A few days ago I was watching the TV trying to see which companies were plying their seasonal wares to small children. It was the usual plastic crap which I don’t need to explain in detail, but one thing caught my eye: the Playmobile Recycling Truck, with an awful voice over saying, “Do your bit for the environment” to which I mentally appended, “by purchasing this chunk of unrecycled plastic.” Browsing this morning for similar products — and to give Playmobile their due, they don’t actually say anything more on their web site except that its a Recycling Truck toy — and I inevitably came across the Fisher Price range of toys.

Fisher Price are big, and getting bigger. Part of the behemoth toy corporation, Mattel since 1993, they are now worth over $2 billion, over a third of Mattel’s earnings. Not surprisingly they have a huge range of products, but two of them struck me as being particularly interesting: the Rainforest Range and the Precious Planet range. In the UK, these are given top billing on the “Baby Gear” page, as you can see here.

It’s a bit difficult to get too stroppy about the Rainforest range, even though they say in their Infant section:

Bring the natural beauty of a rainforest to your baby’s nursery … with lush greenery, playful animal friends, serene backgrounds, even calming motion and sounds. The Fisher-Price Rainforest toys and accessories line: designed to soothe and entertain your very special baby in very special ways.

They don’t make any claims about preservation, and it’s not as though rainforest means anything special when it comes to toys except monkeys and trees.

On the other hand, Precious Planet is altogether more pointed: if you saw a range of toys called “Precious Planet”, what would you think? Three cute animals smiling at the shopper, with a bird appearing to walk across a blue and green globe, partially masked by the bubbly blue writing. You can’t honestly say that Fisher Price are not trying to make some Eco-point here, can you?

So I called the UK office up, ready to ask questions about the chemicals in the toys, where they are made and whether they contained any renewable or recycled materials. What I didn’t expect was what I was told at 4′ 44″…

Fisher Price UK Recording – Precious Planet

Sorry about the bad quality, but you can clearly hear the words: “but it’s not environmentally friendly”

So why the hell is it called Precious Planet?! As I said in the call, there is no information, just the heavily suggestive range name along with an equally suggestive graphic: people are going to believe the products are environmentally friendly, when they may just be the least environmentally and socially (Mattel have a terrible record on sweatshop labour) ethical products you can buy for your child.

Actually, there is a link, which has grabbed Fisher Price by the balls, and isn’t going to let go. At the bottom of the page is the logo of the Wildlife Conservation Society. It only appears at the bottom of the Precious Planet pages for both Baby and Infant, so they are clearly trying to greenwash the public about their environmental credentials, by virtue of presentation: just because it doesn’t explicitly claim to be ethical doesn’t mean it isn’t saying so.

Go to the WCS web site, and you find that Fisher Price are one of their key corporate sponsors, and have their logo all over the place should you happen to visit the Bronz Zoo Animal Prison. What is particularly interesting is the company that Fisher Price keep in this roll-call of elite greenwashers:

ConEdison — Energy supplier to New York City, using oil, coal and gas
Bank Of America — Financial giant who will invest in just about anything that makes money
Delta Airlines — Yes, an airline, how very sustainable
Hess — A major oil company working everywhere, including Borneo
PepsiCo — Junk food behemoth, getting their logo everywhere they can

Quite where that leaves the reputation of the Wildlife Conservation Society depends on whether you think wildlife conservation mixes happily with coal, oil, airlines, global finance and junk food. I would say it’s in tatters, which is pretty well the state of Fisher Price’s greenwashing reputation as well. They deserve each other.

Do you have a beautiful Tuscan mansion? And another in New York, southern England, the Caribbean and probably all sorts of other places? And do you fly on a regular basis between them, and anywhere else that takes your fancy…in private jets…and helicoptors? And do you have personal chefs, masseurs, lifestyle advisors, gardeners and houshold maids? And have you had a Hilarious.Run.In with a Guardian journalist that more people need to see, just for the entertainment value? And do you promote healthy, sustainable living and tell people to save the rainforest?

Hi Trudie!

Love the moves…

Now, one video alone is never enough to move the contents of your stomach upwards, forcefully opposing the laws of gravity to emerge in a chunky stream of meal remainders. What we need is a proper emetic, in the form of this press release from Marissa at Trudie’s PR agency, Krupp:

GAIAM AND TRUDIE STYLER CREATE DVDS IN TUSCANY

Trudie Styler and Celebrity Trainer James D’Silva to Star in

Series of Mind Body Fitness DVDs

NEW YORK, NY – Gaiam, Inc., the leading distributor of lifestyle media and fitness accessories, today announced that it will produce a series of mind body fitness DVDs with Trudie Styler, the actress, producer, and environmental campaigner.

