The coal ash spill in Harriman, TN is way worse than previously reported. It now appears that some 5.4 million cubic yards – over one billion gallons – of the toxic sludge was spilled, more than twice the amount quoted in initial reports.

MSNBC has a fantastic piece up about how the clean coal campaign has been given a “black eye” by the spill, and how many people are now questioning “coal’s supposed green credentials” as a result. It features our very own Rick Hind, toxics campaign director. Check it out:

Here’s hoping that this “black eye” is more of a body blow to the disingenuous “Clean Coal” marketing campaign. It will be if we keep the pressure on and continue to raise awareness about the benefits of renewables and the dangers of coal. Want to help? Post the above pic anywhere you can -- on your website, your blog, your Myspace or Facebook profile. Click the image for a larger version. Or you can grab the embed code to this video and put that on your site/profile. Let's make sure everyone knows just how dirty coal is.

There are lots more images of the coal ash spill, taken by a photographer we sent out to TN, on this slideshow.

The New York Times recently published an editorial, entitled "A New Respect for Science," lauding Pres-elect Obama’s choice of Jane Lubchenco and John Holdren for two sub-cabinet positions:

Like Mr. Obama’s earlier appointments — in particular Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate in physics, to run the Department of Energy — these choices [of Jane Lubchenco to run the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and John Holdren as his science advisor] affirm Mr. Obama’s commitment to aggressively address the challenges of energy independence and global warming.

I asked a couple of my colleagues if they agreed with the NYT’s assessment. Here’s what Kate Smolski, our legislative analyst on the global warming campaign team, had to say:

As the last line of the editorial says, knowing about the problem and solving it are two different things. I think these appointments show Obama's continued commitment to dealing with global warming, which is great. But we have to keep encouraging him to move forward with policies based on the latest climate science: emissions must be cut to at least 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020 (for developed nations) and at least 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.

And here’s John Hocevar, our Oceans Campaign Director, on the appointment of Lubchenco in particular:

It's a fantastic adviser appointment and cause for celebration among oceans lovers.

This is a strong signal that Obama plans to stick to his commitment to ensuring that policy is guided by science, not politics or short-term commercial interests. Dr. Lubchenko is an exemplary scientist with strong conservation credentials and an ecosystem perspective.

She was one of the lead scientists on a climate initiative organized by [outgoing Greenpeace USA executive director] John Passacantando back when he was with Ozone Action, and she has continued to be a strong voice on climate issues ever since.

But NOAA's primary role is to provide the science – it will be up to Obama and Congress to act accordingly.

Like Kate said, it will be up to us to keep encouraging Obama and the new Congress to establish effective, science-based measures for dealing with the environmental problems the Bush Administration has been ignoring or even denying for eight years now. Electing Obama was only half the battle. We’ve definitely got a lot of work to do in 2009 – but thankfully we now have concerned, compassionate allies at the federal level!

This is just heartbreaking, outrageous, and downright scary: Early in the morning of Dec. 22nd, there was a massive spill of coal ash in Harriman, TN at the Kingston steam plant. Reportedly, as much as 2.6 million cubic yards, or nearly 500 million gallons, of ash and slurry spilled into a tributary of the Tennessee River when an earthen retaining wall was breached at the Tennesee Valley Authority’s coal-fired plant.

According to one local news account: “Officials say up to 400 acres of land adjacent to the plant are under 4 to 6 feet of material.” A local resident says of the land: "It's changed forever, I don't see how this can be brought back." Here's aerial footage of the affected areas:

 
Coal ash is highly toxic, containing mercury and other heavy metals like lead and arsenic. Needless to say, the ecosystem of the Tennessee River is in peril, and perhaps will never be the same again. And who knows what this will mean for the people who rely on the Tennessee River – the water supply for Chattanooga, TN and millions of people living downstream in Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky – in the long term. In the short term, this spill has caused 15 homes to be evacuated and another home to be pushed as much as 30 feet onto a roadway, wrecked a train, and sent at least one person to the hospital.

Yet this spill is only a tiny taste of the damage coal causes. Coal burning power plants are the number one emitters of global warming pollution in the country. Global warming threatens America and the world with more frequent and more severe storms, new outbreaks of diseases and crop pests, and massive coastal flooding. The good news is that these disasters are preventable, but only if we complete the switch to truly clean energy like wind and solar power as rapidly as possible. We can’t afford to wait.

Our hearts go out to everyone affected by this tragic – and avoidable – spill. Hopefully this shows that coal can never be clean, and exposes "Clean Coal" as the sham marketing ploy that it is.

Greenpeace is one of the organizations planning a massive act of civil disobedience at the Capitol Power Plant – a coal-fired power plant close to Capitol Hill – on March 2, 2009. The time has come for us to either put up or shut up. We don’t have a lot of time left if we are going to address the causes of global warming and avert its worst effects. We have to start taking action.

If you want to get involved, click that handy button to the right.

Wendell Berry and Bill McKibben sent the following letter out last week. It is an eloquent and impassioned appeal for civil disobedience in these crucial times we’re living in:

Dear Friends,

There are moments in a nation's—and a planet's—history when it may be necessary for some to break the law in order to bear witness to an evil, bring it to wider attention, and push for its correction. We think such a time has arrived, and we are writing to say that we hope some of you will join us in Washington D.C. on Monday March 2 in order to take part in a civil act of civil disobedience outside a coal-fired power plant near Capitol Hill.

We will be there to make several points:

• Coal-fired power is driving climate change. Our foremost climatologist, NASA's James Hansen, has demonstrated that our only hope of getting our atmosphere back to a safe level—below 350 parts per million co2—lies in stopping the use of coal to generate electricity.
• Even if climate change were not the urgent crisis that it is, we would still be burning our fossil fuels too fast, wasting too much energy and releasing too much poison into the air and water. We would still need to slow down, and to restore thrift to its old place as an economic virtue.
• Coal is filthy at its source. Much of the coal used in this country comes from West Virginia and Kentucky, where companies engage in "mountaintop removal" to get at the stuff; they leave behind a leveled wasteland, and impoverished human communities. No technology better exemplifies the out-of-control relationship between humans and the rest of creation.
• Coal smoke makes children sick. Asthma rates in urban areas near coal-fired power plants are high. Air pollution from burning coal is harmful to the health of grown-ups too, and to the health of everything that breathes, including forests.

The industry claim that there is something called "clean coal" is, put simply, a lie. But it's a lie told with tens of millions of dollars, which we do not have. We have our bodies, and we are willing to use them to make our point. We don't come to such a step lightly. We have written and testified and organized politically to make this point for many years, and while in recent months there has been real progress against new coal-fired power plants, the daily business of providing half our electricity from coal continues unabated. It's time to make clear that we can't safely run this planet on coal at all. So we feel the time has come to do more--we hear President Barack Obama's call for a movement for change that continues past election day, and we hear Nobel Laureate Al Gore's call for creative non-violence outside coal plants. As part of the international negotiations now underway on global warming, our nation will be asking China, India, and others to limit their use of coal in the future to help save the planet's atmosphere. This is a hard thing to ask, because it's their cheapest fuel. Part of our witness in March will be to say that we're willing to make some sacrifices ourselves, even if it's only a trip to the jail.

With any luck, this will be the largest such protest yet, large enough that it may provide a real spark. If you want to participate with us, you need to go through a short course of non-violence training. This will be, to the extent it depends on us, an entirely peaceful demonstration, carried out in a spirit of hope and not rancor. We will be there in our dress clothes, and ask the same of you. There will be young people, people from faith communities, people from the coal fields of Appalachia, and from the neighborhoods in Washington that get to breathe the smoke from the plant.

We will cross the legal boundary of the power plant, and we expect to be arrested. After that we have no certainty what will happen, but lawyers and such will be on hand. Our goal is not to shut the plant down for the day—it is but  one of many, and anyway its operation for a day is not the point. The worldwide daily reliance on coal is the danger; this is one small step to raise awareness of that ruinous habit and hence help to break it.

Needless to say, we're not handling the logistics of this day. All the credit goes to a variety of groups, especially the Energy Action Coalition (which is bringing thousands of young people to Washington that weekend), Greenpeace, the Ruckus Society, and the Rainforest Action Network.


Thank you,


Wendell Berry, Bill McKibben

P.S.—This is important: Please forward this letter to anyone and everyone you think might be interested.

You can read more about the action on March 2nd here, and RSVP for the action here.

As many of you know, in another life, I served as a Priest of the Holy Orthodox Church for about twenty years. I was happy. I knew my mission and I wallowed in it. As time went on, I stumbled and fell, behaving in ways unbecoming a person of my position, and so the Holy Synod of Bishops did me a blessing and releaved me of that awesome responsibility. For that love I am grateful. But, this is not what I wanted to talk about.

No matter whom and what we might believe in, either Jesus Christ as the Son of God, Mohammad as a Profit, Moses, or Budda, we all know there is right and wrong at play in this world. There is good and evil. In that line, and for those who will, it is our responsibility to root out evil, or bad, when we know of it. All of us know when that "something" is happening and present. We can sometimes feel it, taste it and know of its works. It is divisive, separating and not caring what it does. It rejoices in greed, division and suffering of others. Simply, evil or bad, celebrates our differences and uses those differences against us. This is common when we speak about resources and those who will take and take without any concern for those who do not have the ability to take advantage of its bounty. 

In our work, it seems, that division is particularly noticeable. We work day in and day out, trying to find a balance between the haves and the have nots. We struggle to make the playing field even for all. And sometimes we falter in our efforts, not because we no longer believe, but because as people we often come up against a brick wall. And we lose hope.  You see, if we do our work with good and pure intentions to right what is wrong, our work will be successful and we will not lose hope. But if we do our work with dark internal intentions of hurting another with a different opinion, we will lose hope and our work will not be good. Oh, we may have some victories, but they will be short lived. What we want to do is right wrongs, do good, and work for that end. Our mission as advocates is to walk a fine line, a sharp edged sword, to fulfill that goal. And it begins with purity of heart. I am doing this because it is right and for no other reason. If we save one species of plant or animal from extinction and have not a pure heart, our work is for naught. Examples abound. I with my work with the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, others with climate change and forests and whales. We can only succeed with purity of mind and heart. Our reasons and efforts must be to teach and help others understand what is right and good. As my friend reminded me not too long ago, this kind of work will take time. I cried at those words because I had forgotten my mission. 

I know there are many who will "spin" this with thoughts and better arguments. I am not trying to convince you of my beliefs. I am simply asking that we think about this. This is not to say that I think we are doing otherwise, nor focusing on something I see we are either doing or not. Just saying something. Something to think about, because I do know, if what we do is not without truth and honesty, no matter what we do it will not work. 

As the season of peace and love draws and the promises of a new year appear, the promise of a new administration offer us hope, let us renew our efforts to work with honesty and truthfulness. Only in this way will we have any real success.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Most of us associate the holiday season with winter and all things white – but this year, we here at Greenpeace also want to make it green.

Over the years, other Greenpeace staff members and I have found ways to show our commitment to green principles during the holidays – a season known for contributing the most waste to landfills than any other time of the year.  The other day, I asked my colleagues to share their ideas on creating new holiday memories with loved ones while keeping the environment in mind.  From our family to yours, here is what we’ve come up with.

GIFTS

“Recycle your gift bags! You can always reuse them for something else... Or even when you give another gift.” – Kala Sharp, Human Resources Associate

“Give gifts of Greenpeace membership!” – Sebastian Jannelli, Direct Marketing Production Coordinator

“Last year, I told my family that instead of gifts, I would appreciate it if they just incorporated something “environmental” into their lives.  That Christmas, my aunt and uncle gifted me by deciding to cut down on paper-towel use, while my mother and stepfather said that they would save energy by plastic-sealing the windows of their house and turn off the hot tub for the winter.  Others did other things.” – Ben Bliumis, Toxics Campaign Fellow

“Most people don't need more stuff – so ask your family and friends to contribute to the cause of your choice or theirs – it’s a great feeling and you don't have to worry about what you are going to do with that weird gift from your Aunt Sally.” – Lisa Finaldi, Campaigns Director

“Support Greenpeace’s efforts to fight global warming so that Santa won't be homeless when the ice at the North Pole melts.  If we are successful, we can turn things around and eventually it will re-freeze!” – John Hocevar, Oceans campaigner

“I use the comics section of the newspaper to wrap my gifts!” – Sandeep Singh, IT Project Manager

“This year, my family has decided not to buy gifts for each other and instead, we are all using the money we would have spent on gifts and sponsoring a local family.  We are not doing this to be "green" per se—though it might help to offset my flight home to visit!” – Andrea Carlson, Forests Campaign Assistant

“Gift an experience, rather than a product.  A day at a spa or a climbing lesson is much better for the planet.” – Amanda Starbuck, Student Organizing Manager

“Never underestimate the power of a handmade present!” – Sarah Vito, Development Assistant

“You want a greener holiday?  Instead of lumps of coal for bad children, give them seven days of hard labor building the clean energy infrastructure of windmills and solar farms... A clean energy revolution built on the backs of bad little kids everywhere.  Santa is watching and he likes the environment.” – Nate Stellhorn, Frontline Senior City Coordinator

DÉCOR

“Use potted Christmas trees instead of chopping one down... You can even keep the tree year-round.” – John Baker, IT Solutions Specialist

“Holiday greeting cards can be recycled in grade school art projects, but one idea is to start mailing them back with new greetings inside.  It’s a fun way to rekindle old memories.” – Bob Meyers, Senior Photo Editor

“Solar-powered LED lights are a far better option than traditional holiday lights.” – Carroll Muffett, Deputy Campaigns Director

“Candles are a beautiful, inexpensive, and lower-carbon alternative to illuminating your home for the holidays.” – Marina Djernaes, Finance Director

“I buy my Christmas ornaments at thrift stores; it’s cheaper, and you get cool vintage decorations.” – Elise Nabors, Regional Canvass Campaign Coordinator

“Put your holiday lights INSIDE the house so they annoy you enough to turn them off and save energy!” – Candace Crespi, Frontline Senior City Coordinator

“A great and green way to engage children young and old – while creating holiday memories – is to have everyone get together to make homemade holiday decorations like popcorn strings, glittered pine cones, and gingerbread houses.” – Josef Palermo, Web Editor

“Instead of buying Christmas stockings, make them out of old, worn-out T-shirts.  I made one for each of my roommates, and they love them!  It's even easy for a novice to sew.” – Meg Imholt, Communications intern

FOOD

“Bake cookies or brownies out of organically grown ingredients and give them as gifts.” – Melanie Duchin, Oceans campaigner

“Why support the meat industry – which contributes more to global warming than the auto industry – this holiday season when you can eat endless organic vegetables and grains?” – Ashley Schaeffer, Greenpeace Organizing Term (GOT) Coordinator

“Source your Christmas dinner with local food and beverages. Not only does it taste better because it’s fresh, but it is packed with more nutrients which are otherwise lost in preservation techniques used to transport foods.  You’ll also be helping reduce the carbon emissions associated with trucking food across the country.” – Kate Rooth, Researcher

“Get a keg instead of beer cans for your drunken family Christmas bash.” – Ryan Patterson, Global Warming Campaign Assistant

“You know the food your mom makes that you don’t like?  Put it in compost.” – Phil Radford, Grassroots Director

So, you’ve heard from us, but what kinds of things do you do – or what tips/suggestions do you have – for people to observe a more environmentally friendly holiday season this year?  Create your own Greenpeace member blog, and share your ideas with us!

I'm really excited to hear what you come up with!  Enjoy your holidays this year, and let me be the first to wish you "Season's Greenings."

 

Your fellow activist,

Josef Palermo,
Web Editor

Last week, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi appointed eight new members to the Congressional Committee on Energy and Commerce and five new members to the Committee on Ways and Means. The new appointees have records that clearly demonstrate their understanding of the severity of global warming and the need for real solutions – and we’ve compiled some research to prove it.

Below you will find the LCV scores of the new members of the two committees, as well as whether or not they have signed on to the Waxman-Markey-Inslee Statement of Principles letter, which lays out the critical pieces of any effective plan to stop global warming. Of the 13 new appointments, 11 are on the Principles. The average LCV score is 89%. This shows that the House is serious about passing legislation in 2009 that will deal with the global warming crisis.

Lifetime LCV scores and Statement of Principles notation for new members of the Ways and Means Committee:

• Congressman Danny Davis (D-IL): 93%, On Principles
• Congressman Bob Etheridge (D-NC): 77%, Not on Principles
• Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ): 95%, On Principles
• Congressman Brian Higgins (D-NY): 92%, On Principles
• Congressman John Yarmuth (D-KY): 100%, On Principles

Lifetime LCV scores Statement of Principles notation for new members of the Energy and Commerce Committee:

• Congressman Bruce Braley (D-IA): 88%, On Principles
• Congresswoman Donna Christensen (D-Virgin Islands): N/A, On Principles
• Congresswoman Kathy Castor (D-FL): 91%, On Principles
• Congressman John Sarbanes (D-MD): 91%, On Principles
• Congressman Chris Murphy (D-CT): 100%, On Principles
• Congressman Zack Space (D-OH): 70%, Not on Principles
• Congressman Jerry McNerney (D-CA): 85%, On Principles
• Congresswoman Betty Sutton (D-OH): 88%, On Principles

Greenpeace is looking forward to working with the new and old members of these committees, as well as new Energy and Commerce chairman Henry Waxman, to stop global warming in 2009.

As the delegates at the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission meeting in Korea negotiate tuna into extinction, our oceans team over there has been asking them to fill out this survey:

 

WHAT SORT OF FISHERIES MANAGER ARE YOU?

 

Your scientists tell you to end overfishing by reducing effort by 30%. Do you:
a) thank your scientists and reduce fishing effort by 30%
b) say “nya-nya-nya, I can’t hear you” and continue fishing at current levels
c) pretend you’re being responsible while in fact negotiating another year of 20% overfishing

 

You watch another fisheries commission fail miserably to save their stock from collapse and instead head towards commercial extinction. Do you:
a) learn from their mistakes and end overfishing immediately
b) follow them blindly in ignoring their scientists
c) imagine that you are different, your oceans are different and somehow you can continue overfishing without the same thing happening here

 

You discover that part of your fishing area is riddled with pirates and they are stealing fish from your legal fishing fleets. Do you:
a) ban fishing in those areas to flush the pirates out of your ocean
b) put in place even more complicated measures to create loopholes for the pirates to exploit
c) negotiate on behalf of your pet pirates and stop any measures being adopted that might upset them

 

What proportion of your delegation has vested interests in the fishing industry?
a) 0-40%
b) 40-60%
c) more than 60%

 

Where would you advise your fishing industry to invest their profits?
a) sound science and a sustainable management plan
b) more boats and bigger boats
c) parrots, eye patches and wooden legs

While we were holding our Day of Action events here in America to tell the world leaders in Poland that we support global warming solutions, our campaigners on the ground at the UN Climate Conference were holding an event of their own. You can read about it in Eva's post below, and you can check out the video right here:


>
In other news, another homeless polar bear has been sighted on the streets of Poznan:



This polar bear had a sign that reads "Carbon addiction ruined my life.

Stay tuned right here for more updates, and check out the Greenpeace International Climate Rescue Blog for even more updates.

Here in Washington, DC, Monday morning commutes on the Metro can feel like a prison sentence.  So this past Monday morning, when over a dozen Greenpeace activists dressed in orange jumpsuits and boarded the Red line train to Dupont Circle, people probably had no idea what to think of us asking for a prison sentence of our own.

By the time our “chain gang” of fourteen reached the top of the escalators, we’d been joined by two whales carrying picket signs and Greenpeace USA’s esteemed executive director, John Passacantando.  We were heading to the Japanese chancery on Embassy Row with one message to the government of Japan:  If defending whales is a crime, then arrest us, too. 

On June 10th, 2008, the Japanese government arrested and detained two of my colleagues at Greenpeace Japan—Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki—for the “crime” of exposing a whale-meat embezzlement scandal.

In a matter of days on December 10, 2008, a group of executive directors from five Greenpeace national offices will travel to Japan to deliver their requests to Prime Minister Taro Aso of Japan.  This international delegation of Greenpeace executive directors will demand that Japan re-open the investigation of the whale meat scandal and of whaling itself.  And, like my fellow activists and I did this past Monday morning, these executive directors will put themselves forward as "co-defendants" with our colleagues Junichi and Toru.  December 10 marks the sixtieth anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights, and the declaration defines the rights of every human on the planet—including the right to freedom of opinion and expression, the right to a fair and public trial, and presumption of innocence.

Monday mornings might seem like our prison sentence, but our planet’s prison sentence lies in whaling and Japan’s jailing of average people like you, me, Junichi, and Toru, who are working hard to save the environment.  I hope you choose to join me and countless other activists around the world this week who are telling the Japanese government to arrest you, too, for the "crime" of saving the whales.

Your fellow activist,

Josef Palermo
Web Editor

I have just read the action alert sent out by my coworker John Hocevar, Director Ocean's Campaign, Starving For Your Help. I have worked with John going on four years now, mostly working on Alaska's vast Gulf and Seas, surrounding our Great Land. I am writing in total support of Mr. Hocevar's statements. 

As many, if not all of you know, I was born and raised on St. George Island, one of the two inhabited Pribilof Islands. These Islands are a wonderful place, not only for the richness of its wildlife, but imagine what it is like for the people, the Unangan (Aleut) who call this home. As a young Unangan boy, my entire life was surrounded by this richness. This is perhaps why I grew up to major in biology when I went to college. My life, as I understand now, was rich and filled with beauty. There were millions of fur seals, whales, stellar sea lion and countless millions of just about every marine birds one can imagine. That was just a short 30 years ago.

 Today, as John said, it is a totally different place. It is becoming bleak, forelorn, empty of its once abundance. We Unangan said: "God put us here to take care of His creation." This is what we believe. Sadly, we are not even close to the numbers of people, the money of large fishing companies with their lobbyests, nor close to having the political clout to fulfill this belief. 

 I ask you to please consider helping us and our fragile home. Often, as you know, seeing something is always preferable to reading about it. If you saw what these Islands and the Bering Sea is being turned into, you would understand what John and I are saying. 

Thank you very much for your help.

 

George Pletnikoff

Word is, the homeless polar bear epidemic has hit Poland -- just in time for the climate talks in Poznan! How fortuitous...

Hi!

I wanted to share some stories from our official opening of our new office in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This post is quite long but it has been the best few days and I have to share with you all.

The Arctic Sunrise appeared just before 15:30 on Saturday afternoon moving along slowly up the Congo River toward Matadi, the DRC's principal port for timber exports. The ship was quite the site to behold! As it approached, the far side of the Congo river was moving rapidly upstream, but was moving rapidly downstream here next to the port. In the middle of the two currents there was an eddy unlike anything I have ever seen.  It was an amazing site to see the pirouettes the Arctic Sunrise did as it danced in between the powerful currents.

As the ship pulled into port, 10 local drummers played traditional music and several dancers performed to celebrate its arrival. We were at the sleepy end of the port where there is normally little activity other than a few containers moving in and out, but on Saturday afternoon it came alive with port officials, the governor of the province, and many other dignitaries who had come to welcome the ship. People waited in the baking heat of the Congo sun for over two hours for the Arctic Sunrise and its crew to clear customs. And finally, with all the formalities done, the dignitaries were able to welcome the captain and the crew and tell us all how excited they were for the ship and Greenpeace to be in their town.

The rest of the team arrived on Sunday. That includes Gregoire & Jerome (GP France), An (GP Belgium), Brad, Mary, Amadou, Anne, Prudence, Danny, Raoul and Rene (GP Africa), Lalita, Dietlind, Philippe, Maarten, Chris and myself from GP International, and civil society partners from all over the country.

Throughout the day we had many people from the port and the town dropping by to say hi to the crew and take a tour of the ship. We were the big event in town and everyone wanted to join in the excitement. The sheer excitement at the arrival of the Arctic Sunrise was amazing. The ship’s crew was warm and welcoming, offering tea, coffee, and dinner to the guards, customs staff, and random visitors that popped by. Everyone seemed quite taken by the kindness and generosity we brought to town.

The day of the launch, preparations began at 8am with briefings and getting the final logistics into place. We had a beautiful event planned, and amazingly enough by 11:00am we were running ahead of schedule!!!! We had the Congolese National Environment Minister, the mayor of Matadi, the governor and his advisors, provincial ministers, parliamentarians, and others representing environment and forests at the local and national level. As the dignitaries arrived the drummers took up their beat once again, and they were joined not only by the dancers but by a police band of at least 20 people who eagerly joined in the musical celebration.

The captain welcomed the VIPs on board for a special tour of the ship. We then ushered various groups of journalists and civil society partners through tours and brought everyone into the air conditioned hold where the ceremony took place. There were over 100 guests on board and the captain and crew did a fantastic job of ensuring that all our plans went according to schedule – even better still, ahead of schedule!

We opened with a speech by the provincial governor, then Lalita and Amadou spoke, and finally the National Environment Minister addressed us and welcomed Greenpeace but also challenged us to be real partners and turn our words into actions. He acknowledged that the road ahead may not be easy but he welcomed us warmly and officially declared the office open in Kinshasa (DRC's capital city and the location of our new office). Afterward we whisked our guests off to a hotel where everyone enjoyed a beautiful luncheon and we managed to have a good discussion with the high-level officials about Forests for Climate and what the climate talks in Poznan, Poland, which are happening this December, mean to the Congo Basin.

