For my Christmas present last year, I subscribed to New Scientist. It was a good present, because I like to keep up with the latest climate science and there was certainly a lot of that in 2009; most of it pretty worrying. There are also some really good articles about human psychology and more abstract ideas of existence – a few years ago I set myself the impossible task of trying to find a reasonable way of explaining the nature of the universe and whether it can indeed be infinite. Clearly I haven’t got their yet, but have been helped along the way by New Scientist.

I won’t be subscribing in 2010.

Without initially looking through the latest edition (Christmas 2009), I can confidently say that there is enough pro-corporate, anti-life rhetoric in that single issue to counterbalance everything good that the magazine does contain. Let’s take a look…

A full page advert by IG Index, promoting commodity trading (oil, gold, coffee, cocoa etc.)

In the middle: An 8-page supplement sponsored by the greenwashing Carbon Trust, called “Clean Tech Pioneers”. The term “Clean Tech” has been identified by Corporate Watch as one of the classic buzz-phrases to be avoided, because it is just a way of making profit from climate change.

This edition was pretty exceptional for not containing a lot of advertising, probably because it is the more popularist Christmas edition, so the demographic is different, but go back a week and you find:

A two-page “Blueprint for environmental research” including (again) electric vehicles, carbon capture and storage, biofuels based on GMOs and geoengineering. Just because the research is happening, doesn’t make it good research.

A review of “Storms of my Grandchildren” by James Hansen, containing the astonishing phrase: “Extraordinarily, Hansen thinks civil resistance is now the only way forward…the third reason his book is so terrifying.”

While being a sterling campaigner on the side of good climate science vs. corporate denial, New Scientist appears to have recently got itself stuck in a bizarre, self-perpetuating loop that it doesn’t seem willing to wriggle out of: in essence, New Scientist has become a cheerleader for the corporate system. This is exemplified in the large number of full page greenwashing ads it carries, with no sense of irony, for the very corporations that fund climate denial thinktanks and astroturfs: in 2009, every issue except for the Christmas one carried as least two such adverts. Furthermore, any suggestion that technology does not hold the keys to a sustainable future is either poo-pooed — as per the Hansen review mentioned above — or simply ignored, as per the series of editions entitled, “Blueprint for a Better World” which laid out a cornucopia of techo-fixes, conventional economic and political “solutions” and all sorts of hopes for future technological research.

Alright, it’s a science magazine, what else should I expect? What I should expect is a sense of balance.

The science they republish is good science; it is balanced by its nature, and thus New Scientist really has no choice but to publish what the scientific body is saying. On the other hand, a great deal of New Scientist content is opinion-based, and thus subject to bias. If they are going to be so willing to carry the greenwashing adverts of corporations among the plethora of technological guides to the future (bearing in mind that technology, as opposed to science, is not neutral), then if NS is going to be seen as balanced, then it makes sense to also carry articles that show, not only that there are no current technological-based “solutions” that fulfil the required greenhouse gas and environmental degradation reduction criteria, but that the real solutions probably have nothing whatsoever to do with technology.

This is tragic, because when it tries, New Scientist really does manage to produce some fantastic articles. Sadly, though, because it has become so enamoured by the corporate system, what was once an excellent magazine has become something I am now ashamed to have in my house.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[silence induced by disbelief]

24 October 2009.

Remember that date, because in the future hundreds of thousands of people who took part in thousands of events worldwide will look back and say to themselves: “Why did I think that would do any good?”

Those thousands upon thousands of people are not the people I am blaming for thinking that by marching, letter writing, lobbying, petitioning and otherwise taking part in all sorts of conventional “actions” great changes would begin to take place. No, I have no problem with those people because, quite frankly, what else are they supposed to do? After all, the environmental groups, writers and high-profile campaigners that are regarded as the leaders of the “environmental movement” (sorry for all the quotes) told them that’s what they needed to do — and promised so much. To quote the website largely responsible for this most recent phenomenon:

To tackle climate change we need to move quickly, and we need to act in unison—and 2009 will be an absolutely crucial year. This December, world leaders will meet in Copenhagen, Denmark to craft a new global treaty on cutting emissions. The problem is, the treaty currently on the table doesn’t meet the severity of the climate crisis—it doesn’t pass the 350 test.

In order to unite the public, media, and our political leaders behind the 350 goal, we’re harnessing the power of the internet to coordinate a planetary day of action on October 24, 2009. We hope to have actions at hundreds of iconic places around the world – from the Taj Mahal to the Great Barrier Reef to your community – and clear message to world leaders: the solutions to climate change must be equitable, they must be grounded in science, and they must meet the scale of the crisis.

If an international grassroots movement holds our leaders accountable to the latest climate science, we can start the global transformation we so desperately need.