She will be joined in DVD workouts that combine elements of yoga, Pilates and ballet with traditional exercises by celebrity fitness trainer James D’Silva, who trained as a ballet dancer in his native Goa. He specializes in workout regimes to increase flexibility, strengthen and tone muscles, and improve posture.

The programs are filmed on location at Il Palagio, the Tuscan villa Styler shares with her husband Sting, and will feature music from Sting’s #1 classical album of 2006, “Songs From the Labyrinth,” plus extensive bonus material.

The first two DVDs will launch in October 2009, the third in December 2009, and two more DVDs and Myofascial Release kit in 2010. Each DVD will reflect elements of Styler and Sting’s philosophy on eco-friendly living.

“Trudie Styler embodies Gaiam’s lifestyle message of good health, wellness, and sustainability,” said Lynn Powers, CEO of Gaiam, Inc. “Her dedication to a personal lifestyle that focuses on health, the environment and social responsibility serves as an example for all.”

Trudie Styler said, “I have enjoyed yoga, Pilates and dance over the years and I certainly feel I have benefited from the integrated mind body experience they offer. It’s exciting that through Gaiam, James D’Silva and I are able to introduce these routines to others. I hope they will derive as much pleasure and benefit from them as I have done.”

The DVDs will feature Styler and D’Silva performing various mind body fitness routines, in the setting of the Il Palagio estate in Tuscany. They will also contain interviews with Styler, Sting and D’Silva covering thoughts on the environment, music and several of Sting’s songs.

“These new DVDs will combine fitness, aesthetics, and artistry designed to enhance the spirit of the workouts,” said Gaiam President of Entertainment and World Wide Distribution, William S. Sondheim. “Additional bonus segments will give viewers a glimpse at how Trudie and Sting have personally dedicated themselves to inspirational practices and green living.”

Bonus material will include a tour of Il Palagio’s kitchen and gardens. More than 70% of the food at Il Palagio comes from the estate itself, including products that are sold to the public such as honey, olive oil, fruit, vegetables, Tuscan salami and, coming in 2010, wine. Additionally, there is a behind-the-scenes look at how Il Palagio uses the surrounding land to create a self-sustaining and eco-friendly house that runs on bio fuels. And lastly, a lifestyle piece about organic wine production, the conversion of estate lands into biodynamic vineyards, and the story behind Sister Moon, the couple’s organic wine label.

You want them, don’t you? All of them.

Strangely, my reaction to this slightly misdirected press release was not over-effusive, sycophantic congratulations and a promise to promote the DVDs all over my blogs. I thought this would be more appropriate:

Hi [name withheld to protect the innocent]

To be honest I would rather eat my own hand than watch flying-addict Trudie, she of the 4 or 5 homes (I lose count), tell everyone how to live in a sustainable way on only $10m per year, while delightfully pirouetting to Sting’s self-obsessed ballads.

Thanks for asking, though.

Keith

To give her some credit, she is probably just as pissed off with sending this banal crap out as I am with receiving it. Her response was perfect:

So you’re passing? Just kidding. Thanks for letting me know and have an awesome weekend :-)

:-D

An innocuous little email was sent to me the other day, and had it come from a small company that only makes light bulbs then I might have let it pass. But it didn’t come from a small company that only sells light bulbs; it came from the 12th largest company in the world, the fifth largest in the USA — General Electric.

GE, as they have generally always been known, are pushing compact fluorescent light bulbs as the answer to the world’s energy problems; as the email makes clear:

There’s no question that GE Energy Smart® bulbs give consumers the energy-saving benefits they want and the high-quality lighting they expect. With a complete family of different shapes and sizes, consumers have energy-friendly lighting options for nearly every room in their homes – including decorative fixtures.

If every household in the U.S. replaced ONE light bulb with an ENERGY STAR® qualified GE Energy Smart® bulb, consumers would save:


a.. A combined national total of $600 million a year in energy costs.
b.. Enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year and prevent greenhouse gasses equivalent to the emission of more than 800,000 cars.

Change the World, Start with ENERGY STAR® is a national campaign encouraging all Americans to join with millions of others and take small individual steps, like changing a light bulb, that make a big difference in the fight against climate change. ENERGY STAR is a joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy helping us all save money and protect the environment through energy efficient products and practices. Take the Pledge.