This day was truly an amazing day. As I sit here and type, it is so hard to find the words to fully explain what the atmosphere was like. The DRC is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis, and has been ravaged by years of conflict, part of which is driven by its natural resource wealth. This day we signaled our commitment to work here and address the environmental and social issues facing the 40 million people whose very lives are dependent on the forests and their amazing biodiversity. We saw hope and excitement that an organization with Greenpeace’s global reach and tools like the Arctic Sunrise was making such a strong commitment to work in partnership with these people who have suffered so much.

Opening an office in the Congo has been a long time in the making. We managed to do it in style. As the captain said, if we can run an event like this in the Congo, and ahead of schedule no less, we can do anything!

But now the hard work begins. This office needs all of our support and commitment as they are about to embark on the challenge of finding their way into the Greenpeace world, hurdling the planning meetings, learning how to leverage the national and international aspect of our campaign strategy, and finding the vision for the Congo that comes from the people of the Congo with the complete support of this organization.

Some of us returned to Kinshasa to ready ourselves for the trip to Poznan, where we will carry these stories forward in our fight to save the forests for the climate. Some of the team set sail today down the Congo River at 18 knots, and are now beginning preparations to do a solar generation workshop, led by Christian of GP China and the Kids for Forests team from Cameroun and Kinshasa. After the workshops they will do a solar installation and show movies on the solar cinema. We are not only showing our work defending forests and the people and ecosystems that depend on them, but also bringing in real solutions to the many needs and challenges of the Congo.

I want to say a final thanks to all of those that were there, the ship and its fantastic crew, the GP Africa staff and all the NROs and our civil society partners. It is most definitely a day I will not ever forget. Viva la Afrique!

Lots of love and warmth from our newest office in Africa!

Michelle Medeiros
Africa Campaign Coordinator
Greenpeace International

Within hours of President-elect Obama's victory, the nuclear industry was at it again: spinning nuclear power and attempting to put the best light on the industry's prospects after the loss of their favorite candidate, Sen. John McCain. The President of the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), Skip Bowman, congratulated President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden on their victory and then he proceeded to mischaracterize their position on nuclear power.

I wrote all about it over on Huffington Post -- check it out!

Lots of good news for the climate this week, from Obama renewing his commitment to send a representative to the climate talks in Poland to Alaska Senator, convicted felon, and generally regressive policy booster Ted Stevens losing his bid for reelection. But perhaps the best news we heard was that Rep. Henry Waxman (D–CA) had successfully challenged Rep. John Dingell (D–MI) for the chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. This is a game-changer.

Obama may have signaled his clear intent to join with the rest of the world in implementing the most effective policies for tackling global warming, but he will need an equally committed Congress to help craft all the policy that will be necessary. And the House Energy and Commerce Committee will be key to getting that done. There are two reasons why Waxman ousting Dingell is most welcome news.

For one thing, Dingell has acted as little more than a lobbyist for the auto industry even while he was in a powerful position from which he could have affected real change. Says the New York Times: “Mr. Dingell, who represents a suburban Detroit district, has been the industry’s most stalwart defender in Congress, having slowed or blocked many safety and environmental standards that the auto companies argued they could not meet.” Those environmental standards, by the way, might have been tough to implement, but in the long run they would have kept the automakers solvent in today’s energy-conscious marketplace while also helping lower emissions from vehicles and therefore our national carbon footprint. It’s a textbook example of failed leadership.

And for another thing, Waxman is one of, if not the, biggest champions of global warming legislation in Congress. He wrote the Safe Climate Act, the best global warming bill to come out of either house of the 110th Congress, and he got 152 of his fellow House Representatives to sign onto his open-letter Global Warming Statement of Principles. Greenpeace USA’s deputy director of campaigns, Carroll Muffett, puts it well in this press release:

Rep. Waxman was a key figure in passing some of the country’s most important environmental and public health legislation. We applaud his appointment as Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. From the Community Right to Know Act to the Clean Air Act to the Safe Drinking Water Act, he has been a leading voice for the public interest and one of the country’s most effective legislators.

Rep. Waxman has shown the same dedication to solving global warming, the biggest environmental and public health crisis of our time, by demanding strong, science-based solutions and building support for action in Congress.

Tackling the global warming crisis demands the full commitment of our government, and with Rep. Waxman’s leadership 152 members of Congress have already taken an important step by outlining a blueprint for success. Now we need Congress and the new presidential administration to come together and turn these ideas into action by passing comprehensive, science-based legislation as soon as possible.

Under his leadership, we are confident the Energy and Commerce Committee can move quickly to turn that blueprint into a workable, effective bill to solve the climate crisis. We urge Congressional leaders and our new president to work with Chairman Waxman to turn that bill into law in 2009.

Finally, leadership we can believe in.

Ashley Perry is a 12-year-old at Friedman Middle School in Taunton, Massachusetts, who has taken to activism and campaigning at an early age. 

As we all know, Kimberly-Clark destroys ancient forests to make tissue-products like Kleenex and Scott tissues.  Ashley is running her own Kleercut campaign!

First, she implemented a Perry-family boycott of Kimberly-Clark products.  Ashley had read about Greenpeace’s Kleercut campaign on our website, took action, and she was able to persuade her family to follow her lead.  

Ashley has taken her campaign on the road as well; she refuses to use Kleenex at her friends’ houses!  She has distributed fliers that talk about switching to a more environmentally friendly tissue brand in her neighbors’ mailboxes and handed them out to spectators at the local baseball field about.

At her school, Ashley is a member of the Blue Crew, a group of students who go around twice a week to the classrooms to pick up paper for recycling.  In addition to her Kleenex-boycott work, Ashley has, along with her mom’s help, started a recycling program—the Ashley Perry Project—at the local baseball field.  Every week Ashley and her mom go retrieve the recyclables and bring them home to put in their own bins.  Recently Ashley wrote a letter to her school asking them to place recycling bins in the cafeteria for paper and plastic products.  Ashley says the response from her classmates and community members has been positive.  “They have been pretty good about recycling and putting it in the right bins,” she says.

Thanks to Ashley for taking the initiative, doing the research and making positive change!  It will take all of us to protect the ancient forests!

Keep up the great work, Ashley!

Andrea

In today's Guardian, Fred Pearce calls out BP's "Beyond Petroleum" greenwash.  

He states:

"BP likes to say that it is investing $1.5bn (£980,000) a year in 'alternative energy'. True, I am sure. But that word 'alternative' is clever. Delve a little further and it turns out that BP's alternative energy division includes not just wind and solar and biofuels but also natural gas-fired power stations. Natural gas may be less polluting than coal and oil, but at the end of the day it's a fossil fuel filling the atmosphere with CO2. Alternative? Not by my definition."

He goes on:

"Also sheltering in the alternative energy division is BP's 'emissions assets business', which makes money out of carbon trading, and a venture capital unit. But even if we lump all this 'alternative' activity together, it still only makes up 7% of the company's planned $21bn (£13.85bn) investment this year. The remaining 93% is oil, spiced up with some coal."

 Read the full article - Greenwash: BP and the myth of a world 'Beyond Petroleum'

 

Not even two weeks have gone by since the presidential election in which Americans voted decisively for change. Incredibly, despite a national mood rife with hope and optimism, our "leaders" are already lowering expectations on what we can accomplish:

WASHINGTON: Congress will not act until 2010 on a bill to limit the heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming despite President-elect Obama's declaration that he will move quickly to address climate change, the chairman of the Senate Energy Committee predicted Wednesday.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said that while every effort should be made to cap greenhouse gases, the economic crisis, the transition to a new administration and the complexity of setting up a nationwide market for carbon pollution permits preclude acting in 2009.

We've said it several times over the past couple weeks: The election results may bode well for our cause, but the real work has only just begun. We're gonna have to stay on top of these people in a big way if we want to really tackle global warming before it's too late.

Many, many disastrous policies were put in place by the Bush administration. But none will have more far-reaching an impact than those policies that were adopted as a means of delaying serious action on global warming.

Choosing how to go about rolling back all of Bush’s harmful policies is a monumental task, to be sure. Luckily, according to the Washington Post, Obama already has a team working on it:

Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse White House policies on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues, according to congressional Democrats, campaign aides and experts working with the transition team.

Obama has signaled his desire to undo one of the least rational of Bush’s policies:

The president-elect has said, for example, that he intends to quickly reverse the Bush administration's decision last December to deny California the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles. "Effectively tackling global warming demands bold and innovative solutions, and given the failure of this administration to act, California should be allowed to pioneer," Obama said in January.

California had sought permission from the Environmental Protection Agency to require that greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles be cut by 30 percent between 2009 and 2016, effectively mandating that cars achieve a fuel economy standard of at least 36 miles per gallon within eight years.

California arrived at these regulations in a very bipartisan way. Such prominent Republicans as Arnold Schwarzenegger were the most vocal supporters of California’s auto emissions standards. Bush's opposition is an example of his extreme anti-environmentalism even in the face of overwhelming evidence that we must impose just such regulations on emissions in order to effectively combat global warming.

If Obama does in fact reverse this decision it will be a welcome change. And it will make a real difference: 17 other states had committed to following California’s lead on auto emissions, for instance. All told, these 18 states represent nearly half of the U.S. automobile market. Aside from their obvious impact on our total greenhouse gas emissions, bold, proggressive standards like California’s will help spur innovation that could reshape the entire auto industry in America.

The WaPo article also notes that Obama has said he “favors declaring that carbon dioxide emissions are endangering human welfare, following an EPA task force recommendation last December that Bush and his aides shunned in order to protect the utility and auto industries.” Take a look at sales by foreign companies like Toyota and Honda, who offer a variety of hybrid and other fuel-efficient models, versus the Big 3 American auto manufacturers, who proudly brought us the Hummer, and you will realize Bush in fact was not doing them any favors.

We cannot adequately address global warming by trying to pretend the problem doesn’t exist. We need fresh ideas and a new era of innovation to combat the enormity of the problem, and for that we need real leadership. Judging from early reports like this WaPo piece, the Obama administration appears poised to provide that leadership. It comes none too soon: we wasted the last eight years, and time is running out.

Tissue giant (and forest destroyer) Kimberly-Clark is trying to convince Spanish speakers in the US to buy its products – Huggies and Pull-ups in particular.  To do so, they’re touring southern California, handing out sample diapers.  If you’re a regular Treehugger blog reader, you know that they’ve had some weird marketing tours in the last year, including an ugly dog-bus and a fake café.  This time, it is a diaper-train tent.  I’m serious.

On Saturday, Kimberly-Clark advertisers set up in shopping center parking lots in the San Diego area.  Everything was going according to plan…until Greenpeace activists showed up again.

The diaper-dealers didn’t realize that Saturday was the start of the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), a holiday of Mexican heritage that celebrates those who have passed with a variety of activities – including the building of commemorative altars.

Our team sprang into action, setting up a Day of the Dead altar to honor the animals and ancient forests that have been destroyed for Kimberly-Clark’s throw-away products.  The display was complete with Boreal animals, posters of clearcut ancient forests, and placards that explained in Spanish and English: Dedicado a la memoria de los bosques eliminados por KC (In Memory of Forests Destroyed by Kimberly-Clark).

The team also passed out bilingual fliers to hundreds of shoppers, educating them about Kimberly-Clark’s role in ancient forest destruction.  The response was enthusiastic.  It seems ancient forest destruction stinks no matter how you say it.

The diaper-dealers tried to scare away our activists by threatening to “call Kimberly-Clark” and “take pictures” of them.  The activists were delighted by this news, since they’d been working hard to get people to call Kimberly-Clark and had been taking pictures of themselves all afternoon!

Stay tuned as our creative activists turn up the heat on K-C.  In the meantime, visit our take action center to use your own creativity to make a statement for ancient forests.

-Rolf

We recently put out a new edition of our Energy [R]evolution plan (here's the full report, and here's the executive summary) and the timing could not have been better. We are faced with two major crises right now: global warming and the economic meltdown. Investing in renewable energy can solve both of these crises, and the Energy [R]evolution shows how.

The report provides a practical blueprint for rapidly cutting energy-related CO2 emissions in order to help ensure that greenhouse gas emissions peak and then fall by 2015. A major means of reaching this goal would be to aggressively invest in renewable energy. According to the report, renewable energy could more than double its share of the world’s energy supply – reaching up to 30% by 2030 – given the proper leadership to promote the large-scale deployment of existing technologies. Meanwhile, the total fuel cost savings for the global energy industry would reach $18.7 trillion by 2030, or $750 billion of annual savings that could be passed on to consumers.

The technologies exist to make an energy revolution a reality. What we’re lacking is the political will to get it done. Thankfully, there is a growing body of evidence that supports the basic assertion of the Energy [R]evolution that we can solve both the climate crisis and the economic crisis at the same time.

I wrote a post a couple weeks back about a UC-Berkeley report that found that California’s green policies have created 1.5 million jobs over the past three decades, and now there is even more evidence that solving global warming by investing in the clean energy sources of the future will create jobs and revitalize our ailing economy. This time the evidence is more anecdotal than scientific or data-driven, but it is nonetheless convincing. On Nov. 1 the New York Times published a lengthy piece entitled “A Splash of Green for the Rust Belt” that examined the phenomenon of the renewable energy industry breathing new life into factory towns that had been left for dead when manufacturers closed down their operations and moved out of town:

From the faded steel enclaves of Pennsylvania to the reeling auto towns of Michigan and Ohio, state and local governments are aggressively courting manufacturing companies that supply wind energy farms, solar electricity plants and factories that turn crops into diesel fuel.

This courtship has less to do with the loftiest aims of renewable energy proponents — curbing greenhouse gas emissions and lessening American dependence on foreign oil — and more to do with paychecks. In the face of rising unemployment, renewable energy has become a crucial source of good jobs, particularly for laid-off Rust Belt workers.

Investing in renewable energy can revitalize a stagnant economy! And also, it's pretty inspiring to read about the sense of patriotism and purpose that comes from working in renewables; one guy quoted in the NYT article said, "For 35 years, I pounded my body to the ground. Now, I feel like I’m doing something beneficial for mankind and the United States," while another said, "I feel I’m doing something to improve our country, rather than just building a washing machine." But it’s one thing for small municipalities to recognize how good renewables are for our country and our planet, and a whole other thing for us to realize this on a national scale. We need leadership on this issue. Here’s hoping that whatever the results, tomorrow’s elections will, at last, provide America with that leadership…

This just makes me sad...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Oct. 29 (UPI) -- Two-thirds of the plants writer Henry David Thoreau chronicled at Walden Pond in Massachusetts have disappeared due to global warming, a U.S. study contends. The Harvard University report said some of the hardest-hit plants include lilies, orchids, violets, roses and dogwoods. Plants that have thrived in the warmer temperatures include mustards, knotweeds and various non-native species.

"Some plants around Walden Pond have been quite resilient in the face of climate change, while others have fared far worse. Closely related species that are not able to adjust their flowering times in the face of rising temperatures are decreasing in abundance," Charles C. Davis, assistant professor of organismic and evolutionary biology in Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, said Monday in a news release.

The report said about 27 percent of all species Thoreau recorded in the 1850s around Walden Pond in Concord, Mass., are now locally extinct and another 36 percent are so sparse extinction may be imminent.

There are lessons for other sectors of the economy in the Wall Street chaos. For example, commonsense regulations reduce risk and protect the public. But the chemical industry today resembles nothing more than Lehman Bros. circa 1999.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, industry titans such as Dow and DuPont have lobbied against requirements that they use safer chemicals at 7,000 high-risk chemical plants identified by the Department of Homeland Security. These facilities use and store highly toxic, chemicals such as chlorine gas. A terrorist attack or accident at one of them could form a toxic cloud that could endanger people up to 25 miles away. The EPA has identified 100 plants that each put one million or more people at risk.

Based on Homeland Security risk models, a disaster at one chemical facility could also inflict as much as $100 billion in economic damages, crippling the company and the local economy for years.

These risks are, however, avoidable - through simple, inexpensive regulations requiring companies to replace dangerous chemicals with relatively harmless agents that serve the same functions, such as liquid bleach, ozone and ultraviolet light.

Chemical facilities have demonstrated how quickly and cheaply they can make the transition to these alternatives. On 9/11, the manager of Washington's water-treatment plant spent a sleepless night worrying about seven 90-ton rail cars full of chlorine gas stored near the
Pentagon. Within 90 days, the plant converted to bleach.

Since 2001, more than 220 chemical facilities have voluntarily converted to safer processes. More than 85 percent reported doing so for less than $1 million per plant. A third expect to save money.

At this rate, though, it will take more than 70 years for voluntary conversions of the more than 3,000 plants that threaten a large population.

But instead of fast-tracking such improvements, Congress, in 2006, caved in to pressure from chemical-industry lobbyists, passing an "interim" law that actually prohibits the government from requiring safer chemicals or processes. The law expires on October 4, 2009 and the chemical lobby is pushing Congress to make it permanent.

The balance of power on the issue may be changing, though. The Association of American Railroads, representing the companies required to transport these volatile chemicals, recently broke with the chemical industry, calling on it to "stop manufacturing dangerous chemicals when safer substitutes are available." They added that if the companies didn't act, Congress should pass a tougher law.

Although the railroads are legally required to accept hazardous cargo, they're also financially liable in the event of a catastrophic release. Partly due to the railroads' clout, Congress is slowly starting to address the threat. In March, the House Homeland Security Committee adopted legislation (H.R. 5577) to correct flaws in the "interim" statute.

But the new bill has languished since then with no action in the Senate. Opponents, including Senator McCain (R-AZ), in the Senate say the House standards would result in excessive "paperwork." Those are the same words the chemical lobby used in their testimony before Congress.

It's still not too late for Congress to redeem itself if they return to Washington after the election. If they wait until next year they will only have nine months to send a truly protective law to the White House.

Take a look at this rather amazing animated advertisement from everyone's favorite nuclear incompetent, Areva.

Beautiful, isn’t it? Everything's so green. Nuclear power stations aren’t grey, foreboding monsters. Oh no, they're cool science-fiction constructions that you can build in a meadow with no ill effects on the environment. It's Funky Town, y'all! Won't you take me to Funky Town?

Did you notice the cute little wind farm next to the reactor? Nuclear is as safe, cheap and clean as wind you know! Why else put them together in an industry propaganda film? There obviously wasn't time to include tiny little animated local people being told not to fish in the river.

And who knew nuclear power could help people in Shanghai bars to fall in love? Another miraculous side effect of fission. Truly, nuclear is all things to all men and women.

One of the arguments most frequently employed by those who want to delay action to stop global warming – whatever their ultimate motives may be for arguing against solving the most urgent environmental crisis of our time – is that implementing the solutions will cost too much money. As gas prices soared higher and higher this argument resonated with a lot of folks, hence there was broad support for opening our coasts to more drilling – even after offshore drilling had been thoroughly discredited as a means for making us more energy independent or lowering gas prices.

The reality is that we can’t afford not to implement solutions like much higher fuel efficiency standards, strict caps on emissions, and drastically increased investment in renewable energy. These are real solutions that will be good for the whole planet, not dangerous distractions that are only good for oil companies’ bottom lines. But given the tough economic times we're living in, the "it will cost too much" argument might gain even more traction -- except that it's completely untrue. And there is new data to prove it:

California’s energy-efficiency policies created nearly 1.5 million jobs from 1977 to 2007, while eliminating fewer than 25,000, according to a study to be released Monday.

The study, conducted by David Roland-Holst, an economist at the Center for Energy, Resources and Economic Sustainability at the University of California, Berkeley, found that while the state’s policies lowered employee compensation in the electric power industry by an estimated $1.6 billion over that period, it improved compensation in the state over all by $44.6 billion.

We must do away with business as usual, and start building the green economy of the future. If we have any future as a species, this transition isn’t just necessary but downright inevitable. We simply can’t drill or mine or dig our way to a sustainable future. Sure, that means that a lot of companies that are making a killing now will either have to change their business model or become obsolete in the marketplace as the cost for them to do business outstrips what people are willing to pay for their goods and services. But it will also mean a healthy planet for future generations and a healthy, sustainable economy as well.

After all, the market turmoil we’ve experienced recently points up the drastic need for a new economic model in this country, and green has always been Wall St.’s favorite color…

Yesterday we were listening closely to Apple's announcement of their new MacBook line up - Steve definitely put a lot of emphasis on the green elements of the new MacBooks - reduced toxics, more energy efficient, less packaging. All good news, but in our campaign for greener electronics we were looking for the new MacBooks to be the first computers completely free of toxic PVC plastic and brominated flame retardants (BFRs).

A check of the full specs revealed the MacBook Pro, MacBook and MacBook Air - as well as the LED Cinema Display will now have internal cables free of PVC and will have internal components containing no BFRs. Not quite the breakthrough we were hoping for. These new MacBooks are currently on a similar level of toxics reduction to the Sony Viao laptop series on PVC, and the Lenovo Think Vision in monitors. The BFR free internal components represent an improvement from the bar set by the Vaio line.

However while most, including us, were examining the specs of the new MacBooks, Steve released a long awaited (but much less hyped) update to his May 07 Greener Apple statement made in response to our successful GreenmyApple campaign. It makes very interesting reading, here are the highlights:

Exxon is usually not known for Greenwashing.  They gave that up after the Valdez spill put their reputation in the garbage heap of history.   Instead, for years they have stuck to their guns, proudly declaring themselves an ‘oil company’, dismissing renewable energy, and spreading misinformation on global warming.

But extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.  The wave of green awareness, spiking gas prices and increasing concern about oil dependence has Exxon publishing print ads about batteries for hybrid cars and TV ads with images of wind turbines and talk of environmental responsibility. Indeed these are strange days on planet Earth. See for yourself here.

More on Exxon’s recent advertising blitz below and more on their campaign of global warming denial on ExxonSecrets and SourceWatch. But first, a review of past Exxon Greenwashing episodes.

Op-Ads and Ad Bluster

Over 30 years ago Mobil established ‘ownership’ of a corner of the New York Times editorial page to use as they saw fit. This contract with the Times continued after the merger of Exxon and Mobil in 1999.  The Op-AD space has been the home to varieties of greenwash and energy and climate misinformation balderdash over the years, in most cases bragging about small efforts with a big pen. Ross Gelbspan’s website, Heat Is Online, offers some classic Exxon quotes from these paid op-AD pieces.    

Oldies but Goodies

We also have a few old Exxon and Mobil TV ads that show the history, thanks to fantastic YouTube fanatics transferring old VHS tapes.

One UK ad from Exxon’s Esso brand shows the famous Exxon tiger running down a pristine beach.  The image makes you feel what?  Power, freedom, strength, majesty?  This might be contrasted with the horrific and criminal beach and rock washing the company did after the catastrophic Exxon Valdez spill in 1989.  Captain Hazelwood’s drunken incompetence spewed 11 million gallons of crude over 1,700 miles of Alaskan shoreline.  This was a mess that was honestly never going to come clean no matter how hard they scrubbed at the oil. Yet Exxon deployed a massive effort to wash the rocky shoreline; scrubbing, steaming, and rinsing away the oil on the surface of the rocks, driving it deeper and deeper into the beach and killing any organisms struggling to survive within the hot water.  This debacle was featured in the 2006 film Out of Balance by filmmaker Tom Jackson. SourceWatch explains more about this episode of greenwash.

Another ad from 1980s shows off the company’s endeavors to drill in the Arctic Ocean, an idea later executed by BP at the Northstar project (and strongly protested by Greenpeace and native Alaskans in the 1990s). The idea of drilling to the ends of the earth is back in vogue and Exxon’s current ad campaign looks and sounds very familiar. Once again the company is misleading consumers into thinking that its efforts to exploit the arctic are heroic and is bragging about its bravery and skill at drilling deeper, farther, and better. You can watch and compare their old and new ads.

 

Summer 2008 campaign

Exxon continues to struggle to reform its image in the hearts and minds of the American people.  Its most recent ad campaign clearly targets the broad distrust of the oil industry over oil prices and environmental responsibility.  It stresses the company’s technological prowess, appealing to the techno-optimist in all of us.  Exxon also knows that there is a pitched battle right now on energy and climate policy.

On June 17th, Russell Gold of the Wall St Journal wrote the first analysis of the new Exxon ad campaign that launched June 1st.  Gold wrote:

“Chief executive Rex Tillerson appears in one of the ads, which began running earlier this month, discussing the company's goal of caring for the environment as it provides energy to the world.”

 

And “Exxon's ads are part of a growing effort by the industry to counter a political backlash against rising oil prices and global-warming worries.”

Ad spending rises with the geyser of profits the oilies are bathing in.  Again the Journal reports:

“As gasoline prices have risen, so has industry spending on its image. The companies and their industry associations spent $52.5 million on advertisements in the first quarter, up 18% from the same period a year earlier, according to tracking firm TNS Media Intelligence. This spending is expected to jump in the second quarter on the back of Exxon's campaign, which has included print advertisements in the New York Times and a weeklong series of two-page ads in The Wall Street Journal.” 

