Watch this video, especially if you live in the UK, although it probably applies in many other legal frameworks. Do your homework and find out – this is a VERY POWERFUL TOOL for undermining the system, and the many fictional entities that have statutary power over you.
N.B. Violence and peaceful when mentioned are relative to Common Law, NOT STATUTE. You can LEGALLY use force against anything not backed by Common Law.
This is a rather schizophrenic video, being — in the middle, main section — a pretty good film about Guerrilla Gardening, but bookended by commercial brainwashing. Given what I feel about corporations ramming their products home in the context of good stuff; and that Adidas have consistently been among the top three of corporations that direct, and thrive on, a fashion-drugged youth culture who are tragically lacking real insipiration to live real, free and good lives; I thought it would be interesting to do a breakdown of this video.
0′ 00″ Stylised city views at night with distinctly non-urban music; voice-over describing the situation
0′ 14″ “Adidas” logo appears — everything you see from now on will be associated with Adidas
0′ 20″ “Guerrilla Gardeners” logo appears — note that this has nothing to do with Richard Reynolds or the Guerrilla Gardening movement, it is a commercial. But Adidas clearly want you to think they are part of it.
0′ 37″ After a clearly scripted reconnaissance bit, seed bombs make an appearance. The implication is that they are a bit “naughty”, like hash — no bad thing given the target audience.
1′ 00″ After a build up, a meeting takes place, then the “hit” is planned in a fair bit of detail — generally sound stuff, although they seem to have an awful lot of money: trees don’t come cheap, especially as much of the planting is likely to be damaged and will need maintenance.
1′ 30″ Driving around, doing heisty stuff with a palm tree sticking out of the sunroof. It’s starting to grate a bit.
2′ 00″ The planting bit. I can’t really get over the scripting: “That manure stinks, man!” If the manure stinks then it’s too fresh and contains too much urea – tender plants will be damaged. Science bit over.
2′ 26″ Work complete, everyone happy. It’s very nice. Big smiles and breakfasts all round.
2′ 46″ Here it comes: “You look around the city, you think, ‘Why does everyone just accept it as it is?’ I reckon there’s all sorts of way of leaving your mark.”
The video ends, leaving quite a few people inspired to do some Guerrilla Gardening.
Oh no it doesn’t!
2′ 53″ “That’s what makes it yours.” Multiscreen globe spins, ending up on Adidas logo.
The video ends, leaving a small number of people inspired to do some Guerrilla Gardening, and plenty of people with a good feeling about Adidas.
Guerrilla Gardening, Just Do It!
(In your face, Adidas ;-) )
N.B: I know this video has been around for a while, but it’s only just been sent to me, and is still totting up views from people convinced it’s all for the good.
This is shit. No seriously, it really is, but you would be forgiven for thinking that this press release from an organic bottled water company (yes, I didn’t think you could get non-organic water either) was the best thing since clean water pouring out of your tap into a glass. I made a few comments along the way, but for many of you it should be obvious how unbelievably wrong this is…
Sparkling Water Never Tasted So Clean
Totally Organica Celebrates Earth Day One PET Bottle at a Time
Las Vegas, NV – April 21, 2009 – Totally Organica (www.totallyorganica.com), the nation’s first line of USDA Certified organic sparkling water, has nothing artificial or unnatural about it – no added sugars, carbs, calories, sodium, or artificial flavorings, sweeteners or colors. With Earth Day [Couldn’t resist it, could they?] just around the corner, Totally Organica offers consumers a calorie-free, earth-friendly sparkling alternative to water [So putting flavoured water into a plastic bottle and transporting it thousands of miles is “Earth Friendly” is it?]. Totally Organica’s line of tantalizing waters includes eight tantalizing flavors; lemon lime, cranberry, green apple, raspberry, pomegranate, melon, and mint, all bottled in a stylish [Stylish, wow a stylish bit of plastic!] and narrow PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic bottle, one of the most recyclable plastics.
Totally Organica uses fully recyclable [Not recycled, just recyclable!] bottles to lessen the carbon footprint on Mother Earth, all while hydrating consumers with an all-natural and balanced water. According to NAPCOR (www.napcor.com), recycling a ton of PET containers saves 7.4 cubic yards of landfill space, and, after recycled, nineteen 20 oz. PET bottles yields enough fiber for an extra large T-shirt, or enough to make one square foot of carpet. Want enough fiber to fill a ski jacket? Then recycle fourteen 20 oz. PET bottles.