To take this at face value, it would be inconceivable to think that by taking thousands of photos and getting them into the media, these leaders (our leaders, we are told) would not make sufficient changes in policy to bring atmospheric carbon dioxide down to that critical figure of 350 parts per million. Why would you think any other way — these people told you it would be enough:

Bill McKibben
Rajendra Pachauri
Vandana Shiva
Abp. Desmond Tutu
Dr. James Hansen
Liz Thomson
Pres. Mohamed Nasheed
Bianca Jagger
David Suzuki
Van Jones
George Monbiot
Sheila Watt-Cloutier
Will Steger
Barbara Kingsolver
Hermann Scheer
Alex Steffen
Mathis Wackernagel
Colin Beavan
Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt
Homero Aridjis
Paul Loeb
Deepa Gupta
Ross Gelbspan
Keibo Oiwa
Claudio Angelo
Thomas Homer-Dixon
Bo Ekman
Bulu Imam

Well, perhaps not those precise words, for in the world of soundbites and voxpops, it’s very easy to get carried away and lend your name to something simply because it seems like a good thing to do.

“If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm.”

That’s James Hansen, quoted on www.350.org. Where did he say that by taking photos and getting them on the agendas of political high-ups the problem would be consigned to history? It wouldn’t be too strong to suggest that some of these people have been duped by 350.org, and that the people behind the campaign are so deluded by their own concept of “action” that they couldn’t possibly imagine that anyone would think anything different.

I’m not making this up; here is an exchange from way back in May 2008, when the group was first set up, and I found their MySpace page:

From: Keith
Date: May 28, 2008 4:33 AM

Hi 350 (or rather sub-350)

Glad to see someone taking a realistic look at things. I wrote a short article recently on The Sietch, which you might like to look at, based around this subject:

http://www.blog.thesietch.org/2008/04/03/climate-stability-we-have-already-passed-the-
limit-time-to-go-in-reverse/

Keep up the good work, and if you have any radical (not symbolic) ideas for “things to do” then let me know.

keith@theearthblog.org

Best

Keith

Keith,

Thanks for the note. Something radical (not symbolic) that you can do is raise awareness in your community by holding a 350 event, and then make sure everybody calls their elected leaders asking them to push for legislation that has strong enough carbon cuts to get to 350 ppm.

Best,

Phil Aroneanu
350. org

At the time I had nearly completed writing my book, and had come to understand very clearly the huge gulf between the effectiveness of Symbolic and Non-Symbolic actions. Phil’s response demonstrated a level of delusion I had not come across since that realisation: he really thought that by holding an event and appealing to “elected leaders” the 100% cuts in industrial nations’ emissions necessary by 2030 (or earlier) would happen. He really did.

Dear Phil

I need to take this discussion off MySpace, as I think your response (see below) has doomed any chance of 350.org working, and you need to know this as soon as possible.

“Something radical (not symbolic) that you can do is raise awareness in your community by holding a 350 event, and then make sure everybody calls their elected leaders asking them to push for legislation that has strong enough carbon cuts to get to 350 ppm.”

Could you please explain in what way doing exactly the same thing that has repeatedly failed in the past to achieve even modest cuts in emissions is going to achieve the 100% cut required to return to 350ppm? Could you please explain how “holding a 350 event” is radical?

I really thought 350.org was the cusp of something different, yet you still are still trying to convince people that “their elected leaders” will do anything that turns its back on the existing consumer culture (a.k.a. Culture of Maximum Harm) — the very culture these “elected leaders” and the brainwashed public are convinced is the only way to live.

I wish you well with your campaign: I don’t want to say it will fail, but it will. If you want to know how to actually get the carbon levels down adequately then the non-technological, non-political, non-symbolic answers are out there — I have some of them, as do a number of other people who have been ostracised by the environmental mainstream: you only have to ask. Bill McKibben was *almost* there about three-quarters of the way through “The End of Nature” then he seemed to lose his nerve, and has deradicalised considerably in the last few years. The environmental movement has singularly failed to address the root cause of the problem, largely because the environmental movement is a big part of the problem.

Please read this quote from my book (www.amatterofscale.com) and then maybe you will start to understand:

—– Start of quote —–

So, go and protest, make some noise, wave some banners, sign a petition: just make sure you stay within the law. I mean it – protest of some form or another is permitted in most nations, but the severity and the type of protest allowed depends in the legislation that is in place; both standing legislation and the widely used “state of emergency” which, in fact is simply an extension of the existing laws. As the Zimbabweans ponder their electoral fate, the Mugabe regime has imposed “emergency” laws to prevent any form of gathering that may threaten the government. What the Mugabe regime knows only too well is that in Zimbabwe, as with many other African, South American and Asian states, protest often takes an entirely different form to the type of protest the people of the industrial West have become accustomed too. The Mugabe regime know that real protest is capable of overthrowing governments; whereas in the USA, for instance, it almost goes without saying that protest will lead to nothing more than a warm feeling in the hearts of those taking part:

One will find hundreds, sometimes thousands, assembled in an orderly fashion, listening to selected speakers calling for an end to this or that aspect of lethal state activity, carrying signs “demanding” the same thing.and – typically – the whole thing is quietly disbanded with exhortations to the assembled to “keep working” on the matter and to please sign a petition.