Clearly, Exxon has money to burn and the newspapers are plenty glad for the revenue.  A two-page color spread in the New York Times, Washington Post or Wall St. Journal could cost upwards of $300,000, depending on the placement and day.

Clearly image is a problem for the entire oil industry, the Wall St. Journal reports that “An API public-perception poll in late 2006 found the public ranked the oil industry below even the tobacco industry.”

To counter this new low in public opinion, Exxon must portray itself  “as a company filled with technology whiz kids working to secure the world's energy future. Earlier this month, Exxon also began sponsoring Nova – a public-broadcasting science program.”

The new ads can be viewed here.

These Exxon TV ads hit most of our key Greenwashing criteria:

Dirty Business

The core business of Exxon, oil, is still a major source of global pollution, “when used as directed”.  In addition, refineries, drilling operations, and the risk of supertanker oil spills make the oil biz one of the dirtiest on earth.

The company can talk about better batteries, better engines, efficiency and caring for the world all it wants, but in the end, the more oil we use the more money the company makes and it is not inclined to sell LESS. Right now Exxon is spending tens of billions on new oil exploration, driven by record value per barrel of oil.  In its most recent annual report, Exxon listed 15 major projects that it has undertaken since 2007, and all of them revolve around more drilling, more pipelines and more carbon emissions [1].  There’s no mention of investment in wind, solar or other alternative energy sources.

Ad Bluster

Wait a second, rewind…did I see a wind turbine?  Does Exxon have anything to do with wind power?  Sure enough on one of these ads, with CEO Tillerson floating in front of long math formulas and images, all of a sudden an image of a wind turbine and other alternative energy sources scroll by.  Tillerson is muttering something about needing to explore all types of energy, but the implication is that Exxon IS investing in renewables.  It is not.  In fact, the only mention of renewable energy in its annual report relates to its contributions to Standford's Global Climate and Energy Project - a multimilllio-dollar black box R and D program, where money goes in and no ideas come out [2].  Exxon will continue to push this program as evidence of its environmental leadership, when in fact the program has little to show for all the millions of investment. The University has taken some heat over the controversial partnership, but continues to ignore protests by alumni and donors, who don’t have as much cash to offer as Exxon.

Political Spin

It’s no secret that Exxon is buying friends in Congress and elsewhere to fight environmental regulations on its behalf.  As evidence, last year Exxon spent $17M lobbying congress and lining up troops to push against various elements of the Clean Air Act and climate bills, while also pushing to open sensitive wilderness to drilling and other dirty operations.  Altogether the oil industry spent a whopping $84M lobbying in 2007, Exxon alone accounted for over 20% of that. 

At the same time, Exxon is also a heavy hitter when it comes to campaign contributions, providing over $850,000 to candidates, most of that to republicans who support the company’s drill-more, emit-more agenda.  Exxon doesn’t stop there though, the company is also trying to influence voters, as evidenced by its leads sponsorship of many political telecasts, including presidential debates. CNN has been one of the company’s best friends, providing it with hours of airtime throughout the campaign season.

[1] ExxonMobil, 2007 Summary Annual Report
[2] ExxonMobil, 2007 Summary Annual Report, pg. 14

Ethical Corporation’s “Greenwasher,” is a monthly column dedicated to pointing out inaccuracies in the seemingly environmental practices / actions of companies and corporations, has chosen to highlight tissue-giant Kimberly-Clark, makers of products such as Kleenex, Scott, Huggies, Kotex, and Depends, for the second time this year.

According to their website, Kimberly-Clark (K-C) “emphasizes sustainability and sound environmental practices as cornerstones of doing business…”  The irony lies in that K-C’s recycled tissue boxes hold tissues that are not recycled.  How could they let this happen?  How can the box that holds their tissue be the only part of the product that is recycled?

To further add to the greenwasher theme, K-C has released a sustainability report that states the wood fiber K-C receives from the Boreal Forest in Ontario, Canada, is “sawdust and chips – or leftovers.”  

There are two reasons that the above statement is ironic and a false environmental-advertisement.  First, the Kenogami Forest in northern Ontario has been completely destroyed and habitat has been lost due to K-C’s more than 70-year occupation.  Really, there is nothing “leftover” for K-C to log in the Kenogami.

In addition, a woodpile—enough to fill 7000 truckloads—was recently found in northern Ontario in the Ogoki forest, northwest of the Kenogami Forest.  These logs—rotting in the forest—were earmarked for a mill whose largest customer is Kimberly-Clark.  This is a direct consequence of poor forest management.  Is this the “leftovers” K-C describes in their sustainability report?

Tell Kimberly-Clark to stop talking about “sustainability practices” and actually put them into action.
 

Until the ancient forests are protected,

Andrea

Fishing Villages

It is very difficult for people to get an understanding of what happens to an entire village in Alaska that is dependent upon fishing for their economy.

It is said that for every fishing boat, most fishing boats in villages are under 55 feet in length, there are at least 10 jobs crated to support that boat. First, of course, is the crew. Usually on a boat this size, and depending upon what species of fish or crab they are fishing for, there is a crew of 5 people: the skipper and four deck hands. Then you have the fuel handlers, gear shops, grocery stores, and transportation industry. So you can see that in a village of 500 people, a lot of jobs in the support industry is created the more fishing boats there are in the village. Now, imagine that same scenario when we are talking about a billion-dollar a year industry such as there is in the pollock fishery. Together, in both the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea, that billion-dollar fishing industry harvests approximately 3,000,000,000 pounds of fish. Three billions. Imagine, if you will, the amount of jobs created in a village when that amount of fish has to be caught, delivered and processed, then shipped to the markets. The amount of people and expense to do this is staggering. Now imagine what happens to that village if the total allowable catch is severely lowered by the fishery managers and then if that fishery collapses. Imagine what happens to that village. Worse yet, imagine what happens to the environment, the ecosystem if such a scenario were to materialize.

The other side of this picture is people living in villages who are not a part of this economic activity and way of life. They are, as was labeled by politicians several years ago, the silent majority. They are the people who work everyday in local jobs created by the State and Federal governments, the health care system, the municipal government and some by private business not necessarily related to the fishing industry. Often, the fishing industry is only a seasonal economy, as in the Bering Sea crab fishery, or the Bristol Bay salmon fishery.  These silent majorities work day in and day out, searching, hoping and planning on some semblance of the great American dream, that of being able to afford a Christmas tree, and all that that dream encompasses.

The silent majority of people in our villages supplement their incomes with cultural and ancestral activities. We go hunting, fishing and gathering for our foods. We go to the same places on the beach our ancestors have done for hundreds and thousands of years. We go, looking, searching and hoping for that sea lion, fur seal, walrus, duck, and other foods we grew up eating with our parents and grandparents, knowing of that security and the goodness of that life. We go to the familiar places to search for our spirit. We hear the voices of people long gone. We smile at the wisdom taught at this place, by people long revered. We are in a familiar place where life truly is lived. It is said that a gay person has no choice about their sexuality. The same is true about a person or people who live in that familiar place. We have no choice. It is a calling. It is life. It is, not a way to live, but simply life, such lived, above the noise of choices.

Fishery managers do not consider this life. Their only mission is to ensure that an industry has enough resource to continue. Here is where that mission, it seems to me with the problems of the pollock fishery, fails. Fishery managers rely on what they call best available science. Not sound science, but science that is best available to provide answers. What is that?

If the pollock fishery collapses, as the surveys done by National Marine Fisheries Service has shown, it will be because the fishery managers were wrong. Their best available science did not take into account the reality of what is on the ground. If and when this happens, it means entire ecosystems are in trouble, is suffering a stroke, or worst yet, a heart attack. We cannot call 911 for help. It does not work that way.

Now, consider this. If, because of this best available science, one community, one human spirit is killed, not only have we committed a crime against the environment, but worse, against another human being. We have snuffed out a spirit. We have committed cultural genocide, a holocaust. Where is the best available science, best available medicine, best available intentions, that’s going to repair that? As a friend of mine said: “Man is a spiritual being.” Best available person.

Today, Guardian writer Ed Pilkington took a fresh swat at Governor Sarah Palin's use and defense of Exxon-funded junk science on polar bears in the State of Alaska's attempts to to kill the listing of the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act.

We have covered the evolution of this story on ExxonSecrets for over a year here and here with links to articles and documents of interest.

Much has been made of Palin's denial of global warming since she was nominated as the GOP Veep candidate, but no one has questioned her credibility for using 'research' that was funded by ExxonMobil, American Petroleum Institute and Charles Koch Foundation.

We are wondering if Gwen Ifill of PBS will ask Ms. Palin a pointed question tomorrow? or if Senator Biden has read the Guardian story?

Tom Kizza at the Anchorage Daily News has followed this story the best, filing two good articles earlier in the year here and here.

This classic ExxonSecrets map of the junk science authors from the Dyck, Soon, et al article shows once again the tentacles of the Denial Machine (see page 9 for acknowledgement of funding from Exxon and friends).  Palin's goon squad cited the Dyck, Soon paper 6 times and even attached a copy of the article (pre-publication) to their 49 page submission to the Department of Interior.

All the background documents can be found on Greenpeace Investigations:

• Exxon funded junk science
• rebuttal by real polar bear scientists
• Alaska's submissions to Department of Interior

No reporters have questioned Exxon or API about funding this research and no one has gotten the scientists themselves on the record as to how much money they got from Exxon and friends and the marching orders attached to that funding.

 

The Wall St. bailout plan has consumed a lot of our nation’s attention recently, as well it should. But in the meantime, H.R. 6049, the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008, which was passed by the Senate last week, is on the verge of dying a quiet death.

H.R. 6049 would extend existing tax credits for investment in renewable energy past the end of this year, when they’re currently set to expire. It is vital that Congress pass a bill renewing these credits to ensure that we keep moving towards a renewable energy future and away from the dirty fossil fuels of the past. Equally vital at this point in time is the economic stimulus these tax credits would provide – foreign investment and thousands of new jobs are just what our ailing economy desperately needs rigtht now.

As Van Jones put it this past weekend:

"We can't drill and burn our way out of this economic crisis. We can -- and must -- invest and invent our way out. 600,000 jobs have been lost this year alone. We need to free ourselves from our dependence on foreign oil, and instead invest in jobs in sustainable industries -- wind and solar, among others. Only then will we be able to fight poverty and pollution at the same time."

Unfortunately, the odds of the two houses of the current Congress getting it together and passing this bill are looking slimmer by the day. The House has passed several versions of H.R. 6049, and while it was encouraging to see the Senate vote in its favor last week, it was returned to the House bearing several unwelcome, regressive additions. Specifically, the Senate added provisions that would allow tax credits to promote high-carbon liquid fuels from oil shale, tar sands, and liquid coal. Greenpeace is calling on both the House and the Senate to reach agreement on a bill that does not include these provisions – we don’t need more investment in fuels that would contribute to global warming. We need real solutions, and we need them now!

(There are various sticking points between the House of Representatiaves and the Senate that are preventing passage of a final bill, but I'll spare you the wonky minutiae.)

The economic crisis we’re facing is a dire one, so the 110th Congress will likely stay in the Capitol until they get a bailout package passed. If only they felt such urgency about addressing the global warming crisis. It’s not likely the House will take up H.R. 6049 before adjourning for the Fall, which means the only hope of its passage before the renewable energy tax credits expire on Dec. 31st is a lame duck session after the November elections. It’s not impossible, but neither is it terribly likely. If there is no lame duck session, the credits will definitely expire, as our federal legislators won’t be back at work until the 111th Congress is sworn in next year.

We’ll keep following this story, and we’ll keep you updated.

Just as Americans are being asked to back the biggest bailout in U.S. history, Senator McCain would again put the American taxpayer on the hook for yet another corporate giveaway.

Senator McCain wants to build 100 more nuclear reactors in the U.S., 45 by 2030. But there’s an important detail that the Senator and his campaign fail to mention.  The economics of nuclear power are so abysmal that many nuclear CEO’s will not construct reactors unless the American taxpayer guarantees they wont lose money.

But the good senator and his campaign should know better.  Senator McCain has been around long enough to actually remember the implosion of the nuclear industry.  If his recollection has failed, his economic advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin could refresh his memory. When the notion that the American taxpayer should guarantee loans to nuclear corporations was introduced in the Senate, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) then headed by Senator McCain’s economic advisor Holtz-Eakin found that:

CBO considers the risk of default on such a loan guarantee to be very high—well above 50 percent. The key factor accounting for this risk is that we expect that the plant would be uneconomic to operate because of its high construction costs, relative to other electricity generation sources.  http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/42xx/doc4206/s14.pdf

Senator McCain’s support for nuclear loan guarantees can not be justified by the nuclear industry’s past performance.  According to the Department of Energy, the first 75 reactors built in the U.S. experienced cost overruns totaling over $100 billion and that was before the meltdown at Three Mile Island sent the nuclear industry even further into a tailspin.   

U.S. Nuclear Power Plant Construction Cost Overruns

Construction Started	Estimated Overnight Costs	Actual Overnight Costs	Percent Overrun
1966-67	$ 560/kWe	$1,170/kWe	209%
1968-69	$ 679	$2,000	294%
1970-71	$ 760	$2,650	348%
1972-73	$1,117	$3,555	318%
1974-75	$1,156	$4,410	381%
1976-77	$1,493	$4,008	269%

                                                                                                                                              (Joskow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The Economics of Investment in New Nuclear Power Plants in the U.S, EIA Midterm Energy Outlook Conference, April 12, 2005. Note: Figures are in 2002$/kWe )

It was this economic track record that doomed nuclear power in the U.S. and led Forbes magazine to declare that the "failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster of monumental scale." Really, who in their right mind would guarantee loans to an industry with this track record?  Obviously, not Wall Street!

Last July, six major U.S. Banking institutions (some of which have been bought or are now bankrupt) including Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch & Morgan Stanley sent a letter to the Department of Energy (DOE).  The bankers told DOE that unless the U.S. Taxpayer backed 100% of the debt incurred by nuclear corporations that they would have difficulty “accessing capital markets.”

We believe many new nuclear construction projects will have difficulty accessing the capital markets during construction and initial operation without the support of a federal government loan guarantee.  Lenders and investors in the fixed income markets will be acutely concerned about a number of political, regulatory and litigation-related risks that are unique to nuclear power, including the possibility of delays in commercial operation of a completed plant or “another Shoreham”. We believe these risks, combined with the higher capital costs and longer construction schedules of nuclear plants as compared to other generation facilities, will make lenders unwilling at present to extend long-term credit to such projects in a form that would be commercially viable.  http://www.lgprogram.energy.gov/nopr-comments/comment29.pdf

 
The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) has also weighed in on these loan guarantees to the nuclear industry. The GAO recently found that the Bush Administration’s DOE does not have the oversight in place to adequately manage the loan guarantee program.  But rather than address the inadequacies identified by the GAO, the Bush administration has accelerated the loan guarantee program.  http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08750.pdf

Senator McCain has already been warned by the CBO, the GAO and Wall Street that building new nuclear power plants is an economic meltdown waiting to happen. Even a subsidiary of Warren Buffet’s corporation Berkshire Hathaway has rejected a new nuclear reactor as economically unsound.  

Senator McCain has abandoned his straight talk when it comes to nuclear power.  The Senator needs to  explain why the American taxpayer should be put on the hook for new nuclear plants that the industry would never build if they and their stockholders had to bear the risk.

--Jim Riccio

Growing up on the beaches of St. George Island, one of the five Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea, I remember combing the beaches. There was, and is, so much to be found. Glass balls, I even found a container with chopsticks, very fancy, that I took to the Governments Island Manager’s house to find out what it was, and lots of other debris that we thought interesting and valuable. And so, after large storms, we went out on our favorite beaches looking to see what was there.

I remember that as children, growing up on this little Island, we used to collect glass balls, little balls of glass about the size of softballs today, covered with woven net. This was a prize. We used to, as kids in school, brag about how many we found, what sizes, and sometimes where. We exchanged stories about them. We talked about what we did with them, what trinkets we made, how we glued them together to make Christmas trees, and how we used files, a steel tool used to sharpen other tools, to cut a slit in them to make banks. And in these banks we put our dimes, nickels, pennies and the occasional quarter to go to the company store, or canteen run by the United States Government to buy candy. And we wondered where they came from and what they were used for. We did not know. Now we know they were used to hold up the miles long nets on the surface of the water used to kill hundreds and thousands of animals, mostly for fish, but birds, seals, whales, and anything else that would come into contact with them. And they were used by either the Japanese or Taiwanese Governments. We know that now, but not then. And they were a prize.

As time flowed by, now into the 60’s and 70’s we began to see different things coming ashore on our Islands.  Along with the occasional coke bottle, plastic bottle, glove and basket, large pieces of net began to show up. Again, being on a small Island, we did not know what these things were being used for. So, as far as we were concerned, all of this debris was normal. After all, everyone else in the world, our small world to be sure, was going through the same thing. Sure. If it was happening here it was surely happening elsewhere. Or was it?

You see? What was happening during the 60’s and 70’s while beach combing, miles and miles, and yards and yards of monofiliment nets were used to catch fish. Nets made of plastics, which would never degrade, made of by products of oil, to stretch out over the Bering Sea to kill. We did not know that, but now we do. And kill they did. They did not fall apart or come loose. They were made of a product that would last years and years. And they would, even if those who put them into the water, the fishers lost them, continue to kill and kill until there was nothing else to kill. Whales, fish, birds, seals, walruses, plankton and seaweed, no matter what came into contact with them, they were doomed to death.

Today, in the 2000’s, not much has changed, really. We still comb the beaches of the Pribilof Islands, both St. Paul and St. George and pick up stuff. Now instead of glass balls and chop sticks, we pick up nets, plastic balls, plastic gloves, plastic, plastic, plastic. Pop can  rings used to hold a six pack together is common. Plastic nets, ropes, lines caught in and around the necks of curious fur seals is oh so frequent. Often the nets are so tight around the necks of these animals that their flesh shows because it cuts into their fur. Plastic whatever. Imagine it and we pick them up. I remember not too long ago when I first began working for Greenpeace that we were on St. Paul Island. I took my buds to see one of the long sandy beaches on the Island, to walk and talk. To discuss what it was that they expected of me, an Unangan person working for a conservation group, and how I expected to fit in. We walked the beach and talked. At one point, one of the guys/gals stopped to pick up a plastic something, handed to one of the other Greenpeace persons with me and said, now its your responsibility. I did not know what that meant. Come to find out, if you pick up some piece of trash, no matter what it is, and handed it over to another of your buds, that person was now responsible for it. Needless to say, I did not accept anything from anyone else on our walk.

Today, large nets are still used to kill. The difference now is, is that they are not left to drift out in the ocean to arbitrarily kill, but are focused. Its called “directed fishery.” I am gonna kill these fishes, but sadly in the process, hundreds of millions of metric tonns of non directed fishes, called by-catch, are killed also. But, this is legal. It is considered fishing for fish using the best available science.

You know how it is said? That no matter how much has changed, everything remains the same? It’s true. Today, instead of collecting glass balls, our Tribal Government of the Aleut Community of St. Paul cleans our beaches every year. They go out to the same beaches that I used to collect collectibles and collect trash, tons of trash. And its all plastic trash, made to never degrade.Look at  www.tribaleco.com/entang/

Instead of talking to our friends in school about making Christmas trees and glass ball banks with what we found on the beach, we are now talking about what kind of people live out there who allow this to happen. Who are they? What are there values? What are they thinking? Indeed, what are we thinking that we allow this to happen?

This weekend, Green for All, Greenpeace and hundreds of others organizations are sponsoring a national mobilization to say, "I'm ready for the green economy." The goal is to bring attention to a solution for the two biggest problems we now face--a faltering economy and climate change. The solution? We should build a green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty and to save our weakening economy.

What would a green economy look like? Imagine millions of workers working on thousands of old buildings that need to be weatherized, installing shimmering solar panels, and building towering wind turbines. There are public transit systems to be set up and smart electricity grids in need of engineers and electricians to design them.

Like most big problems facing the country, this is really a question of priorities. While Congress is debating this week about golden parachutes for failed CEOs and a $700 billion dollar bailout for Wall Street, others are looking at a cleaner, greener future as a way out of this economic mess.

From a Greenpeace op-ed in the Nation:

A recent report report by the Center for American Progress estimates that investing just $100 billion in the green economy (one-seventh the amount contemplated in the administration's proposed Wall Street bailout) would create 2 million new jobs, with a significant percentage of those coming in the struggling manufacturing and construction sectors. In contrast, investing that much money in the financial services sector would generate just 1.1 million jobs, according to an analysis conducted by the study's authors, Robert Pollin and Heidi Garrett-Peltier of the University of Massachusetts. In other words, Wall Street's offering about half the jobs for the same money: hardly a smart bet for the taxpayer.

A green investment on the level of the Wall Street bailout could create growth on a much larger scale, almost entirely eliminating unemployment and significantly raising middle-class incomes. Instead of golden parachutes for CEOs, the government could finance America's transition from an oil- and fossil-fuel-dependent economy into one run completely on clean energy. Instead of buying up bad McMansion mortgages, we could pay people to retrofit their houses with high-efficiency appliances and green roofs.

The green stimulus could reach far beyond the energy sector to provide income and employment for rural America as well. It could finance the conservation of tens or hundreds of millions of acres of wildlands, providing income to farmers and other landowners--and make possible a whole new generation of national parks. (Many of those lands are now under threat exactly because of too-easy credit: without limits on lending, it's been all too easy for real estate developers to find the cash to pave over back-country wilderness for sprawl and ranchettes).

 

The time has come to take a hard look at where we are in this nation and where we want to go. This weekend will be a chance to reflect on the possibilities before us and the consequences of our choices. The question is this: Do we want to leave the next generation in debt and in crisis from a dangerous climate or do we want to take the initiative and start the inevitable conversion to a green economy? To me the answer is obvious. What's less clear is what Congress will do. Make your voice heard at www.projecthotseat.org.

On its website and advertisements, Chevron uses its slogan, "Human Energy," to tout its use of innovation and efficiency for its altruistic goal to "power human progress."  With its newest greenwashing campaign, "Will You Join Us?," Chevron encourages consumers to "carpool more" and "use less energy," while showcasing all the steps it takes to become more energy efficient.  But how much is Chevron investing in alternative clean energy and efficiency?  How does this compare to how much it is spending on selling its "Human Energy" image and lobbying for market advantages among Congress members and presidential candidates?   

 

Image vs. Substance

 

The U.S.'s second-largest oil company, Chevron made over $39.5 billion dollars in profit in light of rising gas prices this past year.  With these tremendous profits, the oil giant invested $562 million in emerging energy technologies like biofuels and hydrogen, a meager 3% of the $15.5 billion it spent on explorative drilling and production [1].  Chevron also sold off interest in wind and solar projects last year, like the Texaco Nederland B.V. wind farm, in order to increase shareholder returns and focus "its resources and capital investments on maintaining leading positions" in the market it knows best—oil [2].  

With the $15 million re-launch of the "Will You Join Us?" PR campaign, Chevron hopes that consumers will believe that they are at the forefront of a cleaner energy future, and not in the business of drilling and selling one of the biggest global contributors to global-warming emissions. After increasing its ad spending this past year, Chevron joins other energy giants like Shell, who have already spent well over $55 million this year on ads.   

Something Chevron doesn't bother to mention in any of its marketing is its use of human exploitation, particularly the native peoples of Nigeria and Ecuador, as well as the environment. It fails to mention a pending law suit in which the company is being tried for gross human rights violations against villagers who peacefully protested Chevron’s environmental abuses.

 

Oil Race in 2008

 

Oil and gas companies are placing their bets on John McCain for 2008, who has received over $1.6 million dollars from the industry, compared to Barack Obama's $457,895 in PAC contributions and individual donations. Chevron alone has contributed $679,000 to the 2008 presidential and congressional candidates thus far, with nearly three-quarters of that going to republican candidates. Chevron is also reaching out to voters during the upcoming presidential debates, as it is one of the lead sponsors of the first debate to be aired on September 26.

Along with trying to buy allies and put them in office, Chevron spent over $4 million in the first half of 2008 lobbying for non-green causes that it does not brag about on its website, like deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and weakening the impact of America's Climate Security Act of 2007.  While Chevron may be trying hard to talk like a green corporation, it is doing little with its actions, making it another oil-drenched greenwashed poseur worthy of consumer skepticism.

[1] U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
[2] Chevron website

Ths week, Al Gore called on young people to practice civil disobedience on any new coal plant that is not CCS ready. Seeing that CCS is 20 years off, at the very least, perhaps Mr. Gore meant for action on all new coal plants.  In any case, I've got a Greenpeace jumpsuit with your name on it, Mr. Vice President.  

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. published an excoriating op-ed today in the LA Times takking Exxon to task for funding phony front groups that are designed to confuse the American public about global warming. Kennedy says that after a 1998 meeting, Exxon executives decided to create information so that "recognition of uncertainties become part of the conventional wisdom" and that "those promoting the Kyoto treaty ... appear to be out of touch with reality."

