a few. The Canadian and US governments rolled over long ago, and the power of these corporations has ensured that South America is awash with GMOs, making it difficult to ensure that the food we eat isn’t contaminated in some way (Hint: grow your own). And that’s where The Independent takes up the story:

Jane Kennedy, the minister for Farming and the Environment, told The Independent yesterday that the [world food study] group’s work would include the potential for GM crops and food.

She said that she was “cautious” about allowing GM products in Britain, but added: “My own opinion is less important than what John Beddington might come up with. When the public are deeply concerned and hold strong views, they tend not to listen when ministers express a view. But they will listen to those who have the experience and knowledge to be able to offer solid advice.”

Ms Kennedy said that she would welcome GM crop trials in Britain. None is currently taking place because all projects have been vandalised by opponents but the Government may fund an experiment at a “secure” location.

The minister said another reason why the issue had to be addressed was that animal feed, such as soya, was increasingly made using GM products. “The options for those countries which want to stay GM-free are reducing, therefore the price of non-GM animal feed is going up. If that trend continues, it means meat products in countries which choose not to use GM becoming more and more expensive. There are clear implications for the UK,” she said.

Let’s get this right: the reason that the UK (and, by implication, every other nation that currently debarrs GMO growing) should embrace genetically modified crops is because it is too difficult and too expensive to avoid it. Which is like saying that the reason factories should continue to pour toxic chemicals into rivers is because it costs money to do something else with the toxins, and therefore the price of the factory’s goods would go up! Notice that she is referring only to meat, because animal feed production is by far the most profitable and powerful sector of the agricultural farming system, and to suggest we should not eat meat to reduce global food demand would be to defy her owners.

So she speaks from the mouth of the machine, like all good politicians.

Apparently, on March 28, millions of people will be turning off their lights for an hour, for Earth Hour. Yes, a whole hour when all sorts of really green places, like Las Vegas, New York and San Francisco, will be flicking off the lights in symbolic venues and, an hour later, turning them all on again, just to show that Industrial Civilization doesn’t really give a f*** about the planet, but likes a good joke: like the joke of Alanis Morrisette flicking her toenails in the tumbler of her fellow airline passenger.

Like the joke that you can be an airline passenger and, at the same time, talk about saving energy.

Like the joke that trivial, symbolic activities, such as Earth Hour do anything other than make people think they have done something worthwhile.

Stop messing about with trivia and do something real.

Earth Hour: The Huge Turn Off- Alanis Morissette PSA

Thanks to The Reality Blog for this superb link to a CNN item that showed how much horseshit the coal industry is spewing. Note: I am not the kind of “environmentalist” who supports carbon capture and storage or carbon trading in any way, shape or form…

Joe Lucas, the spokesman for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) was just interviewed for a piece exploring the myth of “clean” coal. (You may remember ACCCE as the folks who spent over $10.5 million on energy lobbying.)

It seems that the spokesman who represents the industry that puts out more than one third of our CO2 emissions — the leading cause of global warming — is having some trouble grasping reality.

(full video at http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2009/03/04/am.acosta.clean.coal.cnn)

Transcript of Lucas bit:

Still the industry refuses to say its plants contribute to global warming.
[Question:] Can you just answer that yes or no? If you believe that burning coal causes global warming?
[Joe Lucas:] I don’t know, I’m not a scientist.

You don’t have to be a scientist to know that burning coal is a leading source of global warming pollution. (”GHG Emissions and Sinks 1990–2006,” US EPA 2008.)

But it certainly is hard to believe that while the industry has spent $10.5 million on lobbying, their spokesman isn’t better informed.

Now, open your minds and allow this extraordinary piece of propaganda to enter your psyche: you know you want to believe…

Do you enjoy your place in the machine?

Advertising is one of the main methods by which people are encouraged to continue feeding the global economic machine; it is a Tool Of Disconnection, a tool to ensure humans are kept tied to civilization and away from the kinds of connections that really matter. Advertising is pernicious; it changes the way people think; it implants cultural ideas and concepts in people of all ages, and it makes people do things that they otherwise would not do. Advertising is brainwashing, and it works…for the system.