Earthday.gov defines Earth Day as “A time to celebrate gains we have made and create new visions to accelerate environmental progress.. Earth Day and every day is a time to act [So why did you pick this particular day to promote your brand?] to protect our planet”. Totally Organica is taking that initiative towards protecting the planet with the use of PET recyclable plastic. The first celebration of Earth Day was just 40 years ago, and only in 1991, less than 20 years ago, did Federal Agencies begin using recycled products. Since 2007, recycling rates of plastic bottles have gone up, while the bottle weight (with plastics like PET) continues to go down. Only with the creation of more recyclable plastics can this ratio become significant enough for planet Earth [Crap! Recycling isn’t significant at all, it’s just a feel good exercise for most people, who then carry on doing the same destructive other things.].
Totally Organica is committed to the three R’s of Earth Day; reducing landfill use [Not reducing the amount of bottled water, obviously], reusing plastics [So, do you encourage people to fill their bottles with tap water, then?] and encouraging consumers to recycle, all while using an all-natural water to help increase the awareness of the human effect on our planet. “Our PET plastic bottle is modern and chic, making it appealing to the everyday and eco-friendly consumer,” says Robert Colt, Chief Executive Officer of Organica Beverages. “Consumers can be eco-chic [Oh, just f*** off, Robert!] while refreshing and hydrating their body this Earth Day.”
Totally Organica sparkling waters are certified 100% by the USDA, retail for $1.49, and can be found throughout the country [See later] at many retailers,
including, Central Market and Whole Foods.
Earth Day enthusiasts [Well, that rules me out then…] who would like to know more about Totally Organica can visit http://www.totallyorganica.com. Interested media who would like to learn more about Totally Organica can contact Avalon Communications (www.avalon-comm.com) at 512-514-6047.
About Organica Beverages, Inc. Organica Beverages, Inc. is the manufacturer of the first flavored sparkling water to be certified as organic by the USDA. The company starts with pristine artesian water that flows from a spring directly into its plant in the Au Sable National Forest near the U.S. and Canadian border [I bet that road trip to Florida and Texas really pleases Mother Earth]. Every one of Organica Beverages’ eight refreshing sparkling water flavors is produced from organic essences, without any sugar or artificial flavorings added.
Whoo!
My response was appropriate simple, organic and natural:
Damn! and to think I was going to have water out of a tap. Now I’m gonna just *have* to buy some Totally Organica water, all the way from the USA.
You have guaranteed yourself a spot on the anti-greenwashing Unsuitablog
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…
I have written before about many of the very worst forms of environmental hypocrisy — the types of things that transcend simple greenwashing and seem to have become articles of faith. We are talking about behomothic, potentially species-ending “developments” such as genetic modification, carbon capture and storage, biomass as transportation fuel, carbon offsetting and geoengineering. All of these are symptoms of Industrial Civilization, and the basic mythology that we have to continue moving at breakneck speed in the same, catastrophic direction, whatever the consequences. The system will utilise everything in its toxic toolbox to convince us (and ensure we convince each other) that its “solutions” are the only ones we are allowed to consider.
Simplicity, reduction and deceleration are anathema in this world: have no doubt, you will never be asked by authority — whether that be a politician, a business “leader” or even a mainstream environmental organisation — to do these things to such an extent that they actually make a difference. Economic Growth is the only game in town — it is the Endgame.
From Rising Tide North America comes a guide that illustrates many of these contradictions in stark terms; I can’t recommend it highly enough as a primer in the types of developments mentioned earlier, along with many other contentious ideas that, frankly, have no place in a survivable future.
Only a few years ago, some companies were saying climate change wasn’t a problem. Now, as its impacts becomes apparent, corporations are suddenly scrambling to claim leadership on the issue. Desperate to avoid regulation that may hit their profits, they present a dizzying array of “false solutions,” quick fixes that perpetuate inequalities in our society and attempt to cash in on the crisis.
Our fear of change and the unknown, and the widely held belief that technological progress can solve all problems make these techno-fixes and market-based solutions extremely seductive.
In most cases it’s an easy sell. Since the 1980’s, global politics have been dominated by a model of corporate globalization: An entire generation has grown up in a world in where little has been possible without corporate assent. Economic growth and increased consumption are society’s implicit goals and to achieve this, multinational corporations must be given free reign.
Yet upon closer examination, the choices they have presented are false ones, dangerous detours on the road to a just, livable planet, distracting us from the root causes of the crisis.
This concise, but hard-hitting document can be downloaded using the following link:
Life imitates art in the most absurd way imaginable; or could it be headline writers desperate to find a “green” angle on anything; or perhaps this is a genuine case of the writer cocking a snook at the amount of greenwashing going on.
You could, perhaps, call it the “military-ecological complex”. For the world’s most powerful armies are going green, trying to kickstart an environmental-technological revolution in civvy street in the process. Nearly half a century after the outgoing US president, former general Dwight Eisenhower, warned that a proliferating “military-industrial complex” threatened to drive the world towards destruction, defence establishments are beginning to try to help to save it instead. And they have found that green initiatives can preserve lives on the battlefield too.