Kennedy goes on:

"Since that meeting, Exxon has funneled $23 million into the climate-denial industry, according to Greenpeace, which combs the company's annual report each year. Since 2006, Exxon has cut off some of the worst offenders, but 28 climate-denial groups will still get funding this year." 

You can read more about Exxon's deceptive and dangerous business practices over at Exxon Secrets. 

In contrast to its tar sands and other dirty operations, Shell recently launched a new political campaign in which the company emphasizes its commitment to combating climate change. The campaign promotes carbon capture and storage (CCS), a technology that would capture CO2 from power plants and refineries and bury it underground. The technology is unproven, expensive, energy intensive and generally impractical, yet Shell asked leaders of the G8 nations to pay for it.

Shell points out in expensive full page ads that more energy will come from more carbon-intensive types of fossil fuels in the future. Shell states:

“It’s technically challenging to convert heavy bitumen [from tar sands] into clean burning fuel, so CO2 emissions are higher than conventional petrol.”

Yet, rather than investing in readily available, cleaner technologies, like solar or wind, the company plans to increase investment in dirty energy, and is asking nations of the G8 to fund risky attempts to bury its dirty emissions. All while Shell and other oil companies are raking in record profits.

Ironically, through ads like these Shell has gained a better reputation than its competitors as a good corporate citizen addressing climate change.  In reality, Shell is not addressing climate change, its perpetuating it.

Yesterday, the Senate passed H.R. 6049 by a decisive 93 to 2 vote. This is great news, because H.R. 6049 will extend the renewable energy tax credits that were set to expire on December 31st of this year. The bill provides $17 billion as tax incentives for investment in renewable energy.

Senator Jeff Bingaman (D – NM), chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, said in a press statement, “These incentives will play a critical role in promoting clean, renewable energy and energy efficiency, and in turn reducing our reliance on conventional fuels, promoting a more secure energy supply and combating global warming. Equally important, these tax credits will create high-paying jobs and reduce energy costs for all Americans.”

Unfortunately, the bill also includes provisions for oil shale, tar sands, and coal-to-liquids development, which of course are fossil fuels and will therefore contribute to global warming while delaying our conversion to a renewable energy society. But let’s look on the bright side: at least all those renewable energy projects that were officially stalled because of the threat of the tax incentives expiring will hopefully now be back on track.

The Tax Extenders bill must still go back to the House (who passed a similar bill in May) and then be signed into law by the President. The White House, for its part, appears to have already come out in support of the bill. According to Senator Bingaman, “We’ve been trying for nearly two years to prevent these [renewable energy] incentives from lapsing, and I believe we finally have the bipartisan, bicameral support to finally get the job done. And I’m very pleased that the White House said today that it supports passage of this legislation.”

But passing the Senate version of the bill through the House will apparently not be the easiest sell, so there is still considerable room for doubt that the bill will actually land on Bush’s desk before Congress closes up shop for the year. Stay tuned…

If you watch TV, open a magazine or browse the web these days, you’ve probably seen the phenomenon called “greenwash.”  Simply put, greenwash is the act of pretending to be green when you’re not.

An expert greenwasher is Kleenex maker Kimberly-Clark.  Responding to pressure from our Kleercut campaign, Kimberly-Clark has made many claims about its environmental performance in recent years.  Unfortunately, Kimberly-Clark’s claims have not been matched by commitments and results in the real world.

For example, Kimberly-Clark often claims that the wood fiber they get from Canada’s Boreal Forest are made from “sawdust and chips – or leftovers – of the lumber production process.”

That’s not what see in the Canada’s Boreal Forest.  We recently documented a huge pile of wood ripped from the ancient forests in northern Ontario destined to be turned into Kleenex and other disposable products.  As you can tell from the photo below, a lot of whole trees -- not "sawdust and chips" -- have been sawed down to feed Kimberly-Clark.  Check out the video and full story here.

 

Kimberly-Clark also claims they are green because they are listed on the Dow Jones World Sustainability Index (DJWSI).  Sounds nice, right?  The problem is, the DJWSI a tool for measuring a broad range of company characteristics – from “talent attraction and retention” to philanthropy – but it doesn’t have much to do with environmental standards.  In fact, only 7% of the overall DJWSI rating has anything to do with the environment, and most of that is focused on energy efficiency.  The index does not address the hot-button topics like endangered species or ancient forests.  These are core issues that have inspired the campaign against Kimberly-Clark.  Oops.

Here’s another one: Kimberly-Clark also claims it is green because it is a member of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.  The Council can be a decent forum to exchange ideas and promote sustainability initiatives.  But, there are no real environmental standards required for membership.  Basically, any company can join.

In fact, many corporations that are neck-deep in environmental controversies, such as Chevron, General Motors, Royal Dutch Shell, DuPont, Dow Chemical, ConocoPhillips, Weyerhaeuser, and the China Petrochemical Corporation are members of the Council.  I’m not trashing the Council, but we can’t let companies like Kimberly-Clark claim their membership in the Council is proof of environmental achievement.  That’s like saying you’re in tip-top shape just because you belong to a gym. 

The list of greenwashers and greenwashing is long and growing.  Greenpeace has a new website dedicated to greenwashing where you can rate and report greenwashing.  Check it out here.  Together, we can make sure corporations match green words with green deeds!

- Rolf

At a campaign stop last week in Maumee, OH, Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) talked to a young 1Sky campaigner about energy policy.  The question was about the Obama/Biden ticket's position on coal. Biden answered by defending his record of support for renewable energy, and then he said this:

"No coal plants here in America. Build them, if they’re going to build them over there make ‘em clean because they’re killing you."

The "over there" he's referring to is China. That's a remarkable statement from the potential veep and one that begs for further explanation. Biden has been mum since he said this, but allow me take a stab at what he likely meant.

On their Web site, Obama/Biden say this about coal:

"Obama’s Department of Energy will enter into public private partnerships to develop five “first-of-a-kind” commercial scale coal-fired plants with clean carbon capture and sequestration technology."

That policy position is at odds with Biden's statement. Presumably, Biden is saying no new coal plants here, period, CCS-ready or not. China, he seems to be saying, can't be stopped from building new coal fired power plants so what we ought to do is develop the technology to make them run cleaner.

This logic is inline with what Thomas Friedman has been saying: The next revolution will be energy technology, so we need to own the innovation and then export it. That's the way to help the American economy and lead by example.

Friedman and Biden certainly are right about the need for innovation. The question is why the focus on coal, which we know will never be clean? Those who say that it can be tout Carbon, Capture and Storage (CCS), a plan to capture carbon emissions from power stations and bury them underground. The technology won’t be ready for at least another twenty years, too late to save the climate. Yet the vague promises of CCS are being used to justify building new coal-fired plants. These plants will spew out enormous amounts of CO2 pollution for at least the next twenty years and probably during their whole 40-year lifetime. In short, any new coal fired power plant will contribute massively to the climate crisis.

Hopefully, this topic will come up in the veep debate, scheduled for Oct. 2. But don't count on it. According to Media Matters, the progressive media watchdog group, only four percent of the questions asked during the primary debates were on energy and the environment. Only three questions touched on renewable resources and conservation, including one asking if candidates used compact fluorescent bulbs. Seriously.

Given America's energy problems and the threats from global climate change, the inclusion of conversation about coal's future and what Biden exactly meant should be part of the upcoming debate. You can email your Congressional representative here and tell them what you think of coal. 

 

As an advocate for ocean conservation and admirer of majestic whales in the sea, I am really excited about a new movie that is opening in theaters on September 26th,  called Whaledreamers.

The movie is an uplifting and inspirational story about indigenous cultures in Australia and their positive relationship with whales.

While countries like Japan, Iceland and Norway continue to hunt whales for greedy profit it is nice to see a story like this to help restore your faith in humanity.

Instead of decimating whale populations and profiting from their blood, these indigenous cultures look for ways to live in harmony with the whales and their surrounding environment.

From watching previews, the movie looks to have some beautiful underwater footage that will move chills down your spine. You will fall in love with whales all over again.

Julian Lennon produces the movie and he even has a great song in there that will get your toe tapping. Looks like the movie might be in limited release, so check your local theater to see if it’s coming to your town.

In addition to being a cool story to watch, the movie also provided the inspiration for this year's Weekend of Unity & Peace taking place from October 24-26. The fundraising events are intended to increase awareness and advocacy for groups such as Greenpeace and, the important issues the film covers. If you want to participate in the festivities, visit this website for more information: www.unityandpeace.org.

To watch a preview, check movie times or learn more about the movie, check out their website.

-- Michelle

Great news! Our polar bear friend got word late in the day that the Senate has decided not to consider an offshore drilling bill anytime soon. What made 'em change their minds, I wonder...?  Was it the bad news about the oil rigs? Or the Department of Interior scandal? Or the fact that fixing our teetering economy may be more worth Congress’s time than catering to the whims of the oil industry? Our bear seems to think he had something to do with it. And who are we to tell him different?

But, in any event, after 3 days standing in the hot, hot sun — which is no small feat for a polar bear — he seems to have concluded that his job is done for now. He’s headed off for parts unknown and a well-earned rest. After all that time together, we’ll kind of miss him. But the moratorium is still in peril, so who knows, maybe we'll see him again...

Yet another beautiful sunrise over the Capitol greeted our steadfast polar bear and his support team this morning as the bear entered Day 3 of his vigil in front of Congress. At 8:00 a.m., our early morning crew got a fresh infusion of company and energy when the dayshift arrived with donuts, bananas, new games to play, and just someone new to talk to. The bear was, as ever, friendly but reserved. Very much the strong, silent type.

The morning also brought news: the US Minerals Management Service revealed that 49 offshore oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico were destroyed by Hurricane Ike. Even a week after the storm, most of the remaining 3,800 oil rigs already in the Gulf remain shut down — by which we mean, of course, that they aren’t producing oil. If you recall, most offshore oil rigs in the Gulf were shut down way back in August before Hurricane Gustav (remember Hurricane Gustav? Time flies doesn’t it.) That’s three weeks and counting that more than 90% of our country's oil production has been offline as a result of hurricanes.  

It’s ironic but important news as the Senate considers the nation’s energy future, because hurricanes have been getting more frequent over the last decade. The best science tells us that storms like Gustav and Ike have been getting more intense, almost certainly as a result of global warming. Which leads to a very important question that Congress has seemed reluctant to consider:  

If a single hurricane can destroy dozens of offshore oil rigs — or more than a hundred, in the case of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita — and virtually shut down energy production across 600,000 square miles of ocean; and if both the number and intensity of hurricanes is increasing; and if the best science tells us these storms will get even worse as a result of global warming; then how, exactly, does building more offshore oil rigs increase our energy security?  

The answer, of course, is that it doesn’t. Opening more of our oceans to oil drilling won’t make us more secure, just more dependent on oil, and more vulnerable to the next big storm. And the next one after that. And the one after that. We can’t solve either global warming or the energy crisis by drilling more, but only by using less. We agree with the bear, the world needs more ice, not more oil.

The last few days have brought out lots of other people who agree as well — as evidenced by all the “I’m with the Bear” photos accumulating on the website. Our coolest group of visitors so far today has been a bunch of military photographers on assignment for a class at a local military installation. They were all snapping away happily at the bear, and had lots of great comments about it. None of them wanted their own picture taken because it might cause them trouble with the military brass. Still, it was great to meet them all.

What’s been even better is all the people who stop by having already heard about the homeless bears. For instance, a guy who had just arrived yesterday from California told us his professor had talked about in an art class. Another guy had read about it in his hometown paper in Australia. It’s been great to see word of this spread so widely, and generate so much excitement. And so much awareness of the polar bears and their plight.

To read more, view photos and video, follow the entire story on the blogs, and view our Twitter feed, which our activists were updating in real time during the protest, click here!

We have created a Flash slideshow featuring some good shots of the global warming refugee polar bear street art installations we rolled out this past week. (Embed code is below the slideshow.)

Check it out:




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John McCain consistently and falsely says that offshore oil drilling is safe, and that drill rigs have withstood Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Ike without any significant damage or oil spills.  The facts tell a very different story.

Most recently, Hurricane Ike barreled through the Gulf of Mexico. According to the Minerals Management Service, as of September 15, 2008, 28 of the 3,800 offshore oil and gas production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico had been destroyed, and several other platforms were significantly damaged. On September 16, the oil drilling company Rowan announced one of its drill rigs was missing, and that it had likely capsized and sunk due to Hurricane Ike.  

Yet on September 17 McCain stated he’d visited an oil rig in the Gulf, it survived the hurricane, it was safe and sound, and fish were swimming all around it. Clearly McCain visited a rig that escaped damage, but it’s a tremendous disservice to spin this visit in a way that leads people to believe there was no damage.

It’s not the first time McCain lied about the impact of hurricanes on oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. In June, McCain said, “As for offshore drilling, it’s safe enough these days that not even Hurricanes Katrina and Rita could cause significant spillage from the battered rigs off the coasts of New Orleans and Houston.” Yet the US Coast Guard reported that there were over 9 million gallons of oil released from six major and five medium spills (for comparison’s sake, the Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of oil), and the Minerals Management service reported that Hurricane Rita destroyed 46 platforms and damaged 20 others, while Hurricane Rita destroyed 69 platforms and damaged 32 others.

Not so insignificant, is it?

Now, to be fair, the 9 million gallons spilled as a result of Katrina and Rita were not spilled from offshore rigs. The oil was spilled from onshore tanks and pipelines that failed or ruptured. However, it’s not possible to drill offshore in the Gulf without an extensive network of tanks, pipelines, refineries and other infrastructure. Just as it’s not possible to talk about hurricane damage to oil industry infrastructure without including onshore damage.

More offshore oil drilling will only lead to more oil spills, pollution and global warming. And global warming is the very thing that supercharges storms like Katrina, Rita and Ike, which in turn causes major oil spills and extensive damage to oil industry infrastructure. It’s a vicious cycle that any Senator should approach with true solutions to global warming and this country’s energy crisis: energy efficiency so that we get more out of every drop of oil, and a new vision for US energy that relies on renewable forms of energy such as solar and wind and phases out addiction to oil.

Day Two of the Polar Bear’s protest at the US Capitol has dawned bright and clear. The Polar Bear is still standing firm, bearing witness. He hasn't sat down or taken a break since starting this vigil over 21 hours ago. He hasn't even eaten or had anything to drink, either. Still, he’s lookin' good, if a bit skinny for a bear his size.

Greenpeace’s activists have been there from the start – strictly playing a supporting role, of course, since this is the Bear’s protest. Activists have been working in shifts to keep him company; several shifts have come and gone throughout the night. We’re keeping vigil with the Bear to ask the Senate not to vote for more offshore drilling, which will only hasten the complete devastation of the Polar Bear’s Arctic sea ice home as it exacerbates global warming.

Happily, we were joined by the folks from Oil Change for a while! They set up just across the reflecting pool from us with a bed on wheels and some street theater calling out Congress for being “in bed with Big Oil.” If you missed their demonstration, no worries. You can head over to their website and check out this really cool tool they have up that lets you print a “petro-dollar” with your Rep. or Senator’s face on it in a denomination equal to how much money they take from Big Oil.

We took a short break this morning from updating the Twitter feed (posted below) because the Rolling Sunlight had to clear out during rush hour. But we’re now back up and running and will be updating in real time as long as parking is allowed outside the Capitol building. Not only does the truck feed us free and clean solar power but it provides our wireless signal as well. We’ll be using it to keep updating the slideshow you can find here.

Lots of folks have come by to meet the bear and have their picture taken, and overwhelmingly they agree with the Bear—the world needs more ice, not more oil. It’s fantastic to see that folks from all walks of life know about the issue of Global Warming, care about it deeply, and agree with the Bear and his message.

Meanwhile, we’re reaching out to more friends from around the area to come join our polar bear support team. If you’re in the DC area, come on down and show your support! If you’re not in the area, you can still take action and tell the Senate to vote NO on more drilling off our coasts!

Global warming refugees have been pouring into Washington, DC. Several homeless polar bears have been spotted around the capitol city in recent days, all of them asking desperately for change (in global warming policy). Today one of the bears took his plea for change directly to the US Capitol, and Greenpeace activists are currently on the scene to provide whatever support the protesting bear may need.

“We’re here to help this bear get his message to the Senate as they consider energy legislation this week,” says Nathan Santry, one of the Greenpeace activists on the ground at the Capitol building. “The Park Police were leary at first, but they’ve told us the bear can stay so long as someone hangs around to vouch for him. The polar bear shows no sign of leaving yet, so we’re sticking it out right along with him. The only catch? We have to stay within three feet of him at all times. Gonna be fun.”

The solar power-equipped Greenpeace truck “Rolling Sunlight” has just arrived to join the fun and is providing free, clean renewable energy to the team. That means that they’ll be updating us on their vigil every step of the way via the Twitter feed embedded below (also on our homepage). The slideshow you can find here will be updated with photos all night long as well.

Today’s polar bear protest is the latest in a series of street art installations Greenpeace has created in collaboration with renowned artist Mark Jenkins to call attention to the plight of the Arctic polar bear and help people understand in human terms what it means for the bears to lose their homes. Our intent with this project is to communicate how global warming is affecting the polar bear and to highlight the very real connection between the polar bear’s fate and our own.

As with any species down on its luck, the polar bears appealed to the federal government for relief (under the Endangered Species Act), but government action has been way too little and way too late. And rather than stepping in, Congress is piling on. Even as the National Snow and Ice Data Center announced that Arctic sea ice has reached its second lowest annual level ever recorded, the Senate is poised to vote on a bill that would open more of our coasts to offshore oil drilling, which will only prolong our dependence on fossil fuels and make global warming even worse. 

Rather than siding with Big Oil at the expense of the entire planet once again, Congress should focus on passing legislation that cuts tax breaks for Big Oil and returns that money to taxpayers to help offset rising fuel costs; doubles the average fuel efficiency of automobiles to at least 50 miles per gallon; invests in public transportation; and provides incentives for renewable energy investment to help transition us to a clean energy future.

Just as we have delayed action to protect the polar bear, we have delayed action to protect our own species from the threat of global warming for far too long. The window for action is closing rapidly. We hope the polar bear’s protest will help people draw a deeper and more immediate connection to that reality. Click here for more pictures, video, and to read more about the project.

*Update
As of 12:46AM EST, protest is still going strong. That Polar Bear is out to prove something, by god. We'll be with him til the end. Keep watching the Twitter badge below for updates!

**Update
Heading into day two. Tweets will stop for a bit while the Rolling Sunlight has to clear out because there is no parking during rush hour, but our activists will be back up and running in an hour or two. Look for another full update blog post soon.

 

In 2000, BP, the third largest global oil company with exploration and production in 29 countries, decided to adopt a more publicly palatable green image. In re-branding from British Petroleum to Beyond Petroleum, they announced new goals for “Better people, better products, beyond petroleum.”  In practice, their paltry investments in renewable energy do little to outweigh the destructive effects of their continued focus on fossil fuels.  

Despite BP’s claimed dedication to moving Beyond Petroleum, their recent investments indicate little forward movement toward renewable energy. BP has no immediate plans to reduce oil production in favor of renewable energy.  They assure their stockholders that “10 billion barrels a year seems a sustainable rate of exploration discoveries for 15 to 20 years.”   That’s a lot of carbon.  

Worst of all, BP’s continued focus on fossil fuels is leading them to dirtier and dirtier sources.  Most recently, they’ve decided to start extracting oil from the controversial Canadian tar sands.  BP had previously written off this source as inefficient and unprofitable.  Now that oil prices have skyrocketed, BP can afford to tap this source and are doing so in full force with a joint investment with Husky Energy of 3 billion dollars.

This is some dirty oil. Processing oil from the tar sands, which is heavier and requires more refining than most grades of crude is even more harmful for the environment than conventional refining.  BP plans on dumping 50 percent more ammonia and 35 percent more suspended solids into Lake Michigan from its refinery in Whiting, Ind.  

 

 

At the same time that Shell is investing in dirty technologies like tar sands, the company is also quietly selling off its solar operations. The company did not advertise the fact that it sold its photovoltaic operations last November to Environ Energy Global of Singapore . A year earlier Shell also sold its Solar Industries division to Solar World AG, a German company in June 2006. Shell reportedly also plans to sell its solar operations in the Phillipines and Indonesia.

On the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks Senators Barack Obama (D-IL) and John McCain (R-AZ) suspended their presidential campaigns for a day and came together at ground zero in New York City to honor 9/11 victims and their families.  Is it possible to keep that cooperation alive?  What if they decided to work together in the Senate this fall to complete some unfinished 9/11 business from the last Congress?

In 2006 Congress passed a temporary law to set minimum-security standards for U.S. chemical plants.  Unfortunately it was ghost written by industry lobbyists and it actually prohibits the government from requiring the most ironclad security measures.  It also expires on October 4, 2009 which will give Congress little time in 2009 to pass any law, let alone one that protects us.
 
Cities that surround chemical plants have long been recognized as one of the nation's most vulnerable populations to terrorism and catastrophic accidents.  The Department of Homeland Security has identified 3,400 chemical plants that if attacked would each put neighboring communities of 1,000 or more at risk.  For example, one plant in New Jersey, the Kuehne chemical plant (see disaster map) puts 12 million people at risk due to its use of chlorine gas. According to the company’s own reports to the EPA, the disaster zone extends 14 miles, beyond ground zero in Manhattan.

Former Senator Warren Rudman (R-NH) told CBS’s 60 Minutes, “the threat is just staring us in the face.  I mean, all you’d have to do is to have a major chemical facility in a major metropolitan area go up and there’d be hell to pay politically.”

All that is protecting these plants today are security guards, video cameras, and fences. Instead of relying on guards and fences, we need to change what makes a chemical plant an attractive terrorist target.

Fortunately, many safer chemicals and processes are available that can turn these plants into safer places that would be pointless for a terrorist to attack. One example is a Canadian company, that’s in the very same business as Kuehne, which plans to open several new U.S. plants.  For more information: http://www.k2pure.com/news/28/23/

Safer chemical plants shouldn't be optional they should be the norm just like safer airplanes. But the chemical industry likes the temporary law because it actually bars the government from requiring safer chemicals or processes, in other words it eliminates their strongest competitors.  In addition, this law explicitly exempts thousands of chemical facilities including approximately 3,000 water treatment plants, many of which use deadly chlorine gas.

As you might expect the chemical industry wants Congress to do nothing this year and just renew the weak law NEXT year. That won’t make anyone safer but it will make the loopholes permanent.  In May we released a report showing that the chemical industry and allies fielded at least 238 registered lobbyists on Capitol Hill to keep the weak law weak.

So far this year only one Committee in Congress has taken action.  On March 6th, the House Homeland Security Committee adopted the “Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act of 2008” (H.R. 5577) in a bi-partisan vote. Their bill addressed all the flaws in the temporary law. Unfortunately it has been stalled since June due to a dispute with the House Energy and Commerce Committee (see Greenpeace letter to Speaker Pelosi) over which government agency should regulate drinking water facilities.

In the U.S. Senate no legislation has moved. This is the perfect opportunity for Senators Obama and McCain to join together and break the logjam of special interests and infighting that’s preventing the safeguarding of millions of Americans.

Will they get together again? Stranger things have happened...this year. The cynics will say Congress doesn’t have enough time this year but they’re making time for the oil companies who want to expand their off-shore drilling leases. But if Congress does fail to take action, leaders in Congress and our presidential candidates should promise to put this on their agenda to pass in the first 100 days of the 111th Congress.  That's not as good as passing truly protective legislation now but it might give us another reason to vote this year.

Take Action

-- Rick Hind

Investigations Brief

Public Relations dilemmas are nothing new for the nuclear industry. For more than half a century, this industry has attempted to deflect attention away from the dirty and dangerous downsides of nuclear power technology. Over the years, the nuclear industry's propagandists have merged and morphed and changed their names, searching for something to hide the awful truth: the Atomic Industrial Forum, Committee for Energy Awareness, The U.S. Council for Energy Awareness, the Nuclear Energy Institute and the latest front group, CASEnergy- Clean And Safe Energy. Each manifestation of the industry front group has engaged in efforts to greenwash the truth about nuclear power.

Our investigation of nuclear greenwash will take several chapters. In this first essay, we will look at the history of this industry's tortured attempts to frame a highly dangerous technology as safe, friendly and environmentally beneficial. Starting with the Atoms for Peace program and the famous first big lie of energy, "too cheap to meter", the nuclear industry has flailed time and again as it tries to gain acceptance and work its way past the massive cost overruns, design errors and tragic accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernoby, amongst others.

The Campaign

In the late 20th century, an industry fraught with a legacy of problems, with no hope of revival, desperate for a lifeboat, clung to the looming threat of global warming and sought to position itself as the magic bullet. They asked that we increase our dependence on nuclear power, ignore all the problems, the accidents, terror threats, proliferation and undelivered radioactive waste solutions, and continue to ask taxpayers to insure nuclear power against inevitable liability.

Background

1953- Atomic Industrial Forum

The Atomic Industrial Forum (AIF) was founded in 1953 and marked the beginnings of the commercial nuclear industry in the United States.