Here is an extract from A Matter Of Scale:

On 1 April 2007, the Brazilian city of São Paolo officially became billboard free. The tide of advertising that had swamped every physical dimension of the city had become intolerable, even to the local authorities; such was the scale of the problem. The law that demanded the removal of all billboards was – incredibly – passed by a huge majority, with the only “no” voter being an advertising executive on the council. People are happy, except the advertisers, who made their position clear after the law was proposed:

Border, the Brazilian Association of Advertisers, was up in arms over the move. In a statement released on 2 October, the date on which law PL 379/06 was formally approved by the city council, Border called the new laws “unreal, ineffective and fascist”. It pointed to the tens of thousands of small businesses that would have to bear the burden of altering their shop fronts under regulations “unknown in their virulence in any other city in the world”.

We’re all smart enough to see through the rhetoric of these comments: “unreal, ineffective and fascist” are perfect descriptors for the synthetic, disconnected, material world that advertising has forced upon humanity – a world that is swamped with branding, corporate “messages”, sponsorship, flyers, free sheets, popups and numerous other forms of corporate propaganda. São Paolo may have lost its billboards, but the advertisers can still feed their messages to the public through newspapers, magazines, television, radio; even schools, into which corporations don’t so much sneak advertising, as blatantly trumpet the goodness of their products and services.

Almost every school in the UK collects Tesco and Sainsburys supermarket tokens, through which they can acquire computers and books. Every token handed over by every child is a graphic advertisement for competing brands that want their cut of the family shopping budget, and the future loyalty of the children who carry these little pieces of paper into the classroom. North America has it far worse: “It is never enough to tag the schools with a few logos. Having gained a foothold, the brand managers are now doing what they have done in music, sports and journalism outside the schools: trying to overwhelm their host. They are fighting for their brands to become not the add-on but the subject of education.” As you have seen, the individual is not offered real choice in this culture of consumption – simply “Conchoice”. The real choice has already been lost in favour of corporations that have sold entire populations down the commercial river: the individual’s ultimate dream is no longer a response to “what can I achieve in my life?” but “what can I buy?”

When I receive an email suggesting that there is such a thing as “Eco Billboards” then my blood starts to boil: which “Eco Billboards” are these that advertise cars, shopping malls, luxury holidays, political parties, energy companies? Tell me about your brave plan:

Hi Keith,

The outdoor advertising industry is getting an “eco” makeover! From now on major billboard companies like Clear Channel Outdoor will only accept ECO-posters created with polyethylene, the most commonly-recycled plastic in the world.

ECO-posters are 100% recyclable and better for the environment – the previous 30-sheet posters contributed about 150 million pounds annually to the nation’s landfills. ECO-posters also maintain their visible integrity longer, 90 days as opposed to 30 days with the previous posters. Other benefits include:

· No flagging or peeling with these single-sheet executions
· No more glue and paper – the new posters attach directly to the structure
· Visual quality is comparable to vinyl executions
· Unaffected by weather

I’d be happy to arrange a time for you to speak with an executive from Clear Channel Outdoor to discuss why they are making this change, as well how it will help the environment, if you’re interested.

Kind regards,
Sharon
________________________________________


Sharon Oh
Account Executive – Public Relations
Brainerd Communicators, Inc.
521 Fifth Avenue, 8th Floor
New York, NY 10175
Tel: 212-986-6667
Fax: 212-986-8302
oh@braincomm.com

Visit our website at http://www.braincomm.com

Tell me, Sharon, do you feel morally justified in calling this an “eco” makeover, or are you just greenwashing? What does your heart tell you?

Now this is what should happen to billboards: preferably through the actions of the public, rather than any political party. Removing advertising is freeing people’s minds: the only ecological billboard is one that contains no advertising.

Enjoy this story:

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

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

They are prepared to start wars to get oil.

They are prepared to destroy ecosystems to get oil.

They are prepared to displace humans to get oil.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Like go out of business, perhaps?

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

Dear Sir or Madam,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks!

Alyssa

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

There’s a great Monty Python sketch centred around an actor called Arthur Jackson, who happens to have two sheds. The interviewer siezes upon this fact and constantly refers to him as Arthur “Two Sheds” Jackson, much to the chagrin of poor “Two Sheds” who is desperate to talk about his acting work rather than the size and content of his sheds. I have three sheds and, up until my insurance expires in a couple of weeks time, have car insurance with a large company called Admiral.