Throughout the whole charade it will be noticed that the state is represented by a uniformed police presence keeping a discreet distance and not interfering with the activities. And why should they? The organizers will have gone through “proper channels” to obtain permits. Surrounding the larger mass of demonstrators can be seen others.their function is to ensure the demonstrators remain “responsible,” not deviating from the state-sanctioned plan of protest.[i]

Laughable, isn’t it, that such a well controlled event – and this is the way every official rally I have ever been on works – should be considered a “protest” by the organisers? The laws in each country are tailored to suit the appetite of the population for change: a country full of people that want to fight for change needs to be kept tightly controlled; a country full of catatonic, drip-fed consumers can march all they like, be given a well-controlled soapbox on TV – and the voltage on the tasers can be turned right down.

That is, unless someone decides to break the law.

….

Every day, in all sorts of ways, we hand over the responsibility of our actions to other parties. We entrust religious leaders to act as proxy supreme beings, to give us blessings and pray for the delivery of our souls and, as is becoming more common, the protection of the natural environment. We entrust politicians to justly run districts, states, countries, the whole planet, on our behalf, and deliver whatever is in their jurisdiction from whatever evils we have asked them to deal with. We ask the heads of corporations to use profits wisely, to provide fair wages, allow union representation and listen to their staff and respond appropriately – we ask them not to destroy the planet. We ask environmental organisations to look after the planet on our behalf, to lobby fiercely and petition prudently, to give us a world worth living in.

We are guilty of a mass dereliction of responsibility.

When we vote we hope the politicians will do the right thing after they have been elected. When we buy a product from a company, we hope that company are acting in the best interests of everyone and every thing they impact. When we sign a petition, go on a protest march or write a letter, we hope that it will change things for the better. But it is never that simple.

Voters vote for different things: your hope that a politician will increase pollution controls will be running counter to the hope of another voter that pollution controls will be weakened. Your entrustment of a company that they will act ethically runs contrary to the basic needs of a shareholder in that same company, that demands an increase in profits, which requires poorer labour standards, increased use of natural resources, corner cutting and cost slashing across the board. Your petition or protest march may give you hope that something will change when in fact you have simply channelled your anger and concern into a symbolic action that threatens not a single media executive, company director or head of state. You innocently believed that right would out simply because you placed your demands on the wings of dear hope.

When we stop hoping for external assistance, when we stop hoping that the awful situation we’re in will somehow resolve itself, when we stop hoping the situation will somehow not get worse, then we are finally free – truly free – to honestly start working to thoroughly resolve it. When hope dies, action begins.[ii]

— ——————————————————————————

[i] Ward Churchill, “Pacifism As Pathology”, AK Press, 2007.

[ii] Derrick Jensen, “Endgame Volume I: The Problem Of Civilization”, Seven Stories Press, 2006.

—– End of quote —–

Your campaign seems to be based on the hope that something magical will change through holding “events” and lobbying politicians and corporations to change. This approach has pointedly failed for the last 40 years, and yet continues because it feels like something is being done, even while, all the time, the emissions keep going up. There is not one shred of evidence to suggest such an approach will ever work. The point is, emissions will keep going up all the time industrial civilization owns humanity.

I don’t expect you to understand, though, just as 99% of people brainwashed by this culture do not understand. The answers do not lie within the system, the answers lie within ourselves — people who may be addicted to the system but are still individuals who can decide to step out of the toxic river, and maybe knock out a few shopping malls, power plants and TV stations as they go.

Yours in desperate times

Keith Farnish
keith@theearthblog.org
www.theearthblog.org
www.sub350.org

He never did respond. I didn’t expect him too.

If you are planning to go to a 350.org event, then please go, but don’t go expecting the group’s aims to change anything: go with a view to helping people understand that only by rejecting the system that the group’s organisers are still pandering to, can the atmospheric carbon levels go below 350 parts per million. Either that, or the Earth will reject humanity.

.
.
EDIT: Have amended the title because, as we all know, even 350ppm isn’t low enough, and I wouldn’t want to be responsible for giving anyone a false sense of security.

Something like 10 years ago I joined an organisation which I thought would be able to make a real difference; the Woodland Trust had been, and certainly for a considerable time after I joined, have been true stalwarts in the essential job of protecting, managing and replanting the native woodland of the UK. Their work on climate related phenology has been second to none; they have been responsible for bringing doomed woodlands back from the brink of destruction, and have re-established woodlands where once they had been. They have involved thousands of children in educational and practical work…the list goes on.