In December of that year President Eisenhower introduced the Atoms for Peace program in a speech at the United Nations and in 1954 Congress passed the Atomic Energy Act which allowed corporations access to the materials and information acquired from the Manhattan Project's pursuit of the Atomic bomb. According to a nuclear industry's own documents, "AIF provided a forum to facilitate the government's transfer of nuclear technology to private industry." [1]

As with its offspring, part of AIF's mission was to manage the nuclear industry's image. After the 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine, AIF's President Karl Walske attempted to defend the industry by challenging NRC Commissioner Asselstine's testimony before Congress. Walske claimed that the NRC Commissioner's testimony on the dangers of nuclear power may have been misinterpreted in the public arena.

1979 - 1983 The Committees for Energy Awareness

The Committee for Energy Awareness (CEA) was formed in 1979 as an adjunct to the Atomic Industrial Forum. CEA's role was to repair the tarnished image of the nuclear industry after Three Mile Island (TMI). When the industry realized that this effort wasn't enough to repair the PR damage caused by the meltdown and evacuation around TMI they split CEA and AIF and created the "independent" group, U.S. Committee for Energy Awareness in 1983. This new committee was funded by the private utilities.

According to Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post, the US Committee for Energy Awareness launched a $30- million advertising and lobbying campaign in 1983. [2]

"What its slick, low-key television ads failed to mention is that the group gets more than half its funding from 50 utilities, some of which have billed their unsuspecting customers for the media blitz.

"These ads just wouldn't have the same reassuring tone if the tag line had been: 'Brought to you by America's nuclear utilities, makers of Three Mile Island. Energy for a Brighter Tomorrow.'"

Kurtz and the Post had access to the Committee's internal documents that detailed its green washing campaign. As noted in the Post:

"...training and placement of independent energy experts on local radio and television talk shows in priority regions ... letters to the editor by energy experts ... (and) op-ed columns and other bylined articles by nuclear supporters outside the industry." All of this was designed to 'establish the credibility of CEA as more than a propaganda organization.'"

1987 - US Council for Energy Awareness

In a subtle re-branding exercise, the U.S. Council for Energy Awareness (USCEA) was formed in 1987 after the nuclear industry recommended that the existing Washington nuclear associations reorganize. Shuffling staff around, most of the AIF staff to joined with the US Committee for Energy Awareness, while a third of AIF joined a new regulatory organization, The Nuclear Management and Resources Council.[3]

This revised version of USCEA continued the advertising campaigns of its predecessors. In 1988, the Council undertook some awkward attempts at greenwashing. One print ad ran with the tag line "Nuclear energy for energy independence and a cleaner Earth" and featured picketing animals. The television and print ad campaign attempted to label nuclear power as "clean" and claimed that "nuclear power didn't contribute to the greenhouse effect, possible global warming and its adverse effect on the environment and our quality of life."

Too much to pass up, Greenpeace countered these early greenwash advertisements with our own parodies of the USCEA ads that were strategically placed in television programs. You might catch one of these mock ads on reruns of Law & Order.

1994 - Nuclear Energy Institute

The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) is the latest manifestation of the propaganda wing of the nuclear industry. NEI was formed by the merger of the US Council for Energy Awareness, the Nuclear Management and Resources Council, the American Nuclear Energy Council, and the Nuclear Division of the Edison Electric Institute in 1994.

NEI has continued the media barrage of its predecessors prompting environmentalist to challenge the ads before the Better Business Bureau (BBB).

In December 1998, the BBB found that NEI ads falsely claimed that nuclear reactors make power without polluting the air and water or damaging the environment. According to the New York Times, the BBB said that, "The nuclear industry should stop calling itself 'environmentally clean' and should stop saying it makes power 'without polluting the environment.'" Andrea Levine, the director of the division, said such claims were "unsupportable."

Since then NEI has virtually ignored the BBB and has continued to run advertisements touting the supposed environmental benefits of their technology. This brazen disregard for the BBB prompted the environmental groups to bring NEI before the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). And in December 1999, the FTC found that "because the discharge of hot water from cooling systems is known to harm the environment, and given the unresolved issues surrounding disposal of radioactive waste, we think that NEI has failed to substantiate its general environmental benefit claim."[4]

Unfortunately the FTC failed to rule on whether the NEI ads were commercial or political speech and thus failed to exercise jurisdiction over the case. [5] As a result of the FTC punting on the issue, NEI ads and claims have changed precious little. NEI continues to make the same claims that the BBB found to be false and misleading. In a new twist to tried and true propaganda ploys that the industry has used for decades, NEI has recently employed the use of new front groups to push the its message.

 

2006 - Clean and Safe Energy CASEnergy

In 2006, NEI hired a former Greenpeace activist turned industry apologist, Patrick Moore and former New Jersey Governor and US EPA chief Christie Todd Whitman as the lead public faces of the new CASEnergy Coalition.

Given the nuclear industry's track record, you can understand why these corporations would need the services of major PR firms and form front groups whose primary purpose is to inveigle and obfuscate. CASEnergy had a big roll out at the National Press Club in Washington, DC and a placed op-ed piece in the Washington Post entitled "Going Nuclear." [6]

Unfortunately, the major media outlets bought the industry line hook, line & sinker as they pitched nuclear power as a global warming panacea and substitute for dirty coal power plants. It was left to the Columbia Journalism Review to call the media on their failure to accurately identify CASEnergy as a front group for NEI. [7]

In our next chapter, StopGreenwash will take a detailed look a the tactics employed by the nuclear propaganda machines to mislead the public.

References
[1] U.S. Council For Energy Awareness, Report to Members, 1992 1993. P. 3
[2] Howard Kurtz, Hiding a Lobby Behind a Name: Why Not Truth in Labeling For Interest Groups?" Washington Post. January 27, 1985.
[3] U.S. Council For Energy Awareness, Report to Members, 1992 1993. P. 3
[4] Federal Trade Commission, Letter to Joseph Colvin, President and CEO, Nuclear Energy Institute, December 15, 1999.
[5] ibid
[6] The Washington Post
[7] Columbia Journalism Review, FALSE FRONTS: Why to Look Behind the Label," July/August 2006.

 

 

Investigations Brief

The America's Power campaign, funded by the coal and electricity industry, promotes coal as our country's solution to energy independence. They do this through the lens of clean coal, when in reality they are simply a front group for an industry lobby aimed to keep dirty coal plants in existence.

The Campaign

Background

American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) is a not-for-profit organization (NGO) founded as a result of the merge between Americans for Balanced Energy Choices and Center for Energy and Economic Development (CEED) [1]. Its stated mission is "to advance the development and deployment of advanced clean coal technologies that will produce electricity with near-zero emissions." [2]

Campaign Details

ACCCE's mission is to convey to consumers and elected officials that coal should play a central role in meeting future American energy needs. As it notes on its website, "America can continue to make great progress in improving environmental quality while at the same time enjoying the benefits of using domestic energy resources like coal to meet our growing demand for affordable, reliable and clean energy. In a word...we believe in technology." [3] As part of this effort, ACCCE has sought to re-brand coal as a "clean" energy source. Its messaging reminds viewers that "half of our electricity comes from coal" and that "coal is our most abundant fuel." [4]

Ad Bluster

To do this, ACCCE is spending at least $35 million in 2008 to mount a major public relations campaign designed to promote public awareness of clean coal in the context of the Presidential race. They are doing this by flooding the election season with national and local ad campaigns.

ACCCE's campaign is built around an "American Energy" theme, arguing that "clean" coal-fired power plants are the only viable path to American energy independence. They have run print ads in key primary states to remind prospective voters of their state's reliance on coal and tout the benefits of clean coal in terms of both jobs and affordable power. To date, the local ads have run in Iowa, Nevada, South Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania [5]. In addition to a traditional media campaign, ACCCE utilizes a ground force of 150,000 supporters, who they call the "civilian army" and their "Power Van" as a guerilla force to bird-dog political rallies and events across the country festooned with clean coal slogans and a blue sky backdrop [6].

Along with their print ad campaign, ACCCE paid CNN $5 million to be one of the main co-sponsors of six presidential debates, providing saturation advertising both on television and online. Some blogs have noted the irony that during these debates, no questions have been asked about climate and specifically about coal.

Outcome

In 2007 alone, 59 proposed coal plants were cancelled or put on hold and in January DOE pulled the plug on the FutureGen project planned for Illinois that would be the first "near-zero emissions" facility utilizing cap and storage technology because the project was resulting in higher than expected costs. And to top things off, in October 2007, Kansas became the first state to reject issuing a permit for a new coal-fired plan solely because of its potential to contribute to global warming. But the coal industry isn't giving up, in fact ACCCE has increased its budget from approximately $8 million to $35 million for 2008 [7]. Other industry partners such as the National Mining Association have also increased their lobbying significantly in 2008 [8]. The intention is clear, the coal industry is determined to maintain America's over reliance on coal as a domestic energy source in spite of the need to diversify energy production to address global warming and minimize any impacts to the coal industry within the energy debate.

Greenwash Revealed

ACCCE is a wholly owned (albeit non-profit) subsidiary of the U.S. coal industry. Its list of 43 supporters reads like a who's who of the coal, rail, and electricity industries: ALCOA, American Electric Power, CSX, Detroit Edison, Duke Energy, Peabody Energy, Southern Company and Union Pacific Railroad. Its real purpose, contrary to its claims, is not to promote coal as a source for clean or green energy, but merely to ensure that the United States continues to be highly dependent on coal for its energy needs.

It's the Law, Stupid

Not surprisingly, ACCCE's promotion of clean coal plays with the facts. Although ACCCE claims that its "coal-based generating fleet is 70 percent cleaner than before," these numbers refer only to reductions in sulfur oxide (SOX) and nitrogen oxide (NOX) emissions [9]. The coal industry has yet to implement technology to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the main cause of global warming. ACCCE also fails to state anywhere in its campaign or on its website that coal plants are cleaner today not because of the industry's voluntary efforts, but rather as a result of legislative mandates or court decisions [10].

Perhaps the most misleading component of ACCCE's campaign is its implication that new and better CCS technologies capable of creating "near-zero emissions" are right around the corner. In reality, some scientists feel that the earliest CCS technology could be implemented is 2030 and would cost billions [11]. This is illustrated by the DOE's decision to pull out of FutureGen when the project began to exceed projected costs.

Political Spin

While the public mission of the group is to promote clean coal, a closer look at the group reveals otherwise. Newly formed in 2008, ACCCE is the latest version of the long lineage of coal front groups. If you look at the federal tax records for ACCCE's parent organization, Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC), you will find the true nature of their work. In their 2006 tax records, ABEC claims that they promote "an increased awareness of improvements in U.S. air quality and the coal-based electricity sector's role in America's ongoing environmental progress as well as the mobilization of a citizen army on issues involving various state regulatory and legislative actions including decisions on implementation of EPA's Clean Air Mercury rule and actions to regulate utility greenhouse gas emissions." [12]

At the same time that ACCCE was telling the public that it was dedicated to clean technology, it was spending over $2.6 million lobbying Congress. According to lobbying records, it "opposed the national renewal portfolio" in the Comprehensive Energy Bill (HR 6) and contested the America's Climate Security Act (better known as the Lieberman-Warner bill) when it came before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee [13].

Dirty Business

While, ACCCE promotes the benefits of coal to local communities, they neglect to speak to the reality of the environmental damage caused by its extraction and use. They fail to mention the impacts of air pollutants and mercury contamination produced in the burning of coal, which are known to cause cancer, impair reproduction, inhibit child development, damage the nervous and immune systems, and worsen respiratory ailments like asthma. They never mention the environmental impact of coal mining, which includes erosion, groundwater contamination, habitat destruction, and toxic waste. Environmental and economic costs incurred in waste disposal and land reclamation and transportation are also omitted from the dialog [14].

Perhaps most relevant to its current campaign, ACCCE proudly admits that 50 percent of our electricity comes from coal, yet they neglect to admit its contribution to climate change. The EPA documented that in 2006 electricity generation "is the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, representing 33 percent of total US emissions [15]. In reality, there is nothing "clean" about the coal electicity it promotes.

[1] America's Power
[2] America's Power
[3] America's Power
[4] America's Power
[5] America's Power
[6] America's Power
[7] 2006 IRS form 990, Americans For Balanced Energy Choices Greenpeace Investigations
[8] The Washington Post
[9] America's Power
[10] Keating, Martha. Cradle to Grave: The Environmental Impacts from Coal. June 2001 Clean Air Task Force
[11] New Scientist, "Can coal live up to its clean promise?" March 27, 2008
[12] 2006 IRS form 990, Americans for Balanced Energy Choices Greenpeace Investigations
[13] Lobbying Report, Americans for Balanced Energy Choices, 2007, Greenpeace Investigations website
[14] Keating, passim.
[15] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, "Inventory of U.S Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2006" EPA

When the fishing gear, be they larger than football field sized nets that drag the oceans floor for fish, crab pots, longline fishing hooks, or other gear used to catch and kill fish, much more than fish are being destroyed. Lets look at one of them. The deep-sea trawlers that hunt and search for pollock and other flat fishes.

The first major commercial groundfish fishery in the Gulf of Alaska targeted Pacific Ocean perch. The size of the catch rose quickly through the early 1960’s until the resource was depleted.  The fishery then began targeting walley pollock. As happened with perch, the catch of pollock rose gradually through 1980 when a large spawning aggregation was discovered in the waters off of Kodiak Island. Over the next 5 years the spawning aggregation was heavily exploited and the fishery peaked and collapsed. (Trites 1991).

The same picture can be painted for these fisheries in the Bering Sea. Yellowfin sole catches rose from 1954 to 1961 until the stock declined due to overfishing. As the yellowfin sole declined, the fishery moved to pollock. (Trites 1991).

Now we know that the pollock fishery in the Kodiak waters, the Bogoslov Island waters, and the Aleutian Islands have either been shut down due to overfishing or their catchable amounts severely cut because of overfishing. So what’s new? Outside multinational fishing companies see an opportunity to exploit beyond reason, come into our waters and destroy. Sounds like a familiar tune when discussing other resources in our Great State? Oil and gas, minerals, forests, salmon populations and sadly, people.


Its beginning to sound like a problem that needs some serious attention from our state and federal governments. After all, our governments lay claim to represent all the people of both our State and Nation. Oh ya, we do have such oversight boards and councils. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the Alaska Board of Fish (ABF) are legally charged with that responsibility. And to help in these processes, Advisory Councils are put in place to help give direction. NMFS has the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) and the ABF has regional advisory Councils. But guess what? The NPFMC and the ABF are stocked, not with fish, but with commercial fishing representatives and interests to make these decisions. And these councils and boards are ripe for the plucking. Industry lobbyists and lawyers often wine and dine these “representatives of the people’s resource” to get their quotas, no matter the science. And they often get their way. Take a quick look at the NPFMC’s web site and see who the Council members are and whom they work for.

“Drill, baby, drill” is not a new cry for resource development at any cost. In the 1980’s and 1990’s and up to this day it has been “fish, baby, fish” before there are no more fish to catch. With the problems of climate change, other animals’ populations crashing and people being dislocated, it is time to reappoint “representative” people to these councils and boards. Industry greed and ways of doing business has got to stop. There is a lot of talk these days about reform. If ever an industry needed reform, this is it.

Just last year, the NPFMC cut the total amount of pollock catch a whopping 24% from the year before! If that same amount of decline were done to, say, the oil and gas industries, you would hear a loud cry from the public. We need to pay close attention to the reasons for this kind of management of our resources. One of the reasons given for the drastic cut the pollock fishery took was lack of recruitment. Oh ya. I forgot to tell you that twice a year, millions of pounds of pollock roe, the caviar of the Bering Sea, is auctioned off to a hand full of “by invitation only” companies.
“Fish, baby, fish.”

This is the people’s resource put into the trusting hands of appointed Councils. We must hold them accountable. They work for us, not the industry.

 

From the NY Times: 

 

WASHINGTON — As Congress prepares to debate expansion of drilling in taxpayer-owned coastal waters, the Interior Department agency that collects oil and gas royalties has been caught up in a wide-ranging ethics scandal — including allegations of financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct. 

 

In three reports delivered to Congress on Wednesday, the department’s inspector general, Earl E. Devaney, found wrongdoing by a dozen current and former employees of the Minerals Management Service, which collects about $10 billion in royalties annually and is one of the government’s largest sources of revenue other than taxes.

 

“A culture of ethical failure” besets the agency, Mr. Devaney wrote in a cover memo. 

 

MORE 

 

 

Yesterday Steve Jobs announced Apple new iPod line up. Here’s the bit that really got our attention about the new models:

• Arsenic-free glass
• Brominated flame retardant-free
• Mercury-free
• PVC-free

It’s great to see Apple dropping toxic chemicals like PVC, BFRs and mercury in their latest products and a victory for everyone who supported our Green my Apple campaign. In May 2007 Steve Jobs stated that Apple would improve it’s environmental record by removing toxic chemicals by the end of 2008 and boosting recycling by 2010.

While these iPods may rock what would really shake up the computer industry is if Apple sticks to it’s promise and becomes the first company to make personal computers free of toxic PVC and BFR’s. That would be truly groundbreaking announcement.

To get a bit techie for a sec – it’s simpler to make small devices like phones, iPods etc without PVC and brominated flame retardants because they use less power (so generate less heat) and have few components. That’s why Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung have phones already free of these toxic chemicals but no company has yet cracked it for computers.

Now what we’d really like for Christmas is to see Apple remove toxic chemicals from all it’s products, and announce a free, global recycling scheme. That would make a very tasty green Apple.

We’re also keeping up the pressure on all the major electronic companies to remove toxic chemicals, improve recycling and be more climate friendly with our quarterly Guide to Greener Electronics. With several companies having committed to significant improvements at the end of 2008 or in 2009 it should be an interesting few months for green electronics.

Seven years have past since the attacks on the World trade Center and the Pentagon and now a little more than four months remain in the Bush Presidency. The American homeland hasn’t been attacked again since that horrific day, but if terrorists were to target a nuclear power plant would the nuclear industry be ready?  

The Bush administration’s nuclear regulators have forced the industry’s 104 nuclear reactors to add more guards and guns on the ground at nuclear plant sites. However, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has failed to adequately address the threat to both new and existing nuclear power plants and the radioactive wastes they produce.  

After September 11th, the NRC revisited the level of protection afforded nuclear plants. The nuclear industry opposed changes that would have placed nuclear security guards under federal authority and lobbied the NRC to set the security standard, known as the design basis threat, as low as possible.

Even after the 9-11 attacks, the nuclear industry argued that it shouldn’t be required to defend against terrorists since they were “enemies of the state.” And unfortunately the Bush Administration’s NRC agreed with the industry. As a result, the NRC didn’t set the new security standard based upon the actual threat to nuclear plants. Instead, then NRC Chairman Diaz, who had claimed that nuclear plants were best defended from an airliner attack at the airport, based the new security standard on what a private security force could be expected to defend against.
 
Unfortunately, the Bush administration’s NRC did not base the new security standard upon on the force, size and capabilities of the terrorists that have threatened U.S. reactors.  It based the new security standard upon the capabilities of nuclear industry’s guard force! If this nonsensical approach to defending nuclear power plants wasn’t bad enough, recent revelations of nuclear plant guards sleeping on the job and the lack of NRC oversight only serve to heighten concerns about security.

Last September, CBS News broke a story about sleeping guards at the Peach Bottom nuclear plant in Pennsylvania.  A worker at the plant had informed the NRC Region I office that security guards were sleeping on the job. However, the NRC failed to act on the information when the nuclear plant owner, Exelon, said it found no evidence. So CBS News aired videotape of the guards sleeping.  You can view the CBS story here:

http://wcbstv.com/politics/peach.bottom.nuclear.2.291442.html

The NRC has since scrambled and has tried to repair the damage to its reputation by fining the nuclear corporation; but it has also threatened the whistleblower who filmed the sleeping guards with a violation of the Patriot Act for taking pictures inside a nuclear plant!

Congressman John Dingle (D- MI) who oversees the NRC said that, "(t)he NRC's stunning failure to act on credible allegations of sleeping security guards, coupled with its unwillingness to protect the whistleblower who uncovered the problem, raises troubling questions." It should, when it comes to nuclear whistleblowers the NRC has had a long history of shooting the messenger.

Congressman Dingle isn’t the only one to take issue with the NRC’s handling of the sleeping security guards.  The NRC’s Inspector General also found fault with the agency’s handling of the allegations.  The IG found that NRC Region I failed to follow proper procedures dealing with allegations by whistleblowers and merely called Exelon to see if security guards were sleeping at the Peach Bottom nuclear plant.  The NRC IG report can be found here:

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/insp-gen/2008/ei-07-65.pdf

Security guards have also been caught sleeping at Entergy’s Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant, 24 miles north of New York City and at the FPL’s Turkey Point nuclear plant 25 miles South of Miami, FL.  

So, how many terrorists can sleeping guards defend against?

Unfortunately, this amazing lack of regulatory rigor is emblematic of the Bush administration’s NRC since 9-11.  In order to force nuclear regulators to better defend nuclear reactors and their wastes, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and Congressman Edward J. Markey (D-MA) introduced legislation last month to correct the most glaring inadequacies.

In the House of Representatives, the legislation has been introduced as H.R. 6816, "The Nuclear Facility and Materials Security Act of 2008."

The proposed legislation would address many of the gaps in the nuclear security left by the Bush Administration’s unwillingness to regulate the nuclear industry.  If enacted H.R. 6818 would:

• Require that any new reactor built in the U.S.- be designed to withstand the impact of a large commercial aircraft;

 

• Require that spent fuel from nuclear reactors be stored in the safest manner possible while in the spent fuel pool, for the fuel to be moved to dry storage as soon as possible, and upgrading the security requirements for spent fuel storage facilities;

 

• Require the distribution of anti-radiation pills (potassium iodide or KI pills) to communities within 20 miles of our nation's nuclear power plants;

 

• Require that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission abide by a recent court decision that directed that before new or revised licenses for nuclear reactors are granted, that the potential consequences of an act of terrorism be considered; and

 

• that the highest-risk radiation sources that could be used to make a dirty bomb be equipped with location tracking technology and requiring less dangerous technologies to be used where possible.

What is truly disheartening is that this legislation is even necessary seven years after 9-11.  You’d have thought that a responsible regulator would have already addressed these threats, especially after being warned that terrorists wanted to turn reactors into pre positioned weapons of mass destruction.  Unfortunately, since 9-11, we’ve had a President and an administration that would rather lie about threats to and posed by nuclear power plants than actually defend the public health and safety.  

Hopefully the next president and new leadership at the NRC will be more responsible.

-- Jim

While Shell is portraying a green image in its ads, the company is investing heavily in increasingly destructive practices. Shell is a lead company in the business of dirty and unconventional fuels, and is heavily invested in the tar sands located in Alberta, Canada [1].  The tar sands holds the second largest deposit of oil reserves in the world, and Shell is spending billions of dollars every year to make sure they remain a leader in both developing and processing the tar sands.  They are also quickly increasing investments in the tar sands and upgrading capacity.

Extracting oil from the tar sands has a huge impact on the environment and climate change. The production of oil from the tar sands is responsible for major greenhouse gas emissions (3 to 5 times the amount of GHG emissions as conventional oil), water depletion and pollution, toxic contamination of the surrounding ecosystem and local communities, as well as the destruction of the Boreal Forest. The tar sands are buried under thousands of square miles of the Boreal Forest and this critical forest ecosystem, often referred to as the “lungs of the our planet” is being clearcut so that Shell and other oil companies can access the tar. The Boreal Forest is a storehouse of carbon, holding more than 47 billion tonnes in its trees and soil.  Shell Canada’s President and CEO, Clive Mather, didn’t seemed phased about the destruction his operations are having on the environment when he talked about Shell’s expansion projects; he put it like this, “Shell has some of the best land and minable ore quality in the Athabasca area.  With billions of barrels of bitumen in place, we see clear potential for sustained profitable growth .” Profitable growth indeed . . . but at what expense?

Tar sands development is the single largest contributor to the increase in climate change in Canada, accounting for 40 million tonnes of CO2 emissions per year [2].  By 2011 the tar sands are estimated to emit twice that amount, and more than triple that by 2020. Tar sands is one of the most environmentally destructive and greenhouse gas intensive ways to extract oil. By continuing to develop and expand production of the tar sands Shell is not only diverting us off the path to clean energy but also directly contributing to climate change.

In August 2008, Shell was found guilty of misleading the public over its tar sands operations. The British Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that the company should not have used the word "sustainable" when describing its Canadian tar sands operations. The ASA ruled that the Shell ad had breached rules on substantiation, truthfulness and environmental claims.

[1] Shell website

[2] The Pembina Institute

The Arctic is in the news a lot these days, especially in connection with global warming. That’s due in large part to the fact that the Arctic is the canary in the coal mine that is our planet: as global warming worsens and temperatures rise, melting Arctic sea ice is one of the most stark indicators of the havoc global warming is already wreaking on our planet.