Apart from the bile-inducing statement, “There’s no question that GE Energy Smart® bulbs give consumers the energy-saving benefits they want”, which takes assumption to the whole new level (although, as I don’t consider myself to be a “consumer”, then maybe in a strange way, they are right…); is the statistical blunderbuss approach to this press release. For one, changing a single light bulb will reduce power consumption by a paltry 45 watts at most, which is about 15% of the power consumption of a plasma TV screen, and utterly trivial compared to the amount of energy consumed by a vacuum cleaner or oven. Second, it also waves around the “x million homes / people / cars” statistic, which always sounds impressive (yes, I was guilty of this once) but falls down as soon as you realise that they are only talking about the lighting for those 3 million homes, which also comprise only around 2% of US homes.

Then there is the “doing your bit” myth: the idea that we can all save the world by doing bugger all, like changing one lightbulb. You would imaging that GE would want to sell lots and lots of lightbulbs, but don’t forget — and here’s where it starts to get interesting — they are also an energy generation and transmission company, which makes big bucks out of providing electricity to millions of homes. If each home cut its electricity consumption by, say 50%, then it would be a financial catastrophe for the generation and transmission arm of GE.

What GE are creating is a “win-win-win” for themselves: (1) they look like a “green” company, (2) they ensure that they remain financially viable as an individual corporation and (3) they perpetuate the “doing your bit” myth which is essential to the continuation of the brainwashed consumer society.

It’s quite remarkable that I haven’t covered GE here already, but it has been excellently covered by DeSmogBlog, who paid particular attention to GE’s “clean coal” adverts:

Forget “clean coal.” Energy giant General Electric thinks coal is downright sexy.

This “coal-is-so-clean-its-sexy ad” was pulled by General Electric a while back, but it goes to show just how far some will go to sell clean coal.

Strange choice of music for the ad – “Sixteen Tons” by Merle Travis is a song about the misery of coal mining.

Why not spend a few moments reflecting on this, while you also ponder GE’s magical light bulbs…

Given that EVERY – WEB – SITE in the General Electric armoury appears to have “the environment” at the very top of its agenda — yes, that really does include coal, aviation and oil — I think we might be seeing more of this brutal monolithic corporation on The Unsuitablog pretty soon.

If you are a fan of American Football or have an interest in animal rights, you may well have heard about the former (and soon to be “rehabilitated”) star of the NFL, Michael Vick. This was a guy who, in common with an increasing number of inner-city gang members, took part in dog fights: or rather, the poor animals he baited, drugged and caged, took part in dog fights; the humans involved stood at the side and eagerly watched two hounds rip each other to shreds…repeatedly.

Not the kind of guy you would invite to meet your mother, I would think, and certainly not the kind of guy you would ask to front an animal rights campaign. But then we all know how screwed up the world is, and particularly what lengths some organisations will go to ensure they have a steady stream of income with which to continue their work (yes, PETA, I’m talking about you and your consistently sexist campaign images).

To this list — which also includes Greenpeace, buddying up with Kimberly-Clark; WWF, having a love-in with any company who submits the cash; and the Nature Conservancy, who have never left their corporate love-nest — we must add the Humane Society of the United States, for one of the most misdirected and stupid decisions by a non-environmental NGO I have seen for a long time.

There is now a web site called Boycott the Humane Society of the United States. The images aren’t pretty, but then dog fighting isn’t either. This is their take on the whole Michael Vick–HSUS debacle:

It is with great sadness that we are compelled to call for this boycott against the Humane Society. They have facilitated Michael Vick being able to return to the NFL and football which puts forth a horrible example for young children everywhere to believe they can kill and torture dogs, and live a criminal life, and still be a great football star and a spokeperson for HSUS. No, Michael Vick will not be going around the country and teaching children what to do with violent dogs. This is preposterous. Michael Vick may be the rule rather than the exception for the NFL bad boyz with their glamour and fame privilege. But we do expect more from the Humane Society.

The Humane Society didn’t need Michael Vick to do a campaign against dog fighting. They could have pointed him out from a distance as an example of what not to do and that is exactly what they would have done had he been some poor hick in the south fighting roosters. They would have never highlighted it in this way.

The difference here is a super sophisticated public relations effort to clear Vick’s name and reputation so he can make them all some money. And indeed this deal is all about money–big money. So much money that not a week, or even a moment, can be lost in rehabilitating Michael Vick’s reputation enough to get him out on the field for those big money making games which brings in lots of blood money for all of them, including unfortunately the Humane Society.