Then, a couple of years ago, they started ramping up the process of attracting corporate sponsors. It’s not as though money was particularly tight – between 2001 and 2006 their total income steadily rose from just under £16 million to nearly £22 million, with no sign of any financial worries; but for whatever reason, perhaps because certain trustees deemed it “the right thing to do”, they started attempting to attract corporate funding in earnest.

Back in 2001, company donations accounted for a mere £96,000, and that went down in 2002. In 2004 it was still only £140,000. After that they stopped publishing the company donations total in their accounts, but as of 2008, the combined total of company donations and the larger landfill tax and charitable trusts was £2.3 million. Of this, company donations probably still only accounted for less than a quarter of this out of a total income of nearly £30 million. Legacies and member donations, on the other hand, accounted for well over 40% of their income, compared to the probable 2% that was given in company sponsorship.

So why then, does the Woodland Trust make such relationships? Could it have anything to do with the fact that one of their trustees is the former Chief Executive of the biofuel company D1? Possibly, though maybe that trustee appointment is more to do with the general direction the Woodland Trust was already taking. Corporate sponsorship seems to be an addiction in the cut-and-thrust world of charitable fundraising, and like WWF, it doesn’t take long before your image is thoroughly tarred. At the time of writing, the Woodland Trust has corporate partnerships with companies as grossly inappropriate as BP, Ikea, Sainsburys, Ronseal (Thompson), Tesco and Hilton Hotels : all companies that have a hugely negative impact on the natural environment. You can read the full list of donors in their annual reviews, but to save you the time, here are some other choice cuts from their 2008 review:

ALD Automotive
BMW
British Land
Calor
Georgia Pacific
Honda UK

Oh, and Disney. This is no casual partnership, though: it warrants an entire page of their Autumn 2009 magazine — the one I just got through the post — plus a major news release earlier in the year. It will come as no surprise that Disney has featured on The Unsuitablog before; here’s a taster of the article:

There were all sorts of alternative images I could have put at the top of this article: sweatshop workers sewing together Disney branded clothes or assembling Disney branded toys and other consumer goods; container ships full of Disney goods, crossing the oceans with wares destined for every nation touched by the rank hand of industrialisation; airports full of people waiting for their departure to one of the Disney resorts dotted around the world, or aircraft in the air pumping out greenhouse gases directly created by the desire to travel to a Disney resort; landfill sites full of Disney goods, slowly leaching their toxins into the ground; queues of gas-guzzling traffic and hyper parking lots outside shopping malls replete with Disney Stores full of toxic, climate changing, sweatshop produced consumer items; children goggle-eyed before the latest saccharine-sweet, consumer-friendly, merchandise-linked version of the world brought to you by your friendly corporation; fast food stores full of obese families drawn towards the counters by the offer of Disney toys with every Happy Meal; a globe full of brainwashed humans, on their knees, praying in the direction of a Magic Castle, that sits at the centre of a vast concrete, brick, chrome and plastic complex that used to be a swath of pristine, wildlife-rich Everglade.

Not the sort of company that really sits comfortably with the idea of protecting ancient woodlands, educating children about the importance of a healthy ecosystem and warning about the dangers of climate change. Yet in the magazine article we see the following:

“Disney Store is the first big company to help turn our dream of making a vast new forest close to where people live into a reality,” says Sue Holden, the Trust’s chief executive. “By working closely with them [Disney], we aim to inspire thousands of children to look after the environment, as well as creating a fantastic woodland that will excite generations to come.”

Hundreds of children from schools within a 15-mile radius of Heartwood Forest have already attended curriculum linked woodland discovery days during which they looked at flowers indicative of ancient woodland, drew pictures and wrote poems…also popular was a brief appearance by Mickey Mouse as part of the Disney launch.

Disney have a long and tarnished record of making partnerships with organisations to gain influence over the education and other activities of children, and they have plenty of their own irons in the fire: they already owned Hyperion Books for Children, ClubPenguin and an “education” company called Disney Educational Products among many others, and only last year did they buy RaisingKids.co.uk, an online parenting forum!

In the case of the Woodland Trust, how much do you reckon it cost Disney for all this exposure to young minds?

Nothing. All the money for the £100,000 donation came from selling something to their customers they otherwise would not have bought.

As for me: well, I’m resigning from the Woodland Trust. I’ve had enough of this hypocrisy.

I admit to being a bit behind the curve on this one, but like I did, I recommend you get up to speed on the appalling human rights and environmental abuses carried out by ChevronTexaco in Ecuador, all in the name of industrial “progress”. The campaign currently being jointly run by Amazon Watch and the Amazon Defense Coalition is being organised under the appropriate banner of ChevronToxico, and is fighting against the might of this corporate behemoth on behalf of 30,000 Ecuadorian people.