That’s why this recent news report was so alarming (to say the least):

WASHINGTON -- More ominous signs Wednesday have scientists saying that a global warming "tipping point" in the Arctic seems to be happening before their eyes: Sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is at its second lowest level in about 30 years.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center reported that sea ice in the Arctic now covers about 2.03 million square miles. The lowest point since satellite measurements began in 1979 was 1.65 million square miles set last September.

With about three weeks left in the Arctic summer, this year could wind up breaking that previous record, scientists said.

Until late last year, scientists predicted that the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in the summers as soon as 2030 if we don’t act in time to stop global warming. But new data has led some scientists to predict ice-free summers in the Arctic Ocean within the next 5 to 10 years.

But melting Arctic ice is more than an indicator of a “tipping point” in the climate crisis. In fact, it also serves as a catalyst for even more global warming.

Ice is white, and therefore reflects sunlight, helping keep temperatures down. Darker ocean water, on the other hand, soaks up the sun’s rays, which leads to more warming. As more and more Arctic sea ice melts, more dark ocean waters underneath it are exposed, which causes more warming. It’s a vicious feedback mechanism that scientists have dubbed “Arctic amplification.”

And it’s not the only feedback mechanism at work in the Arcitc. Scientists recently reported that global warming has caused large amounts of methane to be released from the seabed underneath the Arctic Ocean. Methane is a much more powerful global warming pollutant than carbon dioxide. Huge releases of methane into the atmosphere from a warming Arctic will serve to further catalyze not just the vicious cycle of Arctic warming but global warming as well.

As the Arctic sea ice reaches its second lowest level ever -- just one year after the lowest level on record was reached -- the species most in the news these days is the polar bear. The polar bear depends on the Arctic sea ice for every aspect of its life cycle – from breeding to raising its young to hunting and travel. In short, as the sea ice disappears, so will the polar bear. It’s no surprise that recent overflights above Alaska’s Chukchi Sea found nine polar bears swimming hundreds of miles from their ice edge home. What’s ironic is that the overflights were conducted in connection with the push for oil exploration in the Chukchi Sea. Oil drilling in the Chukchi Sea not only threatens polar bears through oil spills and other environmental ills that are a routine part of oil drilling, it also threatens the bears because eventually that oil will be burned, which in turn exacerbates global warming and leads to further melting of their sea ice habitat.

The fact that the Arctic has experienced the lowest and second lowest sea ice melts over the past two years, and polar bears have been spotted swimming hundreds of miles from the sea ice, demonstrates a clear and disturbing trend. Global warming is no longer a concern for the future – it is drastically affecting our planet right now, and we, along with our elected officials, must do something about it.

*Update: The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has just released it's latest Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis report. It's looking less likely that this year will break last year's record. But, according to the report:

Following a record rate of ice loss through the month of August, Arctic sea ice extent already stands as the second-lowest on record, further reinforcing conclusions that the Arctic sea ice cover is in a long-term state of decline. With approximately two weeks left in the melt season, the possibility of setting a new record annual minimum in September remains open.

 

All too often these days, the mainstream media reports on an issue with a tragically skewed sense of “fairness:” they report what both sides say about an issue equally, and shy away from reporting any actual facts or independent research that might refute or bolster either claim. Tired of allegations that they are too liberal, many, many reporters have all but abandoned their role as watchdogs and investigators.

On no issue is this more evident than global warming.

Despite overwhelming consensus within the scientific community that mankind’s actions are warming the planet and changing the global climate for the worse, the mainstream media continues to report the views of misguided global warming deniers as if they have equal merit. A recent AP story is a good case in point:

Global warming has probably made Hurricane Gustav a bit stronger and wetter, some top scientists said Sunday, but the specific connection between climate change and stronger hurricanes remains an issue of debate.

To be fair, this is actually overall a pretty decent article about the effect global warming is having on hurricanes. While it’s true that no single storm can be attrributed to global warming, it is quite clear that hurricanes are getting bigger and more destructive thanks to global warming. The IPCC’s 4th Assessment Report makes this assertion, and so does a report released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration earlier this year. But you won’t find references to either of those reports in the article, though together they represent the findings of literally thousands of climate scientists.

Instead, the reporter chose to find a few scientists quibbling about just how much global warming is actually contributing to the size and strength of hurricanes, like this guy: “'We have a real effect due to climate change,' Willoughby said. 'But the dominant effect in my mind is just bad luck.'” In the end, the article doesn’t directly challenge the idea that global warming is making hurricanes more destructive, but it does create the sense that there are several equally viable theories about the effect global warming has on hurricanes. The risk, obviously, is that this will in turn give the unitiated the impression that they needn’t worry about global warming making weather more extreme because everyone is just guessing anyway.

But to those who read the entire article, the numbers quoted in the last line pretty much speak for themselves:

From 1975 to 1990, about 17 percent of all hurricanes around the world were Category 4 and 5. From 1990 to 2004, that jumped to 35 percent. And from 2003 through last year it was up to 41 percent -- not including this year's Gustav.

As Americans become increasingly concerned about climate change, Shell has launched public relations campaigns that portray a green image and emphasize efforts to protect the world’s resources and climate. Their efforts run the gamut of PR strategies, from print and television, to less traditional blogs and magazines.  In reality, Shell’s “green” activities do not warrant the amount of publicity they are receiving.

Where There’s a Will, There’s “Away”

This print ad claims greenhouse gas emissions from Shell facilities were being piped into actual Dutch greenhouses to stimulate the growth of flowers.  The retro-60s font style seems intended to suggest an “Age of Aquarius” holistic, closed-loop approach to oil production.

Contrary the claim that “there is no away,” Shell – the world’s second-largest oil company - has a definite idea of where “away” is located.  It’s in Ogoniland, the part of the Niger River delta in Nigeria where Shell has conducted oil extraction operations since 1958, resulting in widespread pollution of Ogoniland and the deaths and displacement of tens of thousands of the Ogoni people .

In July 2007, the Dutch Advertising Code Authority (Holland is Shell’s home nation) ordered the company to withdraw the flowers ad, determining that it is a “misleading environmental claim” .

The ad is part of an expensive campaign to call attention to a small-scale project near Shell’s corporate headquarters, all the while hoping no one will notice the environmental devastation and human rights violations occurring in the region where Shell actually pumps oil from the ground. There more details available on Sourcewatch and Crococyl.

Shell's GTL Fuel Grows Trees?

In another print ad, Shell seems to suggests that “GLT” fuel will grow trees and make snow. The fuel is not explained in the ad, but it refers to “Gas to Liquid” fuel – a fuel made from natural gas. The fuel does reduce harmful emissions compared to gas, but the insinuation that using this fuel will somehow result in snowy wildernesses is over the top, especially considering that burning this fuel releases greenhouse gas emission that are melting snow in many places around the world.

Shell has had lots of trouble sticking to the truth: in the last couple years the company has also mislead the public about the size of its oil reserves and the environmental impacts of its operations … among other things.

 "V" for Very Destructive

In a televised ad, Shell advertises its premium gas by using colorful animated fish, portraying the marine environment as a happy, healthy, musical place.  In reality, Shell has a tradition of disturbing marine environments, especially off the coast of Alaska and in the Gulf of Mexico where it uses seismic testing to search for oil. 

Shell helped pioneer seismic technology, and has been sending sound waves below the surface of the ocean ever since. The blasts from seismic guns reach volumes that can cause permanent hearing loss, disorientation, brain hemorrhaging and death in marine mammals. When they lose part or all of their hearing, marine mammals cannot find food, avoid predators or communicate with each other. As a testament to this, in June over 100 whales were stranded off the coast of Madagascar near a site where Exxon was performing seismic surveys . Shell is continuing its seismic surveys this summer off the shores of Alaska, despite a court injunction that forbids them from drilling wells because of environmental and cultural concerns.

Non-Traditional Advertising

Perhaps some of the most influential advertising Shell is doing these days, is its non-traditional advertising.  These new concepts include a “Shell World” magazine and a “Shell Dialogues” website.  These communications seem to try to engage the public in matters regarding energy production, all the while portraying Shell in a green light.  Both the magazine and website include short stories about “green” technologies, like biofuels, cooking oils, and carbon capture and storage, and emphasize Shell’s hope to bring these technologies to market – even though they are not a part of the company's core business. Shell does not acknowledge in these communications that the company’s main operations are responsible for large, devastating environmental and health impacts that make most of these “green” initiatives miniscule by comparison. For example, in the July issue of "Shell World", there’s a feature story about smog in Beijing and the health impacts citizens are facing [1]. The article never mentions that smog is caused in large part by burning gas in vehicles, or that Shell is planning to build a large new refinery in China.

 [1] Shell World magazine

Investigations Brief
While Shell’s ads feature pristine wildernesses, happy fish, and flowering smoke stacks, Shell continues to poison the people that live near its operations, rapidly expand the most destructive oil extraction operations, and increase its greenhouse gas emissions.  Meanwhile, Shell is also trying to influence the climate policy debate, with targeted policy recommendations and thousands of dollars in lobby funding.

Background
Royal Dutch Shell is a multinational oil company with British and Dutch origins. It is one of the largest private sector energy corporations in the world, with its main business being exploration for and production, distribution and marketing of oil and gas . With 104,000 employees in more than 110 countries, the company claims to play a key role in helping to meet the world’s gherowing demand for energy in economically, environmentally and socially responsible ways [1]. Last year Shell made over $31B in profits, which amounts to $85M in profits every day [2].

Campaign Details
Shell oil spends millions promoting an image of environmental responsibility and innovation.  Shell ads talk about cleaning the air and water, and use environmental images to promote its products.  The company is exaggerating its environmental claims, while diverting attention away from its dirty and destructive core business.

The Outcome
Shell continues to spend millions on green advertising messages, while also continuing to devastate the plant and lobby Congress and the White House.

[1] Shell website
[2] Royal Dutch Shell 2007 Annual Report

While many of our politicians are busy debating false solutions like drilling the OCS, nuclear energy, and carbon capture and sequestration, global warming is already wreaking havoc on planet Earth. For instance, five infectious diseases that have been virtually eradicated in the developed world are thriving as temperatures rise across the globe.

Our federal politicians may be delaying action, but several state governments and businesses are moving forward on their own. Here are some of the most promising developments from just the past couple weeks:

• Construction has begun on New Mexico’s first geothermal power plant, which is expected to be generating 10 megawatts of power by next year.
• Two California businesses announced they are building the world’s largest solar power arrays, which will be capable of producing up to 800 megawatts on a sunny day. This is not only a boon to California’s energy mix but also “the latest indication that solar energy is starting to achieve a significant scale,” according to the New York Times.
• Google announced it was investing $10 million in a “breakthrough” geothermal technology as part of its plan to pump hundreds of millions of dollars into sustainable energy development.
• Even global warming-denying federal legislators may soon be treading on recycled carpet when they report to work in our nation’s capitol thanks to new legislation that would make Washington D.C. the first major American city to require new construction projects to follow the standards of the U.S. Green Building Council.
• In Colorado, a local power company met their goal of providing 10% of the state’s power through sustainable sources eight years ahead of schedule, prompting them to double the target to 20%. In the past 18 months alone, Colorado’s wind energy capacity has quadrupled.

A frequent argument against making the switch to sustainable energy sources is that the technology is not there yet, or that it would be prohibitively expensive to make the switch. Not only do they greatly underestimate the engenuity and industriousness of the American people, but these arguments are just plain wrong, as these projects demonstrate. Renewable energy technologies are ready to go, and citizens and industry leaders alike are ready to start seriously combating global warming. All that’s lacking is the political will in Washington.

The North Atlantic right whale is very rare—there are only about 300 in existence today. Recent news that these magnificent whales may finally get a helping hand highlights the sad, sad state of the right whales. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) officials released a final analysis to slow down ship speeds and use shipping routes that avoid whale grounds along the U.S. east coast where the whales live.

But, what does this “final analysis” really do for the whales? Well, nothing right now.  In my mind it is like being engaged. There is the “promise” to get married, but also the possibility for the couple to go their separate ways. And, just how long will the engagement last? NOAA has promised to save the right whales, but how long will their “engagement” last? Will they elope and have the regulations enacted tomorrow, or will it drag on and on for months or years?

Did I mention that there were only 300 right whales left on the planet? Right whales have been fighting for increased protections for years and years. I remember going to a public testimony, probably about two or three years ago on this very same issue. NOAA had an open comment period and I was on hand to present thousands of public petitions in support of saving the right whales. But, sadly, there haven’t been any increased protections—just the promise that some day there might be. Is this good enough?

A 44-foot right whale washed up on a beach in Massachusetts on March 11th of this year. A ship strike is the probable cause of death.

Oh, and if these regulations do get implemented the U.S. government made some exemptions. The U.S. Navy is exempt from these rules about slowing down. And, the regulations will only be in place for five years—that is unless another round of “red tape” and bureaucratic analysis takes place.

While the government continues to use every stall tactic in the book, right whales continue to swim in harms way. Ship strikes are the largest known cause of death for the endangered North Atlantic right whale, particularly baby calves.

I have been lucky to see two right whales in my lifetime. One was during a whale watching adventure in New England (where I got insanely sunburned) and the other is a “squishy” toy that a colleague got for me. I hope my children will be able to see real right whales and not just the toy sitting up on my desk.

--Michelle

Greenpeace applauds the decision by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) to limit bottom trawl fisheries in the northern Bering Sea. Any cutback on this destructive fishery practice is welcome news. However, in this case, it’s misleading.

Industrial fishing, with the exception of the use of bottom trawlers, will continue in these areas. And provisions included in the decision raise alarm bells that plans may be in the making to eventually re-open the area to bottom trawlers to do their damage.

Bottom trawl lobbyists are pressuring the NPFMC to open more of this “northern boundary” because, as they themselves have testified before the Council, the fish are moving north due to climate change, and their boats have to travel further north to find fish. The other reason, one which they are not talking about, is that heavy fishing pressure in the southern Bering Sea has dramatically reduced populations of many groundfish stocks.

The size of the closure area is also misleading. As with the Aleutian Island bottom trawl closure adopted previously, a large percentage of this area of no trawl fishing is in an area where no fishing has taken place due to its depth and distance from on shore processors. No one fished there anyway. So while this is a forward-looking and precautionary step, action is urgently needed to address damage from bottom trawling that is occurring now in known coral and sponge habitats.  

Incorporating Greenpeace research, NOAA has identified several deep sea coral areas that currently lack protection. Last year, Greenpeace used submarines and a Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) to survey seafloor habitats in two underwater canyons along the highly productive Bering Sea shelf break. Zhemchug Canyon, the world’s largest, had never been explored.  We found at least 14 species of coral, and more than 20 species of sponge – including one that was previously unknown to science. Alarmingly, we also saw documented considerable evidence of fishing impacts – trenches dug through the seafloor, and broken and overturned corals.

Virtually none of the Bering Sea or Gulf of Alaska is protected from all fishing, despite the growing body of evidence of the value of marine reserves in fisheries management.  Fully protected marine reserves can help speed the recovery of fish stocks and degraded habitats, and have proven to increase yields in surrounding areas due to a spillover effect. By serving as experimental controls, marine reserves can also help us understand the impacts of climate change on our oceans and fisheries.

It’s time for the NPFMC to take a more ecosystem-based approach, and to protect the habitats that sustain Alaska’s fisheries. So far, most of what we’ve seen has looked good on paper but has had little impact on the status quo. And in the meantime, fish stocks continue to dwindle, critical habitat continues to be destroyed, and fishing communities continue to await relief.


-- George

 

 

Earlier this summer, the Department of Interior stopped dragging its feet when it came to protecting the polar bear. After three years of obfuscation, they finally listed the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. This might seem like a victory, but there are enough holes in this listing to leave the polar bear unprotected against its biggest threat, global warming.

Those holes may now be widening with the Bush administration's latest attack on the planet--an underhanded and dangerous attempt to weaken the Endangered Species Act. How? By making it more difficult for a species to gain protection by scaling back the "foreseeable future" timeframe in which to determine whether a species is likely to become extinct or not. For species like whales and grizzly bears, who enjoy long lives, that could spell disaster. If these changes take effect, regulators will be able to look into the "forseeble future" only 20 generations or 10 years, whichever they decide. The shortened timeframe could make responsbile decision making on threatened species a thing of the past.

All of this may seem like legal mumbo-jumbo until you come across an article like this that reminds you what's at stake. Here's another reminder: there's only 75 days to the election. Vote smart.       

There’s a secret that Kimberly-Clark does not want you to know: Every Kleenex tissue is made from ancient forests. In fact, the tissues contain no recycled fiber at all. None. Instead, Kleenex is made from trees up to 180 years old cut from ancient forests that are up to 10,000 years old. These forests are home to eagles, bears, foxes and endangered caribou that are losing more habitat with every box of Kleenex bought.

Despite mounting pressure Kleenex’s parent company, the Kimberly-Clark Corporation, has been unwilling to improve its practices, continuing to rely on paper and pulp made from clearcut Endangered forest, including North America's Boreal Forest.  Kimberly-Clark clears these ancient forests, essential in fighting climate change and providing home to wildlife like caribou, wolves, eagles and bears, to make products that are flushed down the toilet or thrown away.

We made an animation with famous artist Mark Fiore to show just how ridiculous Kimberly-Clark's new partnership with Pixar is. They're making Kleenex boxes with Wall-E on the side, nevermind that the film was about destroying the earth. Enjoy!

  

Hurricane Katrina's third anniversary is in two weeks, Aug. 29th. In another preemptive strike, albeit a PR one this time, President Bush is going down to New Orleans to tout progress. His prepared remarks say that much work remains to be done, and no doubt that's true. While the Gulf Coast's long-term health remains in question, we know for sure that Bush's vision for the area doesn't include protecting it by halting climate change. Should it? Should he be concluding that no matter how many resources we pump into the Bayou, it won't be secure until global warming is arrested?

The question is a complex one. One thing we know for sure is that hurricanes, which are dependent on warm water temperatures, were coming onto shore and reeking havoc long before the internal combustion engine was in production. We also know that although North America has dealt with a horrific string of bad storms--with Katrina as the headliner--in other parts of the world hurricane frequency is actually on the decline. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, we know from high school physics that science is not very good at taking an uncontrolled event and attributing a direct cause to it, even if the link seems obvious.     

Pew says we'd be in error to draw a direct link between global warming and the ferocity and frequency of hurricanes:

So, although we cannot be certain global warming intensified Katrina per se, it clearly has created circumstances under which powerful storms are more likely to occur at this point in history (and in the future) than they were in the past. Moreover, it would be scientifically unsound to conclude that Katrina was not intensified by global warming. A reasonable assessment of the science suggests that we will face similar events again and that powerful storms are likely to happen more often than we have been accustomed to in the past.

The thing about global warming though (and what gives me cause for optimism in the fight to outfox it) is that it exposes so many of our other environmental and social problems. Even if Katrina wasn't directly fueled by a warming climate, it was made worse by wetland loss, deforestation and a large concentrated population of poor people. Those are problems that must be dealt with to fix the climate, and those are problems Bush should address when he speaks to New Orleans’ recovery. This is about more than rebuilding buildings and streets, much like lowering gas prices is about more than the price at the pump. The problems are systemic and need systemic solutions. Brownie is gone. Chertoff is offstage. Only Bush remains. Can he make the connection? Judging by his remarks, no. 

 

 

 

 

 

The NY Times is reporting today on a possible confirmation that the legendary Bigfoot is real. Two hunters claim they have found the hairy beast and then chose to store him in a refrigerator.  I wonder if the Big Guy frequents the Boreal Forest, where Kimberly-Clark harvests ancient virgin forest for their disposable products? If so, his home is disappearing.

SAN FRANCISCO — In the hairy and hoax-filled history of Bigfoot, those who believe in the mythical beast have offered up all manner of evidence, from grainy photos to hoarse recordings to tracks of those aforementioned feet.

But on Friday at a hotel in Palo Alto, Calif., a pair of Bigfoot hunters say they will present what they contend is the most definitive proof yet of an animal that science says does not exist: DNA evidence and photographs of a dead specimen they say they found in a remote swath of woods in northern Georgia. More here.

Update: Surprise! It's a hoax. Reuters is reporting that genetic testing shows the Bigfoot was really a human and an opossum. 

New update: Bigfoot Body Revealed To Be A Rubber Gorilla Suit.

Richard Brooks of Greenpeace Canada makes the list for the 50 Most Influential People in Pulp and Paper Today, according to RISI. Here's what they had to say about Richard:

14. Richard Brooks, Greenpeace

A group of citizens came together in 1971 to create Greenpeace. Their mission was to protest US nuclear testing off the coast of Alaska. These activists made history by bringing worldwide attention to the dangers of nuclear testing. The focus of the organization has now turned to other environmental issues, including targeting Kimberly Clark for their unwillingness to create a fiber policy that increases the use of recycled fiber. Richard Brooks is the coordinator of Greenpeace’s forest campaign in Canada, which aims to preserve intact forest areas, implement sustainable forestry and transform the forest products industry. He and his team have leveraged Greenpeace’s unique brand of markets mobilization and direct action campaigning to pressure some of the largest forest product companies in the world. Richard has brought international attention to the globally important Boreal Forest and the role that the pulp and paper sector plays in deciding its future.

Congrats, Richard.

--DJK

 

 

 

 

 

 

Think the Bush Adminstration is connected to Big Oil? This is real, by the way.

 

 

In certain regions of the Gulf of Mexico, there is not enough oxygen in the water to support marine life. Fish either suffocate or relocate to other areas. And, it’s not a tiny little area—it’s a big area we’re talking about. It is around 8,000 square miles, that’s about the size of New Jersey. But, what happened to the oxygen? Where’d it all go? Scientists point north, hundreds of miles up the Mississippi River to corn country.

Up in corn country, farmers use a boatload of chemicals to make their cornfields more productive. Two chemicals that are of particular concern are nitrogen and phosphorous. They are used in many fertilizers. But, when the rain shows up to nourish these crops, the water causes the fertilizers to runoff the farmland and into the mighty Mississippi River.

And, with this summer’s historic flooding in the Midwest, even more runoff from farms has been going into the mighty Mississippi. And, all of this creates a mighty mess once it gets to the Gulf of Mexico.

Just imagine how much fertilizer makes its way to the Gulf of Mexico? The Mississippi River collects all these chemicals throughout its entire length and all of it ends up in one place—the Gulf of Mexico.

Like I mentioned above, the fertilizers are used to help crops grow—well, the same is true for making algae grow in the Gulf of Mexico. These fertilizers land in the Gulf and the algae just love it. They go crazy for it and there are algae blooms and the algae grows like wild!

When all the algae die and fall to the bottom of the seafloor, this is where the story takes a turn for the worst. The algae dies and decomposes—but, since decomposition requires oxygen to make it “work” these huge masses of dying algae consume oxygen, and lots of it.

So much oxygen is taken from the sea that sealife suffocates and dies. The poor slow-moving creatures like clams, small crabs and snails have little chance to escape the oxygen-depleted waters.

Fishermen and environmentalists are actually on the same page and working together to fight this problem. Fishermen see their livelihood vanishing just like the fish in the Gulf and environmentalists want to restore the balance of the sea.

And, the Gulf of Mexico isn’t the only place where dead zones are occurring—these dead zones are scattered all across the globe.

--Michelle

 

 

Barack Obama’s campaign has announced that the Democratic nominee will unveil his Veep pick this week. No one outside Obama’s inner circle knows for sure who the pick will be, but all signs point to a small number of possible picks. Virginia Governor Tim Kaine has been mentioned, as has Indiana Senator Evan Bayh. But do their pro-coal stances undercut Obama’s commitments on climate change?

Kaine supported a new coal-burning power plant in Wise County, Virginia, and hasn’t backed away from his support. Bayh, Indiana’s junior senator, has stiff resistance from antiwar advocates after his 2003 vote authorizing the Iraq war, enough opposition that a Facebook group was started to reverse draft him from Obama's short list.  How’s Bayh on coal? Not much better than Kaine. Here’s a 2006 quote from the senator applauding the IRS’s decision to award a tax credit to Duke Energy for a new Indiana coal plant.

"The most effective way to ensure that Hoosiers will continue to have access to clean, affordable energy is to invest in new technologies that use our own resources like coal, which is abundant in Indiana," Senator Bayh said. "This tax credit will add gasified coal power to other sources of homegrown energy, like biodiesel and ethanol, that provide good jobs for Hoosier workers while protecting America's air and water."  

I’m confident that there are other possibilities for Veep that haven’t been touted in public yet. Kaine and Bayh, however, are sure to raise the hackles of those who want firm commitments from Obama on coal and climate. Selecting either would make it difficult for Vice President Al Gore to campaign for Obama as well. After all, Gore famously called for a moratorium on the production of new coal plants. Stay tuned.

--DJK 

The House GOP, who as a group rarely ever shy away from verbal pomposity and disturbing flashes of fact aversion, have been shouting to anyone willing to listen this week about House Speaker Pelosi's resistance to legitimize their farcical calls for a vote on OCS--outer continental shelf drilling. Thanks to Think Progress, here's a good list of their strange comparisions of Pelosi to a dictator:

– Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI): "This is the people's House. This is not Pelosi's politiburo."

– Rep. John Boehner (R-OH): "She's gonna bring us back and not deal with it? The American people are gonna hang her."

– Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC): "When the people of France were starving, they went to the queen and said, 'The people have no bread.' The queen's answer was, 'Let them eat cake.' That is not the kind of answer we expect from the leader of the people's house in the United States of America."

– Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ): "There's going to be a change in this policy, Nancy Pelosi notwithstanding. She can't repress us forever."

– Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO): "I can't answer why she's acting like a dictator."

– Rep. Denny Rehlberg (R-MT): "Nancy Pelosi should not hold the American people hostage."

– Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX): "In your mind, do you believe America is a democracy or a dictatorship?"

Got it? Since Pelosi won't yield to the House GOP's calls for a gimmick vote on drilling, she's an American-style represser, dictator, or out-of-touch aristocrat. I wonder what that makes the  Department of Energy, who says that driling won't have a substantial impact on record gas prices? You can email all of these folks making these grandiose (and flat out wrong) statements about Pelosi at www.projecthotset.org. Tell them they should spend less time trying to paint the Speaker as a facist and more time switching our economy to one that runs on clean and green technologies instead of dirty fuels.   

It's been said that Hollywood and the World Wide Web have long been the domain of progressives, but there's increasing chatter that the Right needs to find their own voice in these mediums. And maybe now they have. No doubt buoyed by The Dark Knight's recent box office success, the Drill Here, Drill Now crowd seems sufficiently encouraged enough to try out a new star--Newt Gingrich. Newt, last seen in Al Gore's We Campaign commercials relaxing with Hillary Clinton on a couch and calling for action on climate, has a new video up on his America Solutions site encouraging those swell Gen Xers to send in their own videos about destroying the planet, er, I mean, drilling to reduce pain at the pump. Watch the video here. The best submission, selected by Newt himself, wins free gas for a year. Hurrah!

If you're not properly inspired by Newt's first foray into the 21st century, you can take real action to solve our energy problems here.

Some really great news out of Indonesia:

AMSTERDAM – The Indonesian province of Riau has pledged to halt the destruction of its forests and peatlands; a move that will prevent billions of tonnes of carbon from entering the atmosphere.

At a ceremony in the provincial capital Pekanbaru, Riau Governor Wan Abu Bakar announced the temporary ban, which will remain in place until a law is agreed. The move follows Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s pledge at the G-8 Summit in July to reduce carbon emissions from deforestation by 50 percent by 2009.

Indonesia is the world’s 3rd largest global warming polluter, mostly due to deforestation. In many cases, the forests of Indonesia are being cut down illegally to make way for palm plantations. Forest fires in Indonesia have been called the single largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world.

Aside from the direct impact a ban on deforestation in Indonesia will have on the amount of pollution being dumped into our atmosphere, it’s just nice to see that some of the world’s leaders actually made meaningful commitments to combatting global warming at the G8 summit. Other commitments made at that summit were not close to being ambitious enough to really tackle the enormity of the climate crisis we’re facing. It’s just nice to see some progress.

When I hear a piece of news, I usually take it with a grain of salt. So, earlier in the week when I read an article about humpback whale populations making an incredible recovery, let’s just say I was very skeptical. The reason I was skeptical, is because time and time again we hear that animals are taken off the endangered species list—only to help developers build in a certain area or air quality standards get relaxed, not because of “so-called” improved air, but because industry wants to loosen emission regulations.

Recently, the IUCN (World Conservation Union) reported that humpback whales have downgraded from Vulnerable to Least Concern, meaning it is at low risk of extinction.

I am really happy that humpback whales are doing much better! And, the credit goes to conservation efforts and the fact that humpbacks have been protected from commercial hunting.

But, my worry is now that the humpback whale has been “down-graded” some of their protections will be lifted. They will receive less habitat protection and many will feel that they are now in the running for commercial hunting once again. Why waste all the good work protecting them, just to go back in and decimate their populations again?

It’s also interesting to note that while some species have started to recover, no whale population has reached the level it had before industrial whaling began. Whales species are either recovering very slowly, or not recovering at all. Clearly, commercial whaling is neither sustainable nor necessary in the 21st century.

I hope the news of the humpback recovery is just the beginning! If resources continue to be put towards recover efforts and commercial whalers can keep their “hands-off”—then, it truly will be a good day for the humpbacks.

--Michelle

This post was originally published April 26, 2008:

As American nuclear corporations move toward constructing new reactors in the U.S., it’s important that we remember the downside of the nuclear industry on this 22nd Anniversary of the Chernobyl Disaster.

The fact is that none of these corporations would ever construct another reactor if they were held liable for the consequences of the catastrophic accident that could occur. Less than a month after the disaster, NRC Commissioner James K. Asselstine testified to Congress that,

While we hope that their occurrence is unlikely, there are accident sequences for U.S. plants that can lead to rupture or bypassing of containment in U.S. reactors which would result in the off-site release of fission products comparable or worse than the releases estimated by the NRC staff to have taken place during the Chernobyl accident.

That is why the Commission told Congress recently that it could not rule out a commercial nuclear power plant accident in the United States resulting in tens of billions of dollars of property losses and injuries to the public.

The nuclear industry and their propagandists would like the public to forget or ignore this nuclear disaster.  But those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.  

Unfortunately, former Greenpeace activist Patrick Moore is now one of these pro-nuclear propagandists downplaying the consequences of this disaster. In the wake of the Chernobyl disaster,  and prior to pulling a paycheck from the Nuclear Energy Institute and forming CASEnergy, he issued a document entitled:

 “SOME FACTS ABOUT THE CHERNOBYL NUCLEAR DISASTER”
by Patrick Moore, Ph. D.
Greenpeace Foundation of Canada

 

 

Mr. Moore went on to conclude that:

 

The facts concerning the Chernobyl disaster haven’t changed and neither has the nuclear industry. Nuclear power is a dangerous technology that would never be built if corporations bore the true cost and liability for the potential consequences. However, it seems Mr. Moore has either forgotten the facts about Chernobyl or has been paid to ignore them. Neither of which is acceptable.  

For more information on the Chernobyl Accident and reactor risks:

American Chernobyl: Nuclear “Near Misses” at U.S. Reactors Since 1986.
Greenpeace 2007.

Risky Business: The Probability and Consequences of a Nuclear Accident
Greenpeace

CHERNOBYL: Some Lessons  and Implications for Lower Quality Electric Utilities,  Donaldson. Lutkin & Jenrette Securities Corporation, 1986


For additional information on Mr. Moore & his current activities see:

Spinning the Atom in Mother Jones Magazine


 

Greenpeace and  Kimberly-Clark have announced the successful resolution of the Kleercut campaign as the maker of Kleenex has established a new sustainability policy focused on protecting Endangered Forests. Go to www.greenpeace.org/kleercut to find out more!

Yesterday at the Kimberly-Clark (K-C) facility in Roswell, GA, several Greenpeace activists met the employee lunch crowd with a message of sustainability. The grounds of this facility, the largest of K-C’s office complexes, are picturesque, pristinely manicured, complete with a centrally located pond and jogging track. It was gorgeously landscaped (in fact, we even saw the care-crew) with flowers, shrubs, and, yes, trees. Lots of trees. Big, beautiful, arching canopies cast leafy shade upon the campus nestled in the northern Atlanta suburbs. Yes, it is ironic that the world’s largest producer of Kleenex tissues, with a known history of unsustainable logging practices, has a campus so populated with trees.

And it also seems ironic that time and time again, Greenpeace has to reiterate to K-C the importance of using wood that has been sustainability logged and incorporating recycled fiber into their products. Obviously, they see and appreciate the beauty of nature. They understand that their employees value a work environment connected to the natural world. Yet they are not willing to put this practice into their tissue making.  

So, using the landscape to our advantage, a crew of Greenpeace activists deployed a boat into the pond at this Georgia facility. The teamwork was seamless; the boat was floating in the pond in mere minutes. Three activists, Nate Stellhorn (Austin Frontline), Suzahn Ebrahimian (DC Frontline), and Sheila Hanley (Austin, former GOT, former Frontline) paddled to the center of the pond and deployed three banners while reading aloud, through a bull-horn, the case study Greenpeace put out of K-C's mismanagement of the Kenogami Forest. Called Cut & Run, the case study exposes Kimberly-Clark’s 70-year history of sourcing fiber from the Kenogami Forest in Ontario, Canada, and tells the story of horrific forest degradation, social injustice towards indigenous tribes, and field reports of decreasing wolverine, caribou, and eagle populations — all the result of K-C producing their disposable products.

While the boat was deployed, several members of the team distributed fliers onto the cars of K-C execs. The fliers stated that producing tissues out of a limited resource is no longer acceptable or sustainable when products can be made containing recycled content. The fliers also invited K-C employees to ask their employer to be an environmental leader.

As the security was quite tight, six activists were brought to the Roswell Detention Center, but not before the message was delivered loud and clear, thanks to the bullhorns, that K-C needs to change its ways. The activists were tired and hungry by the time they were released from jail, but nonetheless happy and healthy.

We know deep down, somewhere, Kimberly-Clark cares about the environment. We saw it.

We are not deterred.


Until the ancient forests are protected,
Andrea

In an exciting victory for children in the United States, President Bush signed into law national product-safety legislation that will ban certain chemicals from being used when producing toys. The new law ensures that toys and child-care products are free of brain-damaging materials like lead, and several types of phthalates, a chemical used to soften plastic that has been linked to hormonal problems in children.

Last month, this legislation passed in Congress. I am impressed that Congress was able to do the right thing and protect our children, even in the face of some very heavy lobbying against these new safety regulations by ExxonMobil who manufactures phthalates.

If you are a parent concerned about toxics in your children’s toys – there is a website you can check out for product safety guides --  www.HealthyToys.org

--Michelle

 

In an epic bid to test the veracity of the old adage that repeating a lie often enough makes it true, several of our politicians, ostensibly our “leaders,” are still calling for drilling the OCS as a means to alleviate high gas prices and lead America toward energy independence.

We should be extra careful not to help validate their claims by saying things like, “It won’t lower gas prices for 10 years.” By accepting the idea that gas prices will be lowered at all, you just help perpetuate the myth that we should start drilling as soon as possible. Drilling will not lower gas prices because, as the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell recently said, “easy-to-produce oil and gas [will] likely peak in the next 10 years.” Drilling costs will skyrocket as we tap these harder-to-reach oilfields, offsetting any possible benefit of increased oil production, meaning that drilling the OCS will have a thoroughly negligible impact on gas prices no matter when we start drilling.

But all of the claims made by the Drill Now chorus have been thoroughly debunked, of course. Here’s a factsheet on the topic that compiles research done by independent parties, or in some cases done by federal agencies. (Ah, the irony: Bush is one of the loudest voices calling for drilling the OCS, and it is his federal agencies that have debunked many of his claims.)

For instance, we have 3% of the world’s oil reserves, but consume 24% of the world’s oil (Energy Information Administration, "U.S. Crude Oil, Natural Gas and Natural Gas Liquid Resources, 1999 Annual Report," DOE/EIA-0216 (99) (December 2000)). Clearly, the path to energy independence does not lead down an oil well.

The only real way out of this mess we’re in is to invest in renewable energy sources like wind and solar. Instead of making bogus claims about drilling the OCS, our federal legislators should be passing tax credits and other incentives for investment in renewable energy. Unfortunately, as Thomas Friedman recently pointed out in a scathing op-ed, the Senate has failed on eight separate occasions to renew tax credits for solar and wind investment that are set to expire in December. This has scared off many potential investors, in America and abroad.

Our “leaders” want us to open more land to drilling by oil companies that are already making a killing, but they can’t muster the political will to give tax credits to the folks who are working to implement real solutions. It’s ridiculous.

If you’re as pissed as me about this, tell Congress not to give in to the call to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling. They should be concentrating on real solutions.

One of the most used comments bantered in the halls of the hotels where the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) holds their meetings where many of the decisions are already decided with the big, wild, commercial fishing industry with the public is “best available science.” The NPFMC usually holds their meetings at the Hilton hotel in Anchorage four times a year. And, although no one says it, the process is a “good ol boys” conference. My brother is fond of telling me; the industry writes the regulations. But, even though the cards are stacked up against me and others who have concerns and try to offer alternatives toward habitat protections, I attend. Its part of my responsibility. I often feel like my attendance is futile and a waste of time. Anyway, “best available science.”

The use of that term as an acceptable tool to manage our fisheries seems to me is like saying: “best available truth.” Remember the most famous question ever asked in all of humanity? “What is truth?” And so I wonder, what is “best available science. What does that mean and how does that help our people in the villages?”

Well, NPFMC, Mr. Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez of the U.S. Department of Commerce, we have a problem. What does your “best available science” or “best available truth” tell you about our out of control salmon by catch problems in Western Alaska? The problem is this. Really huge, large, big industrialized fishing machines, called boats, use huge, large, big nets and go out into the waters of southern Bering Sea, just north of the Alaska Peninsula to fish for 3.2 billion pounds of pollock, the total allowable catch from both the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea. And as they vacuum up these fish, a very important food source of the foods we depend upon for our survival, they “accidentally catch”  hundreds of thousands, and millions of salmon during the past 30 years, in their pursuit of happiness. This is by catch. In 2004, they caught, as far as we know, 63,000 king salmon. In 2005, 75,000 kings. Chum salmon took a huge hit. In 2004, 447,000 chums, and in 2005, 700,000 chums. That’s according to their best available truth. If I remember correctly, in 2007, they said they caught 117,000 king salmon while in pursuit of happiness, their happiness. Never mind our people’s food security in our villages that depend on these fish for survival. The song and dance is getting old. Outside multinational fishing companies, meeting with the federal government in a hotel somewhere destroying our home. Destroying our dreams. Destroying our children. And saying, well, sorry. It’s legal. It may be, but it is immoral.

A really good friend of mine once told me: “our commercial fishing season for king salmon on the Kuskokwim River lasted for 60 minutes, all year!” And he has a family, Children. And he cannot do anything, anything about it, because like you and me, he is poor. He cannot afford to attend one of them meetings in a hotel somewhere to testify for three minutes about his concerns, nor, like you and me, he cannot afford a lawyer or a lobbyist. And so, he hears “best available science” spoken from reputable scientists and NPFMC members. And to further add salt to the wound, the Council will say, we are only an advisory council. Mr. Gutierrez makes the final decision. Know what? Uncle Ted in his wisdom thru the Magnuson Stevens Act set it up like this.

Well, the NPFMC says they have a solution to deal with this salmon by catch, stolen fish problem. Here it is, in brief. Lets not force our good buddies who go out to the Bering Sea to fish for a share of the 3.2 billion pounds of pollock they catch every year to suffer to much. After all, they are our buds. Lets let them continue stealing food from the people on the Kuskokwim River, but, really, not too much. Lets put a cap on how much they can take out of the mouths of our children. Now, really. And further, lets let one of the biggest fishing companies who participate in this immoral practice, Trident Seafoods, give that fish to Bean’s Café to feed the hungry. Peter stealing from Paul to feed people? And now, others are caught up in their circle of destruction, being used to make themselves feel better about what they are doing and getting a huge tax write off to boot. See how this “best available science” and “best available truth” works? And so the question: “what is truth?”

The only real solution to this problem is stop it. Stop the insane practice of by catch. Stop raiding our people’s food. Stop. And use your “best available science” to figure out how not to do it any more. After all, you use that statement to justify what you do. And, in many cases, you give the scientists who use that statement, grants to provide research to justify that behavior. We the people in Western Alaska have had enough of supporting your pursuit of happiness. We need to pursue ours and that of our children. Please, level the playing field. Your quarterbacks are just too “best available.” You can afford it. We cannot even afford to feed our children.


George Pletnikoff is Unangan from the Pribilof Islands. He now works for Greenpeace as the Alaska Oceans Campaigner in Anchorage. He can be reached at george.pletnikoff@greenpeace.org

Biomimicry is the art of using the natural world as a basis for man-made designs. Wikpedia puts it better: “Biomimicry (from bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate) is a relatively new science that studies nature, its models, systems, processes and elements and then imitates or takes creative inspiration from them to solve human problems sustainably.”

Real world examples include emulating the passive cooling of termite mounds in office buildings, applying the water repellant properties of lotus plants in fabric finishes, and adapting the echolocation abilities of bats for use in walking canes for the blind.

To me this is just a very cool idea: observing how nature has solved various problems, like overheating in Saharan termite mounds, then applying those lessons to human endeavors. The Earth is the ultimate sustainable resource, so it would seem obvious that we should learn everything we can about engineering and design from the natural world if we’re going to learn how to live as a part of the planet rather than living off of the planet – by which I mean, if we’re going to learn to live sustainably rather than continuing to live by raping and pillaging the Earth for all its resources.

Turns out some researchers at MIT have used biomimicry to make a potentially huge breakthrough in developing next-gen solar energy systems:

Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With today's announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy.

Requiring nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials, this discovery could unlock the most potent, carbon-free energy source of all: the sun. "This is the nirvana of what we've been talking about for years," said MIT's Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and senior author of a paper describing the work in the July 31 issue of Science. "Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon."

Inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants, Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera's lab, have developed an unprecedented process that will allow the sun's energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night.

This is obviously a long way from being commercially available, but it’s nice to know this is on the horizon. This could be one of the breakthroughs that totally reshapes our energy industries: “Nocera hopes that within 10 years, homeowners will be able to power their homes in daylight through photovoltaic cells, while using excess solar energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen to power their own household fuel cell. Electricity-by-wire from a central source could be a thing of the past.”

That last line, of course, points out the biggest barrier to implementation of solar energy – it’s not the pace of technological development holding us back, but the companies who are making a killing off of supplying us all with power. You see, they are a centralized power source, a monopoly, an entity from whom you have to purchase your power. If everyone is able to make power at their home, we’ll have a decentralized energy grid where everyone is an independent energy producer. This is the way of the future, make no mistake – but that doesn’t mean plenty of industry players and their paid hacks won’t be vociferously protesting the deployment of these technologies.

Growing up, I always loved listening to Bryan Adams. I think I may have even had a couple posters of him hanging up on my bedroom walls. So, when I found a YouTube video of him being interviewed by the BBC and wearing a Release Junichi and Toru t-shirt I just had to share it with everyone.

Junichi and Toru are Greenpeace anti-whaling activists who were being held for 23 days without charge for uncovering a whale meat smuggling scandal in Japan. Currently, the activsts are out on bail and awaiting trial. You can read more about their story on the Greenpeace website.

I'll post the video up here, but after watching the video for 8 minutes, the talk show hosts don't even ask him about the t-shirt. How upsetting. But, hopefully people will want to learn more and will be able to google it and find the Greenpeace information.

 

I recently wrote a post about an action we carried out that targeted a Kimberly-Clark (KC) Kleenex manufacturing facility. A few people wrote in the comments that they would like to know more about the company’s practices and why we’re targeting them. Tons of relevant information can be found in our report, Cut & Run, which we had on-hand at the action to pass out to KC employees and anyone else who wanted to know why we were there. The report documents KC’s complicity in the destruction of the Kenogami Forest, a Boreal forest in northern Ontario, Canada that was once directly managed by KC and still serves as a primary source of tree pulp for the company today.

Clearcuts currently stretch across nearly 27,000 acres of the Kenogami Forest thanks to KC’s logging practices. Worse, the company’s plans for the next few years include the logging of forests that are as much as two centuries old – to make products that are generally used once and then thrown away.

The commenters were specifically wondering about the company’s recycling practices. I pulled some salient info out of the report:

Amount of virgin tree pulp used annually: 3.1 million metric tonnes (3.4 million tons)

Percent of total fibre used in Kimberly-Clark products sold in North America that comes from recycled sources: 18

Percent of total fibre used in Kimberly-Clark consumer brands sold in North America that comes from recycled sources: Less than 1

You read right: less than 1% of all the Kleenex, Scott, and Cottonelle people buy from the store every day is made from recycled content. That’s inconscionable, especially considering that the company isn’t sourcing its virgin fiber responsibly, to boot. Obviously, if the company had a high standard for using recycled content in its products, they wouldn’t have to cut down so much old-growth Boreal forest. But even when it’s necessary for them to use virgin pulp, they could be sourcing it much more susatinably. As the report states:

If the company increased its use of recycled fibre across its entire range of products, it could dramatically reduce its reliance on virgin tree pulp. And if it adopted a more rigorous and credible policy, one that prohibited the use of fibre from Endangered Forests (including intact forests and threatened species habitat) and made a meaningful commitment to wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, Kimberly-Clark could ensure that virgin fibre it did use in its products came from well-managed forests.

Inexplicably, the company has resisted implementing these simple and seemingly commonsense standards. Plus, I haven't even mentioned the social justice issues this raises: the First Nations peoples who have lived in and off of the Kenogami Forest for generation after generation who weren't consulted whatsoever about KC's plans to destroy their homeland, for instance. Needless to say, KC can do better, and we aren’t letting them off the hook until they do.

Representative John Barrow, a Democrat representing Georgia's 12th Congressional district, has created a 2-question survey on his web page to find out how people think we should be dealing with high gas prices.

Click here to tell Rep. Barrow the obvious: Renewable energy is the future!

Update: Greenpeace and  Kimberly-Clark have announced the successful resolution of the Kleercut campaign as the maker of Kleenex has established a new sustainability policy focused on protecting Endangered Forests. Go to www.greenpeace.org/kleercut to find out more!

In our latest effort to call attention to Kimberly-Clark’s unsustainable business practices, several Greenpeace activists locked down the Kleenex facility at Fullerton, CA yesterday (check out the slideshow). I was lucky enough to ride along.

It was quite a thrill to watch as the activists leapt from their vans and proceeded to lock down the main entrance of the facility by chaining themselves to toilets with fake trees in them. Around the corner, on a busy boulevard bordering the facility, another group of activists were unfurling a 40 foot banner that read “Stop flushing forests.”

Local Fullertonians (Fullertonites?) were receptive to the message, too. People honked wildly as they passed the banner and the activists in “Forest Crimes Unit” t-shirts – there were so many honks, in fact, that surely the big-wigs in the administrative office could hear them. Nearly all of the teamsters who passed by tooted their horns. Even one of the policemen on the scene gave our activists a thumbs-up.

It was just a quiet Thursday morning for most of the people commuting to work, but as they drove by and saw our activists their heads turned, their eyes lit up, curiosity got the better of them. And that was the point. The people who live and work there drive by the KC facility every day, but many are (or were) probably unaware of the degradation KC’s products have wrought on Canada’s ancient forests. Our ancient forests. But they know now.

Most people, when they learn of what goes into KC’s disposable paper products, are immediately ready to swear off of Kleenex, Scott, and Cottonelle altogether. We brought thousands of petitions and postcards from people pledging to do just that until KC starts using as much recycled content in their products as they can, and agrees to only source what virgin fiber it still needs from sustainably managed forests instead of vitally important ancient growth Boreal forests. Think they read them? Think they paid any mind to the honking outside their office?

We’ll see. In the meantime, we’ll keep the pressure on. And we won’t be buying any Kleenex.

Yesterday, Ahold (aka Giant, Stop&Shop and Martin's Food Markets) announced they are going to stop selling orange roughy, Chilean sea bass and shark.  These 3 fish rank among the most imperiled on the Greenpeace seafood red list.

It was kind of wild to hear that people are still eating shark and it’s being sold in stores, but I’m excited that Giant Foods has committed themselves to removing these fish from their seafood counters. It’s a great step in the right direction for protecting the oceans.

In a ranking report released last month, Greenpeace called on the top U.S. supermarkets to improve their seafood purchasing policies and move towards sustainable seafood practices. It looks like Ahold got the message and is willing to improve their store practices to help the oceans.

You can encourage the other top U.S. supermarkets to get in the game by taking action today and writing them a letter!

-- Michelle

Last week I called out Apple on the lack of any environmental information on the new iPhone 3G. Pre-launch publicity and specs for the new MacBook Air and iMac included information on how Apple was making progress on eliminating the worst toxic chemicals by the end of 2008. There was none of this for the iPhone, but last night I noticed a late addition to the iPhone tech specs:

iPhone 3G embodies Apple's continuing environmental progress. It is designed with the following features to reduce environmental impact:

- PVC-free handset
- PVC-free headphones
- PVC-free USB cable
- Bromine-free printed circuit boards
- Mercury-free LCD display
- Majority of packaging made from post-consumer recycled fiberboard and biobased materials
- Power adapter outperforms strictest global energy efficiency standards

The UK TV watchdog, Ofcom, is the watchdog for the UK broadcasting industry, keeping an eye on how broadcasters carry out their duty to the public to be both fair and accurate and not cause harm.

Ofcom ruled today on a complaint against the polemic documentary about global warming, The Great Global Warming Swindle.    

It upheld complaints by the former UK Chief Scientist, Sir David King, the IPCC and oceanographer Carl Wunsch, stating that the filmmakers had treated them unfairly, misquoted them or misled them into being interviewed.  However, it managed to cleverly dodge the complaint about accuracy or misleading the public, to the fury of some scientists. 

The film itself has been sold around the world, and the DVD viewed by thousands online. 

What those viewers still haven't been told is that at least 10 of the 16 interviewees are  central to the denial industry - directly associated with - or even paid by - think tanks funded by ExxonMobil. 