Admiral “Two Cars” Insurance.

At this point I must place a short disclaimer: Yes, we do have car, the same one we’ve had for 8 years, which we originally bought before our views on environmental damage hardened. It is driven about once every week or two, so we have to insure it. It’s very likely that we’ll be getting rid of it soon, because it does feel hypocritical having one and, as I say, it’s hardly ever used. Still, it gives me a chance to talk about this…

Admiral are running a series of television adverts in the UK espousing the availability of a special deal for households with more than one car; basically you can insure the second (and presumably third, fourth, fifth etc.) for less than the first one:

Single, married or sharing a house – you can save with MultiCar as long as the cars are registered at that address. Even someone with two or more cars is eligible for great discounts with Admiral MultiCar.

This same stance is repeated on the main page of their web site — actually it virtually is the main page of their web site. Now, car insurance is insurance for cars; but this is quite clearly an endorsement of those very many households who, in their flawed wisdom, have decided that they have to have two or more cars in order to live their lives. And to think, I feel bad about having one car!

For that, and that alone, I’m transferring our insurance to a company that at least makes a decent effort to get people out of their cars rather than living their lives enclosed in polluting metal boxes. If I were slightly less hard-line then I would probably even tell you their name…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Over the past few years my views on renewable energy have been cooling, as the planet warms: I used to be an enthusiastic supporter of renewable energy, obviously in the face of the growing emissions from non-renewable sources, but also in that I actually liked (and still do like) the sight of lots of wind turbines. My views were somewhat tempered a couple of years ago by the fact that most of the largest investors in renewable energy (for the sake of clarity, I do mean “electricity” when I talk about energy here) were and still are the large construction and energy corporations, and so I wrote about it.

In the last year or so I have realised that almost all of the talk about large scale renewable energy is a smokescreen. When politicians refer to the need for an increased amount of renewable energy they are (a) reacting to public opinion in order to look better, (b) reacting to international agreements that are forcing their hands somewhat, but most of all they are (c) ensuring that demand for energy can continue to rise, so long as the percentage of energy produced by renewable means also goes up. This is all about economics, and its the only reason that corporations invest in renewable energy and why, for instance, Shell pulled out of the project for the largest wind farm on Earth and pumped their money (and our natural gas and water) into the Athabasca Tar Sands instead. The oil price has dropped since the Summer of 2008, so you can bet that they and the other oil companies are starting to see wind, solar and (OH!) tidal energy as the latest cash cow.

So it’s the politicians riding the wave of corporate irresponsibility that ensures that energy policy is driven by the market; and it’s here that the Severn Barrage comes in.

The Severn Tidal Barrage is a scheme, or set of schemes, that have been designed to produce electricity out of tidal energy. The River Severn, which also marks part of the political boundary between England and Wales, has one of the largest tidal flows in the world, funnelling huge amounts of oceanic tidal energy into a gently narrowing and shallowing estuary. You can read all the technical details here; but the point is that if that energy could be captured, it would be able to generate an awful lot of electricity.

It also so happens that the Severn Estuary is one of the most important wetland habitats in Europe and, to state the obvious, is part of a living river ecosystem that initially rises in the Cambrian Mountains, and is then joined by myriad tributaries and other rivers stretching halfway across England and deeply into Wales before emptying into the Bristol Channel and finally the Atlantic Ocean. This is not just a stretch of energy rich water – it is not just anything, for rivers are the source of a countless variety of natural ecosystems and habitats, yet are probably the single most abused geographic elements on Earth.

When, in January 2008, the UK Government announced that it had shortlisted five proposals to go forwards to the next stage of a tidal energy study for the Severn Estuary. Not utilising this source of energy was not an option; after all the UK’s consumption of electricity has remained pretty static over the last 5 years, despite the obvious need to dramatically reduce energy consumption, and all but one of the UK’s nuclear power stations is due to be decommissioned in the next 10 years or so. Notice that static figure: despite all of the posturing about the UK Government being at the forefront of reducing carbon emissions, the amount of electricity being used isn’t going down. The reason?

It does not make economic sense to reduce energy consumption.