The Humane Society, The NFL and their sponsors and this sadist Michael Vick all depend on you having a short attention span and getting used to what they have done. I don’t know about you who are reading this page, but I have a very long attention span. Hope you will speak out about this in every avenue you can and apply pressure on everyone you can think of until Michael Vick is told in no uncertain terms that he has no business teaching anything to anybody, any more than OJ needs to be snatched up by battered womens centers to teach men how not to beat and kill their wives. If Michael Vick is not euthanized like the dogs he tortured, sexually abused and murdered then the only other thing that needs to happen is he needs to shut the fuck up, listen and learn and do his best to transform himself into a human being over the next decade or so and then we might be interested in what he has to say but even then certainly not as a representative of the Humane Society or the NFL.

There is also a Facebook Group for the boycott — if you feel strongly about this, then that is the place to start.

It’s not just greenwash that gets me angry, anything that makes unqualified claims that could end up harming people or the wider environment deserves to be targeted: in this case it is a company I have already challenged on The Unsuitablog, Holland and Barrett. Not content with lying through their teeth about the pathetic efforts they are making to green themselves up, they are now claiming to be able to reduce the risk of Swine Flu.

Now bear in mind that Swine Flu may or may not become a global pandemic of monumental proportions, that an awful lot of people are scared about it (and I believe they should be to a certain extent). Also, bear in mind that H1N1 Swine Flu is the direct result of the hyper-consumer economy and the desire to produce food as cheaply as possible for the most profit. Any backlash should be directed squarely at the commercial world but, of course, not content with creating the conditions for a global catastrophe, the system that created the problem is now seeking to benefit as much as possible from it: such as Tamiflu distribution being the de facto response to any outbreaks; as opposed to the far more logical move of stopping the mass movement of workers, holidaymakers and schoolchildren to and from their respective locations. One of these measures benefits the industrial machine — one of them does not.

Guess which the world’s richest nations have chosen.

On the back of this are the various bloodsucking companies that are trying to make a fast buck from people’s perfectly rational fears of global pandemic. When I see a poster in the window of my local Holland and Barrett saying:

SWINE FLU WATCH!

SPECIAL OFFERS ON SWINE FLU PREVENTION IN STORE

NOW!

I have to wonder whether they are selling anti-viral masks, sensible transmission prevention advice, or perhaps something less than effective from their existing range of “remedies”.

Something like this:

The little I know about Echinacea could be written on the back of my hand, but I do know that it has most definitely not been shown in any objective scientic study whatsoever, to prevent Swine Flu, or any other kind of influenza, for that matter (it may help prevent the common cold, but that’s another thing entirely). But, that’s what the people in my local shop have been told to push as an influenza prevention treatment.

But it’s not just Echinacea, they also appear to be pushing Manuka Honey as a prevention remedy: again, Manuka Honey may well have certain beneficial effects for certain conditions, but as to being a way of preventing Swine Flu…no.

Now, I have no problem with non conventional remedies — I use nettle draught for hayfever and plantain for stings and bites, but when they are pushed for commercial purposes, especially by a company as large and ambitious as Holland and Barrett (owned by, not surprisingly, a giant producer of vitamins and supplements), then I see nothing but bad things on the horizon.

Are you a budding journalist who really cares about the planet?

Do you want to make a splash, while at the same time let people know how badly we are treating the Earth?

Are you a hypocrite?

Then you need to enter the Earth Journalism Awards.

Send us your Best Climate Change Reports!

Print, radio, TV and online journalists, photojournalists, bloggers from around the world are invited to participate in the Earth Journalism Awards.

Send us your best stories on climate change before September 7 2009 (12.00 pm, Paris-time, GMT+2) and win a trip to cover the Copenhagen Climate Summit!

Internews’ Earth Journalism Awards encourage high-quality local climate change coverage leading up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference, December 7-18 2009 in Copenhagen (COP15).

A total of 14 awards are now open for entry:

Seven Regional Awards on current affairs and news reporting on climate change: Eurasia, South Asia, East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East & North Africa, Latin America & the Caribbean, and North America, Europe & Australia.

Six Thematic Awards: The Negotiations Award, The Human Voices Award, The Energy Award, The Forests Award, The Climate Change and Nature Award, and The Climate Change Adaptation Award.

The 14th award – the Global Public Award – will be chosen by the public, which will be invited to vote online for the best story drawn from the winning regional and thematic awards through a social networking campaign on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

Look out for the 7th thematic award – The MTV Positive Change Award. It will be open for entry from June 22 2009 to creative youth between 18 and 28.