This is from the ChevronToxico campaign site:

For over three decades, Chevron chose profit over people.

While drilling in the Ecuadorian Amazon from 1964 to 1990, Texaco – which merged with Chevron in 2001 – deliberately dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater, spilled roughly 17 million gallons of crude oil, and left hazardous waste in hundreds of open pits dug out of the forest floor. To save money, Texaco chose to use environmental practices that were obsolete, did not meet industry standards, and were illegal in Ecuador and the United States.

The result was, and continues to be, one of the worst environmental disasters on the planet. Contamination of soil, groundwater, and surface streams has caused local indigenous and campesino people to suffer a wave of mouth, stomach and uterine cancer, birth defects, and spontaneous miscarriages. Chevron has never cleaned up the mess it inherited, and its oil wastes continue to poison the rainforest ecosystem.

Today, 30,000 Ecuadorians are demanding justice in a landmark class action lawsuit. Despite Chevron’s repeated efforts to sabotage the trial, an independent court-appointed expert recently deemed Chevron responsible for up to $27 billion in damage.

While this unequal fight (by which I mean 30,000 ordinary people against the might of a corporate entity that has the ear of the world’s governments) goes on, Chevron as a company are continuing to push their “caring side” both to the public in general and to a swath of non-profit organisations who might one day be tempted to act against them. If Chevron can win the PR war by brainwashing enough well-meaning people into thinking that, actually, maybe they aren’t such a bad company after all, then their activities in sucking even more oil and gas from delicate ecosystems and cultural centres will be able to continue without too much interference.

Step forward CompassPoint, a company that has a slick line in helping Californian non-profit organisations get the best out of their finances and management structure. Their big selling point is, apparently, working “with community-based nonprofits”, which would seem to rule out having anything do do with a corporation that have gone out of their way to systematically destroy communities in Ecuador.

It seems not:

San Francisco – Chevron, a company facing widespread criticism by many Bay Area organizations for human rights abuses and environmental destruction, is the primary sponsor of CompassPoint’s “Nonprofit Day”. CompassPoint Nonprofit Services is a consulting, research, and training organization, that provides tools to the very same non-profits fighting the likes of Chevron. Chevron’s donation is the latest in a string of good-will gestures intended in deflecting attention from a $27 billion dollar lawsuit in Ecuador. Amazon Watch called upon CompassPoint and all the non-profits participating in the event to demand that Chevron fund a full-scale clean up of its toxic waste in the rainforest.

In a letter sent to CompassPoint, Amazon Watch voiced concern towards CompassPoint’s conflicting relationship with Chevron:

“We believe that as Chevron’s very prominent sponsorship of the event publicly associates your name with Chevron’s corporate brand and image, you should know what the Chevron brand has come to represent in the Ecuadorian rainforest and beyond.

“Your organization represents the best of the Bay Area. We hope that you will join us in using Chevron’s association with Nonprofit Day as an opportunity to press the company to do the moral thing in Ecuador.”

“Our concern is not in the intention of CompassPoint, rather that Chevron’s participation in Non-profit day dilutes the mission of the organization. This is typical Chevron spin, throwing peanuts to a good cause, while throwing punches at communities where they operate,” said Paul Paz y Miño, Managing Director at Amazon Watch. “This is the very same corporation that attacked last year’s Goldman Environmental Prize winners with a full page ad in the San Francisco Chronicle.” The Goldman Prize and its associated family fund are two of the most respected non-profits in the San Francisco Bay area.

Chevron has seen a wave of negative press in the past months, primarily focused on the company’s dumping of more than 18 billion gallons of toxic waste water into Amazon waterways and abandonment of more than 900 unlined waste pits filled with oil sludge. In the past months, Chevron has launched its PR crisis team to new levels by hiring online bloggers, paying for bloggers to attend Chevron-chaperoned trips to Ecuador, and hiring three giants in the PR world (Edelman, Sard Verbinnen & Co., and Hill & Knowlton) to develop a crisis plan for the company.

A verdict in the $27 billion lawsuit in expected later this year or early 2010.

Sadly, the letter to CompassPoint had no effect, and their sponsorship of Non Profit Day went ahead, with Chevron being the lead sponsor and, notably, providers of a $10,000 dollar prize:

One organization will leave Nonprofit Day with a $10,000 capacity-building contract with CompassPoint. This prize, sponsored by Chevron, will be awarded during the luncheon. Your organization will be automatically entered when you register.

I love the idea of registering as an earnest non-profit, then finding you have won a prize paid for by a truly evil corporation — I wonder what the winner said:

“Thank you to CompassPoint for this wonderful prize, and also Chevron for sponsoring it. I accept this gift on behalf of 30,000 sick Ecuadorian people and the dying ecosystem, which without Chevron would not have been possible.”