Remember that. Now, the favoured project, according to the UK Government, is the huge concrete barrage, stretching for 10 miles across the estuary. Observant readers will notice that on the press release the wording is skewed towards the larger Cardiff-Weston scheme, using such phrases as: “twice that of the UK’s largest fossil fuel power plant” and “it could generate nearly 5% of UK electricity.” Not exactly neutral wording, I think you would agree.

And of course it’s not neutral, because the construction of this project will require huge amounts of capital, huge amounts of energy, huge amounts of materials, huge amounts of backhanders…sorry, how did that last one slip in? I think it might also have something to do with the nature of the consortium proposing this scheme: The Severn Tidal Power Group. This organisation comprises the following members:

Balfour Beatty
Taylor Woodrow
Sir Robert McAlpine
Alstom

Four of the largest engineering and construction corporations in Europe. For the last 10 years, and probably more, the construction industry has been effectively setting UK Government planning policy; most starkly illustrated by the presence of lucrative PPI schemes in major infrastructure projects. Patrick Kron, the Chairman of Alstom holds the Légion d’Honneur; effectively a knighthood. The group, as of 1999, also included Rolls Royce and Tarmac Construction. This a group that has serious influence on government policy.

Notice also that on the Severn Barrage Proposal analysis report, the funding for the study came not from English Nature, the Department for the Environment or any other body that might have objections: it came from “The Department of Trade and Investment, the Welsh Assembly
Government, the South West Regional Development Agency, the Scottish Executive and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment, Northern Ireland.” All offices whose interest is most effectively served by ramping up economic growth and the promotion of economic investment.

Don’t be fooled that a consultation is taking place: it has already taken place, in secret, and the only things stopping a huge barrage from being constructed are either a complete lack of money to build the damned thing, or (and this is down to you) ripping apart the links between the way the UK is run, and the financial interests of those who currently have the real power. Somehow I don’t thing wading birds cut any ice when it’s all about the money.

There’s a lot to be said for having progressive targets in all sorts of things, foremost among these is reducing the amount of climate changing gas being poured into the atmosphere; so when, for instance, a government (like that of the UK) says that it will aim to reduce the amount of carbon the nation is sending into the atmosphere by 80% by the year 2050, then it’s good to know that somewhere down the line people are going to check that they are on target. That said, of course 80% by 2050 is hopelessly inadequate, given that that only a net reduction in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – as distinct from the amount being emitted – by, say, 2050, will have any chance of preventing the worst effects of climate change.

You would think that, even with the rather modest reduction of 80% by 2050, a regular check would be made, say once a year, just to make sure the current government in power can’t blame the previous one or the next one, or be blamed by the next one, etc. But that requires committment; it requires sticking by your policies; it requires continuity of action – all the kinds of things that the governments of the industrial West are very, very bad at. And that’s why you never see year on year targets and audits.

Another reason you never see such things is because, to be quite frank, the recent performance of governments in the industrial West in reducing emissions has been crap. For instance, if we look at the two great Kyoto bashers, the USA and Australia (based on DoE statistics), we see that between 2001 and 2006 the USA increased its emissions by 2.4% and Australia had increased by 11.5%.

So what about the keenest signatories of the Kyoto Protocol:

Germany reduced its emissions by 2.3%
France increased its emissions by 2.9%
Britain increased its emissions by 1.8%
The Netherlands reduced its emissions by 6.4%
Spain increased its emissions by 12.4%

Five years of “action” and only one country out of five so-called advanced European nations — all of which fought with the USA to get it to sign the Kyoto Protocol — has managed to reduce its emissions by more than 5%. “Blair’s Britain”, the most vocal of the governments pushing the Kyoto Protocol has utterly failed, showing quite clearly that in the battle between the corporate-political agenda and the real needs of the planet, it’s the corporate-political agenda that comes out on top. The system is not going to permit annual targets, or even 5 year targets, because that makes it extremely hard to pull the wool over peoples’ eyes: in this era of greenwashing excellence, that’s a definite no-no.

When a politician says that they are going to fix things, then you might want to consider in whose favour the fixing is being done. When thay say they are making progress, you might want to wave a few statistics in their face and shout: “Why don’t you show me!”