Winners will be flown to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen this December, where they will cover these pivotal negotiations and be honoured at a high-profile awards ceremony.

People who care about more than just winning a fancy, polluting prize, need not apply.

In case anyone wants to accuse me of laziness, for using the text from other peoples’ emails and for banging on about Earth Day again (not for no good reason, I hasten to add), I would like to say in my defence that I have to trawl through, read and delete all this damn stuff which comes squeezing its way through my internet pipe every day like lots of little green goo-soaked monsters.

So, given this effort, and how I still don’t seem to have got through to the inane fools sending me so much pseudo-green trivia and corporate PR-puff, here’s my Top 3 Crap Earth Day Emails, in approximate order of hypocrisy:

3. Coupon Sherpa : for uber-trivia – as though coupons are actually a major issue, the promotion of coupons that encourage people to buy more stuff, and iPhones, which are made by a near-slave workforce with virtually no environmental regulation

As Earth Day nears, Coupon Sherpa’s new iPhone application demonstrates how mobile coupons can reduce waste

[Fort Collins, CO] – Envision all the printed coupons you receive via newspapers, magazines and direct mail. Millions upon millions of Americans are bombarded by piles of paper coupons every week. Coupon Sherpa offers an alternative that is friendly to the environment, convenient for consumers and beneficial for retailers.

Introduced in early April, Coupon Sherpa is an iPhone application that allows shoppers to access in-store coupons on their iPhone or iPod Touch. Approved by Apple, Coupon Sherpa (www.couponsherpa.com) is available at the iPhone App Store. There are coupons to over 100 merchants on Coupon Sherpa including Finish Line, Zales Jewelers, Coldwater Creek and Jackson-Hewitt. The coupon categories include clothing, restaurants, pet supplies, sporting goods, home & garden and entertainment.

The debut of Coupon Sherpa is timely, especially since Earth Day will be celebrated on April 22. The waste created by paper coupons is substantial. According to a report by the nonprofit group ForestEthics, “mail advertisements create 51.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gases each year.” [Ed: Mail adverts do not equate to coupons, you moron!] That number is equivalent to the emissions produced by heating about 13 million houses or mowing more than 20 billion lawns.

“We know that paper coupons will not be completely replaced, but providing consumers and retailers with an outlet for mobile coupons is a positive start towards reducing the waste created by the mountains of mail we all receive,” said Luke Knowles, who created Coupon Sherpa with his brother Jesse Knowles. “In the future, an increasing amount of coupons will be presented on mobile devices, and that will be great for the environment.”

2. Kelly Ripa and Electrolux : for being an incredible mix of greenwash and hypocrisy. This is like punching someone in the face and then saying “sorry” in a really sarcastic way.

Kelly Ripa Launches Virtual Campaign To Benefit Global Green

How Green Is This! Talk show host and eco-Mom [Ed: Eco what?! More like Hyper-Consuming Mom], Kelly Ripa launched Electrolux’s newest eco-friendly washer & dryer in limited edition “Kelly Green” just in time for Earth Day and kicked off an online campaign to encourage people to renew their commitment to living green by planting a virtual flower for a friend. For every virtual flower planted at electroluxappliances.com , Electrolux will donate $1 to Global Green USA to support their healthy green schools initiatives across America.

Pass me the sick bag!

1. Lexus and Alicia Keys : for leaving me open-mouthed with astonishment at the sheer level of environmental hypocrisy, coupled with a brilliantly conceived splash of student brainwashing; all for less than the cost of a single car.

To kick off Earth Month, Lexus, the top-selling luxury automaker, and multi Grammy award-winning recording artist, Alicia Keys, will honor Los Angeles’ Thomas Jefferson High School with a $10,000 Grand Prize for its environmental achievements through the “Lexus Keys to Innovation” program. The “Lexus Keys to Innovation” program is a unique way for Lexus and Alicia Keys to recognize and reward students who have successfully implemented innovative environmental programs in their schools and communities.

Through “Lexus Keys to Innovation,” Lexus and Alicia Keys presented ten schools across the country with a $2,000 donation to support existing environmental programs. Thomas Jefferson High School’s “action plan” proposed that the $10,000 Grand Prize be used to create a native “green” space on campus for the students and faculty to utilize as an interactive educational tool.