I find myself a little confused, not for the first time admittedly. Having just come back from a wonderful direct action and environmental information camp in the English Lake District, replete with thoughts of anarchy (proper anarchy, that is) and a future that we have to make our own, the news is now full of London Climate Camp 2009 which appears to be assembling at the scene of the 14th century Peasant’s Revolt, Blackheath in south-east London. Wat Tyler would have approved of the location, but would he have approved of the motivation?

I spoke to a fair number of people last week who were intending to go to London Climate Camp, most of whom I would consider to be anarchists (“anarchist” simply means “one who has no leaders” : any other definition must be taken with a big pinch of salt) and most of whom were pretty excited about going. This made me feel better about Climate Camp than I had in the past: they had no intention of watering down their ideas. But this must be tempered with the fact that many people who attended the last summer Climate Camp were certainly not radical, and spoke at length about the need to engage politicians and work to help corporations become greener(!)

BBC Radio 5Live featured a few interviews from Climate Camp attendees this morning, one of whom called himself “Oscar” (actually, it’s probably his real name). Oscar found himself in the apparently uncomfortable position of having to defend actions that would potentially affect people’s “legal right to work” (the presenter’s words, not his). Unfortunately, rather than take the magnificent opportunity to decry the entire industrial capitalist machinery that is progressively destroying every aspect of the global ecosystem in the pursuit of profit — and which most of the people who are “legally” working are playing a very active part in — he proceeded to apologise to those people who would be affected, and then stumbled into a description of why climate change is a serious issue.

It would be unfair of me to single out Oscar, after all he was probably one of many people put forward for interview, but his words are deeply resonant of the environmental mainstream, not any radical form of environmental activism. If a camp is to be about taking action to prevent climate change then it needs to take action against the root cause of the problem, not scratch at the surface of our cultural concrete overcoat.

I don’t say this as an unqualified armchair observer: I have taken part in many actions on behalf of groups like Greenpeace, Campaign Against Climate Change and Friends of the Earth, and seen f-all result from them, even the ones that appeared to be fairly radical at the time. The reason for this is because the environmental mainstream are utterly petrified of facing up to the reality of the problem: the ubiquitousness and all-pervasive nature of the industrial economy.

So where does that leave Climate Camp?

At best, it is a place for people to meet, discuss the things that are upsetting and angering them and, for a good few of them, become radicalised against Industrial Civilization, understanding that nothing in the industrial system should be trusted nor accepted as a way forwards. I have no doubt that some of the people attending will already be radicals and anarchists, and they may help guide more mainstream activists towards actions that are more effective in undermining the industrial system. That said, Climate Camp is not, directly at least, a threat to the industrial system.

At worst, Climate Camp will reinforce the mainstream belief that it is possible to create change through existing means — political lobbying and campaigning, symbolic protest (such as banner drops and office invasions), public engagement and so on — and so ensure that those people who might have become radicalised remain deeply entrenched in a “softly softly” mindset. Meanwhile, the (largely symbolic) direct actions continue to emanate from the camps, giving the activists the impression that they are making a real difference.

I don’t know how this one is going to pan out, nor does anyone else; my guess is that it will fall somewhere between the two, but it would be nice to think that something really good could come out of Climate Camp, rather than just a load of placards and pro-consumer platitudes.

Let’s say I had been punching you in the face for a few years during which time you had been offering no resistance to my violence. After all this time you would be a bloody mess, barely able to speak, see or breathe. Then, for practical reasons, i.e. I couldn’t find any flesh that hadn’t been already mashed and there were a few people hanging about that might hit me back, I said I would stop hitting you. The people who had been hanging about overhear this and walk away — after all, I can be trusted, can’t I? Then, let’s suppose you say that I don’t need to stop hitting you straight away and I can carry on for another couple of years, but which time you might be dead. Is that ok?

Yesterday, I received a breathless email from Daniel Kessler at Greenpeace USA, hailing the actions of a “former” face-puncher extraordinaire: a deal had been done, and all was forgiven…

Hello:

I have big news about forest protection. Kimberly-Clark, the maker of Kleenex, Scott and Cottonelle brands, today announced stronger fiber sourcing standards that will increase conservation of forests globally and will make the company a leader for sustainably produced tissue products. In turn, Greenpeace, which worked with Kimberly-Clark on its revised standards, announced that it will end its “Kleercut” campaign, which focused on the company and its brands.

A video celebrating Kimberly-Clark’s move as well as a history of Greenpeace’s campaign can be found at www.greenpeace.org/kleercut.