The Pentagon – which gave the world the gas-guzzling, 68 ton M1 Abrams tank, which does just over half a mile to the gallon – is leading the charge. But Britain’s own Ministry of Defence, responsible for 70 per cent of all the government’s carbon dioxide emissions, is not far behind. And the prestigious Royal United Services Institute is to hold a conference this year on what other Nato countries are doing.
The US military – the country’s largest single energy consumer – has embarked on a drive to save fuel, and thus lives. Half of its wartime casualties are sustained by convoys, which are mostly carrying fuel and are a favoured target for enemies. It estimates that every 1 per cent of fuel saved means 6,444 soldiers do not have to travel in a vulnerable convoy.
One simple innovation – insulating tents in Iraq and Afghanistan with a layer of hard foam, reducing the need to heat and cool them – has saved 100,000 gallons of fuel a day. The Pentagon aims to get a quarter of its energy from renewable sources by 2025. It is to buy 4,000 electric cars (the world’s largest single order) for use on its bases, and is developing hybrid armoured vehicles for the battlefield.
It has saved fuel by cutting the weight of aircraft – removing floor mats, redundant tools, loading thick manuals on to laptops, and using lighter paint – and within seven years plans to fly them on a 50/50 blend of ordinary fuel and biofuel, probably made from algae.
I can still hear the silence, and feel the stares in the back of my neck, as I walked towards the exit door during Richard Reed’s presentation — a presentation that he thought would paint him as the capitalist saviour of the planet — stung by a comment that told me, ever so clearly, that Innocent Drinks were no better than any other profit-making entity. They just had the fingerprints of the over-eager, light-green glitterati over their bottles: a slavering mob of idiots who thought, and still think, that the solution to ecological collapse lies in the exchange of capital.
Innocent drinks have sold a stake in their business for £30million (about $45m) to Coca Cola:
Innocent, the defiantly non-corporate maker of fruit smoothies, juices and veg pots, has finally lost its innocence after selling a stake to US giant Coca-Cola for £30m.
Innocent, which markets itself as eco-friendly and distributes drinks in vans made to look like cows, has sold a minority stake of between 10% and 20% to Coca-Cola in order to raise funds so it can expand into Europe.
The sale of the stake marks a watershed moment for the 10-year-old company as it becomes the latest high profile success story to sell-up to a corporate giant.
Innocent joins alumni which include UK sandwich chain Pret a Manger, which sold a minority stake to McDonald’s, ice-cream maker Ben & Jerry’s, which sold up to Unilever, and Cadbury, which took over trendy organic chocolate company Green & Black’s.
I have nothing to add beyond what I wrote back in November 2007, following my exit from Mr Reed’s appropriately smooth presentation — an article that included the words “Coca Cola”:
Ok, being uber-cool in jeans, t-shirt and Ugg boots on a stage in front of 300 environmentalists of varying shades is not, in itself, reason to have someone walk out on you, but I did give it at least 2 minutes before I left. Here’s why.
I had spent a day and a half at the 2007 Be The Change conference in London, listening to some brilliant talks from David Wasdell, Rob Hopkins and Stewart Wallis among others; some of the talks made me hopeful, others made me angry – these were the good ones.
Late in the morning Richard Reed of Innocent Drinks (no, you can’t have a link) stepped out on the stage in the above accoutrements, and started what was essentialy an advertising spiel about himself and the company. Now don’t forget that there were some pretty hard-core anti-corporate people in here, so he would not have been expected to approach his subject in the same way as he would if, say, he was speaking in front of a Corporate “Social Responsibility” (sic.) seminar. He obviously forgot this, and less than two minutes in he presented a slide which said:
Capitalism Has Won
This is a good thing.
Bizarrely, Innocent Drinks are actually a pretty good company as far as companies go, apart from the fact that they sell millions of drinks in small containers. Ok, they are one of the better companies that sell drinks in small containers. Coca Cola are shit. Just so you know where I am coming from.
I saw a shade of pink when I saw that slide. Firstly, capitalism hasn’t “won”, unless you consider “winning” to be sweeping all before it in a toxic cloud and burning the planet as it goes leaving us in the kind of mess that means any future the planet has will probably not involve arcane calculations involving interest rates and margin calls. Second, and for the reasons I have stated, that is not “a good thing”.
Then Richard Reed of Innocent Drinks said:
“If it wasn’t for capitalism we’d probably still be living in mud huts”
This is the kind of person that some environmentalists think is a good guy. So, Mr Reed, which is better in the long run: living in a mud hut (yurt, tipi, stone and turf house or any other low impact dwelling) that is highly sustainable with a minute impact on the environment; or living in a typical industrial society dwelling which in your case probably has a number of cars, a great deal of lighting and appliances, carbon dioxide spewing concrete, perhaps a patio, a swimming pool even, and of course air conditioning?