The mission of the program is to better this South LA high school and community by bringing a much needed green space to the area which is currently dominated by [huge amounts of greenhouse gases generated by vehicles such as those produced by Lexus,] concrete, meat packing plants and factories. Additionally, the space will help to improve the air quality around the campus, and will allow students at Thomas Jefferson High School and nearby Harmony Elementary School to use the Green Space as an outdoor science lab.

The Environmental club at Thomas Jefferson High School will make this project a community effort by partnering with the local Harmony Elementary School to teach the younger members of their community the importance of taking an active role to better the environment.

During a school-wide assembly [and marketing opportunity] on April 2nd, Lexus’ vice president of marketing, Dave Nordstrom, will present the Grand Prize as well as commemorative, native Californian sapling to plant in the “green” space to Thomas Jefferson High School. As an added “thank you” to the students of Thomas Jefferson, Alicia Keys has videotaped a special message that will be played at the assembly, prior to Dave’s commemorative.

Now, will you all join me in sticking two fingers up at the winners – including our special celebrities. May they all be washed away when the tide turns…

Thanks to Plane Stupid for this article: make your feelings about the pointless, corporate-friendly symbolism of Earth Hour wherever you can.

DON’T TURN YOUR LIGHTS OFF FOR EARTH HOUR! YOU ARE NOT PART OF THE MACHINE!

Sometimes I get sent things that really piss me off. This video (and Earth Hour) is one of them. Earth Hour, for those of you who didn’t get the memo, is a coming together of lots of people who will all turn their lights off for an hour. And then turn them back on again afterwards. Or something.



Now some of us at the coal face of climate change campaigning might choose to describe such an activity as a collosal waste of time that puts forward false solutions that tell people you can stop climate change while keeping all those existing power structures, lifestyles and consumerist nonsenses going. But while we roll our eyes and try to ignore it, the organisers go and put out videos like the one above, which seem to be saying that taking direct action is less effective than sitting in the dark for an hour.

Earth Hour: The Huge Turn Off- Alanis Morissette PSA


Of course they don’t stop there: how about the idea that you can keep flying everywhere so long as you use a freshly-bought green lightbulb? Popstrel Alanis Morrisette thinks that’s the case, and no one at the Earth Hour HQ thought it a bit weird that she’s giving her message of inaction from the inside of a plane.

Don’t get me wrong: if the organisers of Earth Hour want to pretend we can solve climate change by getting “millions of people” to turn their lights off only to turn them back on again an hour later then fine. Just stop polluting the airwaves with your ill-thought out, partisan bullshit.

People aren’t listening: this is the season of supermarket voucher collecting in schools around the UK, and the exortations to “Collect! Collect! Collect!” are coming thick and fast, in every newsletter sent home with students, on every school website, and on posters liberally pasted and hung on the walls of a school near you.

I have tried my best to be analytical and instructive. The Unsuitablog published a series of three articles last year giving details about the operation of, the commercial incentives and the brainwashing imposed by such schemes. Here they are, in case you missed them:

http://thesietch.org/mysietch/keith/2008/10/13/school-supermarket-voucher-special-introduction/

http://thesietch.org/mysietch/keith/2008/10/15/school-supermarket-voucher-special-greenwashing-children/

http://thesietch.org/mysietch/keith/2008/10/17/school-supermarket-vouchers-special-winners-losers-and-fighting-back/

The schemes are back with a vengeance – most prominently the newly rebranded Tesco for Schools & Clubs and the Sainsbury Active Kids 2009 schemes: both designed to teach children and their parents that supermarkets are a force for social good, and not the commercial resource-sucking, community-killing, globalization machines that anyone who pauses for even a short moment would realise they really are.

In the last article I tried to suggest ways of stopping these schemes, and tried a number of them myself, to little effect – all except for one, which worked wonderfully!

All you need is a pair of these:

Take a look at the photo at the top of this article, paying particular attention to how the incidious banners — which provide supermarkets with wonderful free advertising on public land — are attached. Not very securely, are they?

Now, with your wire cutters to hand, pay a visit to any school which has one of these banners, preferably when it is dark, and with just four quiet snips, you can cut down this brainwashing tool, stuff it into a bag (why not use a Tesco or a Sainsbury’s one, for extra irony) and then put it in a bin a few streets away. It’s not illegal, by the way: you are doing a public service, and the banner was a “gift”, rather than part of a contractual arrangement.

Once you have done it once, then you’ll want to do it again: and maybe in a short while, we will have together, given the supermarkets a good kick in the balls, which is the least they deserve.

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?