Kimberly-Clark has set a goal of obtaining 100 percent of the company’s wood fiber for tissue products, including the Kleenex brand, from environmentally responsible sources. The revised standards will enhance the protection of Endangered Forests and increase the use of both Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified fiber and recycled fiber. By 2011, Kimberly-Clark will ensure that 40 percent of its North American tissue fiber is either recycled or FSC certified — a 71 percent increase from 2007 levels that represents 600,000 tones of fiber.

Also by the end of 2011, Kimberly-Clark will eliminate the purchase of any fiber from the Canadian Boreal Forest that is not FSC certified. This forest is North America’s largest old growth forest, providing habitat for threatened wildlife such as woodland caribou and a sanctuary for more than one billion migratory birds. It is also the largest terrestrial storehouse of carbon on the planet, storing the equivalent of 27 years worth of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Furthermore, the revised standards reinforce Kimberly-Clark’s long-standing ban on use of wood fiber from illegal sources; adds a preference for post-consumer recycled fiber; and supports expansion of recycling initiatives and the identification, mapping and protection of areas that have the potential to be designated as Endangered or High Conservation Value forests.

Please contact me with any questions,

Daniel
Greenpeace Press Officer
510-501-1779 (cell)
dkessler@greenpeace.org

About Kimberly-Clark

Kimberly-Clark and its well-known global brands are an indispensable part of life for people in more than 150 countries. Every day, 1.3 billion people – nearly a quarter of the world’s population – trust K-C brands and the solutions they provide to enhance their health, hygiene and well-being. With brands such as Kleenex, Scott, Huggies, Pull-Ups, Kotex and Depend, Kimberly-Clark holds No. 1 or No. 2 share positions in more than 80 countries. To keep up with the latest K-C news and to learn more about the company’s 137-year history of innovation, visit www.kimberly-clark.com.

About Greenpeace

Greenpeace is the leading independent campaigning organization that uses peaceful direct action and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and to promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future.

The story of this “historic” agreement was prefixed by a period of decades of wanton destruction: it wasn’t merely a case of K-C not realising the damage they were doing — they knew exactly what they were doing, it was spelled out in the terms of the campaigners’ articles and petitions and the rapid denudation of the ancient forests they were wiping out. Kimberly-Clark carried out systematic ecocide on a truly gigantic scale. Greenpeace appear to have very short memories:

Go to the Kleercut web site and the banner says, “Case Closed!” But hang on! The press release quite clearly says the following:

– By the end of 2011, Kimberly-Clark will eliminate the purchase of any fiber from the Canadian Boreal Forest that is not FSC certified.

So who will be monitoring the activities of Kimberly-Clark for the next 2 years? There is nothing to suggest that they will be easing up on their destruction any time soon, and no veto on the agreement should K-C decide to increase their usage of virgin or uncertified pulp. It is also vital to note that Greenpeace Nordic’s own report heavily criticised the FSC in Sweden, saying: “The FSC has failed to prevent the destruction of HCVFs [High Conservation Value Forests] in Sweden. Swedish FSC-certified forest companies are misusing the FSC system and…the FSC are sanctioning this mismanagement by failing to stand by the FSC Principles and Criteria”. FSC certification is clearly not adequate, especially when companies wish to cover up their activities.

– By 2011, Kimberly-Clark will ensure that 40 percent of its North American tissue fiber is either recycled or FSC certified

Meaning that 60 percent will still be of extremely dubious origin in two years time, and that the remaining 40 percent could fall under a scheme that Greenpeace (Nordic) have said is unreliable. The original Kimberly-Clark policy document, makes no undertakings to increase its use of recycled materials.

The aforementioned K-C document makes another interesting statement, not mentioned in the Greenpeace USA press release. The press release states, “Kimberly-Clark has set a goal of obtaining 100 percent of the company’s wood fiber for tissue products, including the Kleenex brand, from environmentally responsible sources.” whereas the Policy Document has a different take on this:

Kimberly-Clark has a goal of purchasing 100% of its wood fiber from suppliers that have had their forestry operations or wood fiber procurement activities certified to one of the following third-party verified forest certification systems. The Corporation will give preference to wood fiber certified under FSC standards.

* For purposes of this policy, “forest certification systems” will mean the following five schemes: Forest Stewardship Coucil (FSC); Sustainable Forest Initiative (SFI); Canadian Standards Association’s National Sustainable Forest Management Standards (CSA); Sistema Brasileiro de Certificacao Florestral (CERFLOR) in Brazil; and Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes (PERF)…

With remarkable precience, Jared Diamond in his 2005 book “Collapse”, said the following about certification schemes:

“The effectiveness of the Forest Stewardship Council has received the ultimate compliment from logging companies opposed to it: they have set up their own competing certification organizations with weaker standards. These include the Sustainable Forestry Initiative in the U.S., set up by the American Forest and Paper Association; the Canadian Standards Association; and the Pan-European Forest Council.”