“we’d probably still be living in mud huts”
Yeh, right on! Why not have a pop at the tribes who live rich, sustainable lives. Their lives are appalling aren’t they? Well, they are now we’ve introduced disease to their homelands. Oh, and convinced them they they need material wealth in order to be happy. And then thrown them out of their homelands because this great capitalist society wanted the wealth buried beneath their feet. And then denied them any rights.
“living in mud huts”
I have friends who live in one-room shacks made from recycled timber. They share things and have communal living spaces, and live in touch with their natural surroundings which they are trying to protect. They are some of the happiest people I know.
I was sitting in the front row. I saw red. I stood up, tutted loudly then stamped my way to the back and walked through the doors.
I’m feeling weary and need to recharge for a while: it’s not much fun being bombarded with hypocritical rubbish every day (and I do get it every day), and The Unsuitablog only gets to see the tip of the iceberg, as it were. Trust me, working to undermine the greenwash industry and all of its powerful players takes it out of you :-(
While I’m away, staying a few hundred miles away in a windswept and beautiful part of England (in case anyone was interested), I would like every Unsuitablog reader to take the time to read my book “Time’s Up! An Uncivilized Solution To A Global Crisis“. One of the most critical aspects of creating positive change is getting people to connect with the real world, thus realising your place as one component in the web of life – one component that is fundamentally important to you, and which is utterly dependent on almost all other forms of life, large and small. In the next week, I’m going to be connecting with the sea, the sky and the land: finding some solitude, and also letting my children enjoy the deep connections with nature that we all must understand in order to make our way successfully, and sustainably, through life. Our inability to connect, as Civilized Humans, is the reason we are pulling the plus on our life-support system.
The Unsuitablog exists in order to remove some of the noise and lies that prevent people from connecting with the real world.
Time’s Up! makes it clear that this undermining process is key to giving humanity a chance of survival – but there is a lot more to it than just accepting we need to change; people have to want to change: I believe that the book can make this possible.
There are quite a few ways you can get hold of Time’s Up!:
1) You can buy it. Lots of people prefer to read a book rather than a screen, so if you want to buy it then you will be able to find it at almost any online bookstore (although, at the moment, it is only being printed in the UK). Here are a few places I know it is usually in stock:
2) You can ask your library to stock it. This is really important to me, because I think that libraries are some of the last bastions of free thinking in the mind-control industrial system: if your library does not hold it, then please ask them to.
3) You can read it on Google Books for free. I have just opened it up so you can read the entire book through this medium, which uses the original proofs directly from the publisher; not a word is different. As I have always said: if you believe in something that strongly, strong enough to commit to the page, strong enough to commit a huge chunk of your being to, then why then make people pay for it?
I really don’t want to say “I was right”, this being about things that really matter, but considering how much I and, I am sure, you know about the way the Culture of Maximum Harm operates, it comes as no surprise at all that just three months into his presidency, Barack Obama is showing every sign of being crushed between the cogs of The Machine.
I’m going to make a prediction, and you can hold me to this: within a year of taking office, Barack Obama will seem like just another President of the United States. I feel sorry for him because — having an instinct for these things — I think he really does want to make change happen, at least in a social context, yet he has but one choice: toe the line or face the consequences…the President operates within a context of continuing to expand Industrial Civilization. The President has no choice but to work with the system. The President will do the bidding of the system because he represents the system, in all its toxic glory.
That is why Barack Obama will become a greenwasher — it’s his job, whether he likes it or not.
Notice the italicised phrase above – it seems even I was being too optimistic:
Barack Obama may be forced to delay signing up to a new international agreement on climate change in Copenhagen at the end of the year because of the scale of opposition in the US Congress, it emerged today.
Senior figures in the Obama administration have been warning Labour counterparts that the president may need at least another six months to win domestic support for any proposal.
Such a delay could derail the securing of a tough global agreement in time for countries and markets to adopt it before the Kyoto treaty runs out in 2012.
American officials would prefer to have the approval of Congress for any international agreement and fear that if the US signed up without it there would be a serious domestic backlash.
He still talks the talk: of the 80% cut by 2050 (abjectly useless, based on current predictions of atmospheric carbon growth); of a Cap and Trade scheme (using money to mask a lack of real reductions) and of a “New Kyoto” (as though the old one had any impact). Talking the talk of the machine, and walking the walk like a puppy on a lead.
How apt that his first “action” upon entering the White House was to discuss getting a family pet. Time to take a look in the mirror, Mr Obama, and see who is behind you.
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.
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.