“All of these ‘knockoffs’ differ from the FSC in that they do not require independent third-party certification, but they permit companies to certify themselves (I’m not joking).”

And there is no indication from K-C what the phrase “give preference to” means in the real world.

So, what we have here is a policy change made by an ecocidal company that, in reality, doesn’t promise anything fundamentally different: as far as you should be concerned, Kimberly-Clark remain an ecocidal company. But making a complete mockery of the facts, is the slavish behaviour of Greenpeace USA, quoting K-C verbatim, including the priceless phrase, “Kimberly-Clark and its well-known global brands are an indispensable part of life for people in more than 150 countries…to enhance their health, hygiene and well-being.”

Why have Greenpeace done this? Because it makes it look as though they have achieved something significant; ensuring a boost in their revenue stream, and ensuring the paid staff and volunteers feel that what they do within Greenpeace (rather than outside it) justifies their continued efforts in applauding anyone and anything — whatever their history and whatever their other continuing activities — that does anything “environmental”, however symbolic it may be. The message is that we only have to make a few trivial changes in order to prevent ecological collapse. This is bullshit, and the sooner people realise it, the sooner we will be able to escape from the powerful grip the mainstream environmental groups have over the minds of people who only want to make things better.

You can do better than that.

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.

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

I’ll admit it, I signed up to the Greenpeace “Airplot” scheme, putting my name down to be a joint owner of a piece of land adjacent to London Heathrow Airport which would have to be compulsorily purchased should the airport be expanded. Make no mistake, this is a good idea and I applaud Greenpeace for doing it: one of the few good ideas they have had in the last few years (I think wasting 6 months trying to convince Woolworths to ban incandescent light bulbs might go down as one of their worst).

I mentioned the awful hypocrisy of film actress Emma Thompson speaking on behalf of Greenpeace about the need the prevent airport expansion a few days ago. For a moment, I thought that maybe Greenpeace had not briefed her properly and that her statement “This is not a campaign against flying” was just a foot-in-mouth moment.

Then it got worse…

From: Emma Thompson, Greenpeace
To: keith@theearthblog.org
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 4:15 PM
Subject: Airplot: Help us swing the vote on Heathrow

My fellow plot owners,

On Wednesday there will be a vote in parliament on a third runway at Heathrow. Ahead of this vote we urgently need your help to put pressure on Labour MPs to vote with their conscience and say NO to a third runway. We already have the support of the LibDems and Tory MPs.

Send a letter to the 57 Labour MPs who have opposed Heathrow expansion.

The government is treating us as if we’re stupid. They’re asking all of us to reduce our energy consumption while they build another runway at Heathrow. I think it’s the most egregious piece of hypocrisy I’ve seen in a long time…

I thought I’d highlight that last bit. I’m not sure what you call a hypocrite who accuses someone else of hypocrisy. Maybe a Hypocrite Squared. I responded in the only way I could.

From: Keith Farnish
Sent: 23 January 2009 16:22
To: Webteam
Subject: Re: Airplot: Help us swing the vote on Heathrow

Great, does that mean Emma Thompson isn’t going to fly any more?

Keith

Well, you would, wouldn’t you? This astonishing reply came back:

From: info
To: Keith Farnish
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 3:45 PM
Subject: RE: Airplot: Help us swing the vote on Heathrow

Dear Keith,

Thank you for your email.

We are not campaigning to stop people from flying altogether, but we do want to prevent the number of flights from growing to dangerous levels – the growth in aviation is ruining our chances of stopping dangerous climate change.

This campaign is against airport expansion, and if you would like to find out more please do visit the following pages of our website:

www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/does-economic-case-third-runway-stack-20090114
www.greenpeace.org.uk/media/reports/the-case-against-heathrow-expansion-a-briefing
www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/10-reasons-to-stop-heathrow-expansion

Many thanks for your support and best wishes,

Donna

Donna Hayter
Supporter Services
Greenpeace UK

www.greenpeace.org.uk

Very polite, but horribly naive, and possibly the most concrete evidence so far that the environmental mainstream are not trying to save the Earth or the future of humanity, they are merely trying to salvage Industrial Civilization, whatever hypocrisy it takes, and however pointless and fruitless the task.

My response was hardly worth it, given the incredible denial Greenpeace are now swimming around in, but I made it nonetheless, because if there is a chance that Donna might understand, then she might get out of Greenpeace and do something tangible.

Dear Donna

Flying, and carbon emissions in general are already at dangerous levels; massive reductions in excess of 90% by 2030 are needed to prevent runaway climate change. Are Greenpeace saying that we can leave global carbon levels at 385ppm and still be safe?

If the campaign is not against flying then how are you going to prevent airport expansion – or are Greenpeace staff still flying around the world, as they were when I was a volunteer?

Regards

Keith

I did not get a response.