And yes, we have a map showing you just how that all works.  Total funding to these groups since 1998?  $11,335,600

But of course even Exxon is apparently walking away from them - if you believe the latest statements from the company.  

The issue isn't over yet - the complainants are now considering appealing the decision.  But meanwhile the UK public has been swayed by the film - a staggering 60% are now sceptic about climate science - a shift that has been squarely blamed on the Swindle by the UK's leading polling company, Ipsos MORI, as George Monbiot mentioned in his column. 

The best interview I've seen of the problems with the programme was by ABC Australia's Tony Jones, which is well worth a watch.

Part I

Part II 

 

Now that's more like it:

WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Al Gore said on Thursday that Americans must abandon electricity generated by fossil fuels within a decade and rely on the sun, the winds and other environmentally friendly sources of power, or risk losing their national security as well as their creature comforts.

“The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk,” Mr. Gore said in a speech to an energy conference here. “The future of human civilization is at stake.”

Mr. Gore called for the kind of concerted national effort that enabled Americans to walk on the moon 39 years ago this month, just eight years after President John F. Kennedy famously embraced that goal. He said the goal of producing all of the nation’s electricity from “renewable energy and truly clean, carbon-free sources” within 10 years is not some farfetched vision, although he said it would require fundamental changes in political thinking and personal expectations.

“This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative,” Mr. Gore said in his remarks at the conference. “It represents a challenge to all Americans, in every walk of life — to our political leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, engineers, and to every citizen.”

This Alternet article delivers the goods:
As Facts Emerge, the False Promise of Offshore Drilling Becomes Clear

From a Bush Admin spokesperson admitting offshore drilling won’t make a short-term impact on energy prices to an informed citizen challenging McCain’s shortsighted new policy proposal at a campaign stop, it’s all there.

The article also exposes the inadequacies of the last refuge of offshore drilling proponents. As the facts of this terrible proposal become common knowledge, Bush, McCain, and Gingrich have been ducking for cover behind a recent Rasmussen poll that found that “two-thirds of Americans want to see the offshore ban rescinded.” Problem is that the poll is completely bogus:

But the Rasmussen poll asked (emphasis added) "In order to reduce the price of gas, should drilling be allowed in offshore oil wells off the coasts of California, Florida, and other states?"

After being misinformed that drilling would lower the price of gas, it's not surprising that voters would express support.

But what do you think the results would be if an accurate question was offered, such as: should drilling be allowed off the coasts of California, Florida and other states, even though it would NOT lower the price of gas in the next several years?

The mistake that politicians in support of the gas tax holiday made was taking comfort in polls that did not factor in what would happen after all the facts were laid out.

The facts on coastal drilling are coming out. Poll-driven politicians, beware.

President Bush gave a highly-partisan speech today in which he announced that he was lifting the presidential moratorium on drilling the outer continental shelf for oil. There are a whole slew of reasons why this is a terrible idea that would not work whatsoever. Maybe that's why the speech is more about taking pot-shots at the Democratic Congress than any real, substantive explanation of why he thinks this is the right solution to high gas prices. Put simply, it's not a solution to rising energy costs, period. It's a way for Bush to throw his pals in the oil industry one last giant bone before he leaves office -- or I guess I should say another bone, in addition to his decision not to deal with global warming.

The Natural Resources Defense Council put together a video on Omnisio that details all of the distortions and mistruths contained in Bush's speech. Check it out: The Truth about drilling, gas prices and OCS.

Please oh PLEASE let the Democratic Congress have the guts and the savvy to effectively neutralize this ridiculously partisan election year stunt. Bush has been screwing up this great country of ours for almost 8 years, we can't let him continue to lie to and manipulate the public so that his chosen successor can extend his policies. Bush's disastrous tenure must end at precisely 12:00 noon, January 20th, 2009.

Covering nearly 70% of the surface of the planet, the oceans are not escaping the impacts of global warming. Bleaching is threatening our spectacular tropical coral reefs, and melting sea ice is reducing critical habitat for seals, polar bears, and other marine mammals. And everywhere in between, rising temperatures are starting to change currents, migration patterns and even species composition. The fish that used to live in a particular area are often no longer there. On top of that, acidification, global warming’s evil twin, is turning the oceans into a corrosive bath that is rapidly becoming inhospitable to clams, corals, and everything else that forms a calcareous skeleton.

So when Randy Olson asked me to review his new movie, a “global warming comedy,” I have to admit I was curious to see where he was going to find the humor in all this. As it happens, Sizzle is a very funny film, sometimes even spit-out-your-drink funny.

Similar to Randy’s last film, Flock of Dodos, which focused on Intelligent Design, Sizzle tries to grapple with questions about the causes of global warming, the seriousness of the problem, and the degree to which humans can do anything about it. For Randy, the hordes of scientists involved in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and most people who read the news, these are not controversial topics. The science is clear: global warming is happening, humans are a major cause, and we can and must do something to reduce greenhouse gas emissions immediately.

Of course, some people don’t see it that way, and Randy takes his low budget camera crew out to get their stories. Other than the guy who works for Okie Senator James Inhofe, who looked like an attack dog in search of someone to bite, the climate skeptics come across as surprisingly nice guys (if occasionally hapless). Most of these interviews are followed with a scene with Randy muttering “that’s not true” or “he’s got it all wrong,” and there are some strong segments from scientists like Naomi Oreskes, but in general there’s not much of an effort to debunk the skeptics. The sense you get is that there’s really no need – everyone knows the truth already. But if that’s true, why bother with the skeptics at all?

So I was left wishing for a little more exploration of the forces behind the skeptics. Greenpeace has researched this in depth, showing how leading climate skeptics tend to be funded by ExxonMobil. If something smells funny, follow the money.

Dr. Oreskes saves the day by convincing the crew to abandon plans to film yet another scientist and to go to New Orleans instead. In the most emotionally compelling part of the film, Randy and his crew see firsthand the impacts of the kind of disasters global warming will cause. The film points out that the biggest victims will be poor people, whether in Africa or in the richest nation on earth.

If there’s a take home message, other than the fact that it IS possible to find humor in even the most dire topics, it may be a reminder that it’s probably not going to be the newest data, powerpoint slides, or speeches from scientists that convince people to take action. The stories are there, but we may need more story tellers like Randy if we’re going to wake people up in time.

John H

A day after President Bush flippantly excused himself from a G8 summit that failed miserably to establish new policies for addressing global warming by saying "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter," this should surprise no one:

EPA Won't Act on Emissions This Year
Instead of New Rules, More Comment Sought

The Bush administration has decided not to take any new steps to regulate greenhouse gas emissions before the president leaves office, despite pressure from the Supreme Court and broad accord among senior federal officials that new regulation is appropriate now.

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to announce today that it will seek months of further public comment on the threat posed by global warming to human health and welfare -- a matter that federal climate experts and international scientists have repeatedly said should be urgently addressed.

The entire article by the Washington Post is well worth the read, as it details the games the administration has been playing in order to avoid dealing with the looming global climate crisis. A Supreme Court ruling last year ordered the EPA to determine whether or not global warming is a threat to human health and welfare, but the inevitable results -- there is really only one concolusion they can reach, after all -- would have required the EPA to set federal standards to remedy the problem. Rather than provide real leadership on this dire issue, the administration has shamefully pulled every trick they could think of to delay and stall, including censoring their own scientists, suppressing official reports they themselves commissioned, and deliberately fudging data provided to them by their own experts.

Nontheless, I think there are two positives we can take away from this: 1) Even the Bush Administration can't outright deny global warming any more (as much as they'd probably like to), and the call for solutions has grown so loud that they can't ignore it, either; and 2) We're so close to the end of the disastrous Bush Administration that they can choose to run out the clock rather than deal with global warming.

On Friday, Apple unleashes its latest in wireless communications—the new iPhone 3G. I have seen pictures of people already lining up outside of electronic stores around the world waiting anxiously to be one of the first owners of this new phone.

I’m the first to admit that I’m not a technology junky. I only caved and got my first cell phone last fall. So, I won’t be one of those iPhone fans camping out with tents and food supplies for the new phone (that I probably wouldn’t know how to use in the first place).

Among all the hype about this new phone—it’s half the price and about twice as fast as the original iPhone—I haven’t seen any mention of the iPhone being any greener!

The first generation iPhone contained toxic chemicals that competitors like Nokia and Sony Ericsson have already removed from their new phones. What gives?

After the successful Greenpeace campaign, GreenmyApple, Steve Jobs promised all Apple products would be free of toxic PVC plastic and Brominated Flame Retardants.

While Apple has been making progress towards this goal by using less toxic chemicals in the latest MacBook Air and iMac, I haven’t seen any improvements in the iPhone. If engineers can figure out how to get wireless internet access and a touchpad screen on a tiny phone, I’m pretty sure they can figure out how to strip it of toxic chemicals and make it safer for users and the environment.

But, maybe the new iPhone is greener, and Apple is just keeping that information under the radar. I hope that’s the case. If so, I just might support the revolution and buy one for myself. If you read or hear anything about this—let me know!

If that’s not the case, I hope Apple can become greener sooner than later. So many people buy their products and it’d be awesome if Apple could become the first electronic company to completely eliminate PVC and BFRs. That's the sort of revolution that's needed.

--Michelle 

Greenpeace’s global warming campaign, Project Hot Seat, has enjoyed great success through the last few years. We’ve been building champions on global warming in Congress, flipping key swing votes in the House of Representatives, and getting heaps of media hits around the country. We’ve done this entirely through the use of grassroots organizing and independent contributions from supporters around the country.

The success we’ve had is turning heads in Congress and also in Big Energy, which could be why corporate-funded Americans for Prosperity recently launched something called the Hot Air Tour (http://hotairtour.org/). The tour, which is going through the Midwest and Southern States, wants to share “about climate alarmism” as well as promote the industry viewpoint that legislation that aims to limit global warming pollution will damage the economy and steal freedoms from everyday Americans (the freedom from wildfire and drought, perhaps?). In short, they aim to undercut advances in public education and legislative support on global warming.

Unfortunately for the tour, they have a major lack of legitimacy, because it is funded by the dirty energy industry. Americans for Prosperity (formally called Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation) is largely funded by Koch Industries, which is the largest privately owned energy conglomeration in the United States, with annual revenues of over $25 billion. In 2000, internal documents leaked to the Washington Post showed that 85% of CSF’s funding came from other corporate gems like ExxonMobil and Phillip Morris.

Clearly, Koch Industries and ExxonMobil will stop at nothing to ensure that the government will not regulate pollution from Big Energy as our country aims to tackle global warming. In fact, they have a long history of funding global warming skeptics, check out http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/exxon-secrets
to see other contributions by Koch Industries and ExxonMobile to global warming deniers.

It all goes to show how effective our grassroots campaign to stop global warming has been. When poorly veiled events like the Hot Air Tour take place, it’s a frustrating signal that we are slowly winning the fight to stop global warming. But they also serve as a reminder that nasty energy conglomerates will do anything to debunk science, even if it means taking the moral low-road, yet again.

This is very, very cool (h/t Idealog):

On July 7, 2008, the Ecuador Constitutional Assembly – composed of one hundred and thirty (130) delegates elected countrywide to rewrite the country’s Constitution – voted to approve articles for the new constitution recognizing rights for nature and ecosystems. “If adopted in the final constitution by the people, Ecuador would become the first country in the world to codify a new system of environmental protection based on rights,” stated Thomas Linzey, Executive Director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. (Read the entire Rights of Nature Language Approved by the Ecuador Constitutional Assembly doc on CELDF’s website.)

The environmental movement in the US has always been a voice for the voiceless – the wildlife, the ecosystems, all of the inhabitants of the Earth that have a right to life every bit as much as humans do but that can’t speak up for themselves. Rarely do enviros organize around the idea that those rights should be made law. And yet look at all of the great movements in American history: abolition, women’s suffrage, civil rights – all rights-based movements. Perhaps it is time to rethink our strategies if we are to effect lasting protections for the natural world. All too often we’ve discovered that it’s not enough to get a species listed as endangered or to stop a dam project from going forward. Our opponents will simply regroup and redeploy with new tactics and new ways to spin the facts. If we codify the rights of the natural world to exist, not only do we have lasting protections for the environment but powerful new tools to stop the polluters and robber-barons who are befouling and plundering the Earth for their own gain.

Recently, our own Carroll Muffett wrote some excellent blogs about his experience attending a coal industry conference and how many of the people working in the industry feel that it is the corporation that is damaging the world, not them. This idea is fostered by the legal rights we’ve afforded to corporations as entities in and of themselves, as if they are people who should enjoy equal rights under the law. This is a misguided notion, to be sure, and the laws that established corporate personhood are “illegitimately” based on Constitutional law, according to Richard Grossman, co-founder of Programs on Corporations, Law and Democracy (read more). Given that corporations are responsible not just for a huge amount of the pollution dumped on our planet but also for obstructing most progressive, environmental causes like global warming legislation, emissions standards, etc., opposing legal corporate personhood should probably be a part of any rights-based environmental movement. We need to assert the rights of the Earth over the rights of the corporations that have been pillaging the Earth.

The world “leaders” attending the G8 summit in Japan issued a statement on global warming today committing their nations to doing pretty much nothing. They boldly declared they would half emissions by 2050 but set no binding targets, no interim targets of any kind, and didn’t even set a base year off of which the 50% reduction would be measured.

World leaders embraced for the first time on Tuesday an ambitious but nonbinding goal of slashing greenhouse-gas emissions in half by midcentury to stave off global warming. Unimpressed environmentalists called the effort too slow and too uncertain.

Leaders of some of the world's richest nations praised the agreement, which endorsed President Bush's insistence that fast-developing countries like China and India join in the effort. But one environmental critic suggested that by 2050 those leaders would be forgotten and "the world will be cooked."

Details were scant in the statement issued by the Group of Eight. Some could become clearer Wednesday when China, India and six other fast-developing nations sit down with the Group of Eight industrial nations — the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, Germany, Russia, Italy and Canada — to discuss climate change strategies.

The G-8 did not specify a base year for its proposed 50 percent cut, and the actual emissions reductions and the effect on the environment could vary hugely depending on what is eventually decided. Reductions from 2005 levels, for instance, would be far less than from 1990 levels, as in the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.

It would appear the rest of the 8 “leaders” are prepared to follow Bush into hell and high water, whining about India and China all the way and paying no mind to the moral responsibility of the developed world – which created the problem in the first place – to lead on this global issue. They could perhaps amend this statement after Wednesday’s meeting when they meet with China and India and other developing nations, but developing nations are far more worried about providing basic necessities to their people than global warming. If “the world’s richest nations” won’t commit to really addressing this crisis, why should they? It’s disappointing that the European leaders at the summit, most of whose countries have been far more aggressive about global warming than the US, caved to Bush’s obstructionist tactics. The growing global climate crisis will almost surely be looked upon as yet another massive failure by the Bush administration.

A group of Japanese lawyers watching over human rights abuse around the G8 Summit has issued a statement about the arrest and detention of Greenpeace activists. The activists were arrested after exposing a whale meat smuggling scandal in Japan.

The following is the lawyers' statement:

Lawyers' Network for Human Rights Observation around the G8 Summit (WATCH)

On April 20, 2008, Aomori Prefectural Police and Tokyo Metropolitan Police Public Security Division arrested two Greenpeace Japan activists for theft and trespassing. The activists are accused first of stealing a cardboard box that contained the meat of a whale harvested by a Japanese scientific whaling ship, and which had been stored in a delivery company in Aomori; and secondly they are accused of handing over the stolen whale meat to the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office. The police also searched Greenpeace offices as part of their investigation.

According to the arrested activists, their act was not a mere act of theft or trespassing, rather it was intended as a denouncement of the embezzlement of whale meat by the crew of a scientific whaling ship financed with tax payers' money. Furthermore, the activists had already submitted a report in which they disclosed the details of their plan. Also they had declared that they were willing to appear at the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office anytime. There was therefore no reason to suspect that they would conceal evidence or that they would flee; this removes the justifications for the detention of the two activists.

Despite this lack of legal premises for detention, the Aomori Prefectural Police and the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Public Security Division are still detaining the activists, an act which is unjust, illegal and illegitimate.

This spectacle on the eve of the G8 Summit has provoked expressions of concern in different parts of the society. Both mass media and activists are concerned that the police intend to intimidate the whole civil movement. The evening paper of Niigata Nippo as of June 20th says: "It is disturbing that there could be a link between the arrests and the G8 Summit. The police behavior can be interpreted as a warning against radical civil organisations which do not refrain from illegal acts to achieve their aims. If this assumption is true, it is very alarming (...) The implementation of law should be strict, but with no political intentions."

It is clear that the police intend to intimidate the civil movement before the G8 Summit by carrying out disproportionate control, even if it means risking international protests on the eve of the Summit. The fact that the Public Security Police lead the investigation underlines this stance.

The arrest of the two activists is not only a human rights violation with regard to the unjustifiable arrest, detention and investigation, but also a challenge against the freedom of expression. Police repression against the activists' denunciation obstructs the legitimate activities of both Japanese civil society and international society and is therefore internationally unacceptable and subject to global criticism as an affront to humanity.

The Lawyers' Network for Human Rights Monitoring around the G8 Summit is concerned that this incident will obstruct the use of freedom of speech, the protest activities and the denunciation activities concerning crimes against public interest. It thereby strongly demands that free activities and free spaces granted in the Japanese Constitution de jure be guaranteed de facto.

TAKE ACTION 

 

This morning's session of Coal USA 2008 wrapped up at 12:30, and I was asked to speak again. I delivered the statement below. They tried to cut me off, but speaking evenly and quietly, I got out almost all of it, including the questions at the end, which were the critical part.

It was one of the final statements of the day.

Here is the statement text:

Thank you for the opportunity to take the floor again. The last two days have been extremely instructive in better understanding not only the challenges the coal industry faces but also how those who work in the industry see their role in coal and in the world.

It is also useful to meet the people behind the companies. It's easy to forget that companies are, at heart, just collections of people. And it's good to be reminded of that. Because ultimately it’s not companies that make good or bad decisions, it’s people. The actions companies take reflect nothing more nor less than the  collective decisions of individual people. People like you.

So, I've been pleased to find that most of the folks we've met here seem like decent, reasonable people with their own problems, their own concerns, their own families to take care of. They are citizens, neighbors, parents. Just like me. And just like me, I've found, they are concerned for the welfare of not only their own children, but children everywhere. So I would like to speak to you not just as Greenpeace, but as a parent.

There has been a significant response here to our young activists yesterday, one of whom was my daughter, Kate. Kate came here because she feels strongly about global warming and, more personally, because her grandmother – one of her closest friends – died of cancer last summer after living for years in the shadow of one of the country's dirtiest coal stations. Drew, another of the kids who came, did so because he has severe asthma himself. And he wanted you to know.

Kate and Drew and Mike were proud to be here. And they were proud of their parents for deciding to let them come.

What I would like you to consider as you leave this meeting is, are your kids proud of the decisions you make? And will they still be proud 10, 20, 30 years from now as the environmental chaos of global warming becomes an ever grimmer reality in our daily lives?

Perhaps you can tell them: "It wasn't me. It was the company that did it.”

Perhaps you can explain to your kids: "I polluted the air because my boss made me do it. I poisoned the water to increase shareholder value. I denied global warming because the board demanded it. I supported CCS because it was the industry's only hope. And I refused to believe in solutions, because I was paid to believe in coal."

Will that answer make your kids happy? Will it make them proud? Will it help them forgive you?

You can choose a better future for them. For yourself. For the world. You can make them proud. The choice is not the company's. It is yours.

I ask you to choose wisely.

You may have noticed the news on the Greenpeace website about two activists that were arrested in Japan for their undercover work to expose a stolen whale meat scandal as part of Greenpeace's campaign to save the whales.

These two activists are still in jail and are being detained without a formal charge. In order to put pressure on the Japanese government to release these innocent activists, Greenpeace is having a demonstration at the Japanese Embassy in Washington, DC. I'll be joining them. If you work in the DC area, I encourage you to take a couple minutes on your lunchbreak to join in too. The more people that show up, the better!

--Michelle

 

It's the beginning of Day 2 here at Coal USA.  We weren't completely sure they'd let us in this morning.  We've played very nice by our standards.  None of us have rappelled from the ceiling or chained ourselves to any of the speakers or taken more than our share of muffins from the muffin table.  

But we learned from a reporter yesterday afternoon that the coal industry guys were really angry about our young activists (Drew, Mike and Kate) giving out asthma inhalers.  Apparently, the coalies said it's unconscionable for us to exploit children like that.   (Even if both the kids and their parents think it's something worth doing.)  Now me, I think it's unconscionable to build a toxic sludge pond on a hill right above a school house.  Or to sell a product that puts thousands of kids in the hospital each year with asthma attacks--kids like Drew, who has severe asthma.  Or to burn a fuel that afflicts thousands more with brain defects, neurological disorders and autism.   But I can see how reasonable minds could differ on these things.

What's interesting, of course, is when we talk face to face, many of the people here ARE reasonable.  Most are also polite.  And a few are even friendly.  I look me and, with a few significant exceptions, I don't see a room full of evil, mustache-twirling Snidely Whiplash impersonators.  I see a room full of (mostly) normal people.  People, no doubt, with their own problems and their own families and their own kids to worry about.

It makes me wonder how so many seemingly reasonable and decent people could be so heedless about the harm they cause to other families and, for that matter, an entire planet.  How can a reasonable, decent person feel okay about poisoning a town's drinking water?  Or think that wrecking an entire mountain is nothing anyone should complain about?  Or look at a quickly melting Arctic Ocean and think "That's nothing to do with me."

I could get all wonky, and talk about Cognitive Dissonance, and how people rationalize away the bad things they do.  All of us do this, in fact; it's just that some have to do it more than others.  A lot more.

But maybe Paul Vining, the President of Magnum Coal, put it more simply:  "It's about serving shareholders."  Perhaps the folks in the coal industry, like folks in other industries, just say to themselves:  "It's not me doing it; it's the company.  I just do what I'm told."  Or, if you run the company, you tell yourself:  "I have to do this because the shareholders want profits."  And if you own the company:  "If we don't do it, somebody else will."  It's easy to do anything if you do it for a company, because then the company can be evil for you, while you just go on being a normal, decent person.  But what we easily forget is that a company, at heart, is simply a collection of people. Companies aren't real in a human sense--they aren't alive; they don't have souls.  A company can't choose to be evil any more than it can be good.  Only the people within it, individually and together, can make that choice.

So, I think that will be my last contribution to the meeting here.  To remind. the people assembled here that they aren't coal companies.  They are parents.  They are neighbors.  They are friends.  They are human beings.  And like all human beings should be, they are free to make their own choices.  And they are morally responsible if they make them badly.

While their many colleagues in the coal industry may empathize that, together, they had no choice but to wreck the planet.  They should ask themselves whether the children left with that wrecked planet, including their own, may have a harder time with forgiveness.

Carroll Muffett

 

 

It's the second day in the trenches, facing off with the idea of the enemy as they file through the foyer on their way to hear and talk about "Supplying coking coal to the world: East Coast," and "Central Appalachia: Land of Opportunity and Challenges."

I wish that I were allowed in the conference room with the rest of the conference to try and attain a better understanding of what these people are thinking when they call one of the countries regions that is most raped and pillaged by coal a land of "opportunity and challenges," but alas, I have been relegated to the the foyer by the security guard with the bald head and the menacing looking tatoo that peaks up behind his white collar.  Is he really on their side?  Does he even begin to think about it in terms of us and them?

Those of us that are not allowed in the conference itself sit behind our well laid booth.  We busy ourselves by taking pictures, trying to engage passersby as their eyes flitter over the schwag on our booth, and putting the last of the stickers that say "The Institute for Energy Solutions is a joke.  So is clean coal," on the back of the last of our business cards.  

 

 

Speaking of business cards, someone from "Catapillar Global Mining" just gave us his and asked with a face that, to me, spoke of a newly birthed concern, for Bill Muffett (our companies Director) to send him an email.  Perhaps the enemy is beginning to see the light?  He tells us that he whitenessed "Bill's" speech yesterday where our beloved Deputy Campaigns Director called them all out, and asked them to look twice at their misdirected concept that the mining of coal may somehow lie outside of concerns for the environment.

I call them "the idea" of the enemy, because in talking with these industry-minded, market-obsessed people I do not really see an enemy.  What I see is a group of people who have not yet come to realize that they are part of something much larger than the company they work for, or the industry they somehow feel compelled to defend, as if it were a friend or a family member that they, for some reason, seem to want to stand in solidarity with as if they owed them something.  Why do people in America speak of industry as if it were anything more than a raft that took us from point A to point B?  Why are people so reluctant to admit that now their raft has a hole in it, and it's time to go about the business of building another . . .

What these people don't yet realize is that they are a part of something that is far greater, stronger, more compelling and enduring than the industry they currently dedicate themselves to.  They are part of humanity, they are part of the our world, this earth, this planet, this present and future and past.  They are beings that feed into and take from the circle of the eco-system, and what I fear is that they will hold out on understanding these things until one day, even if they do not understand completely, they will be forced to see by something wholly unpleasant that everything they do affects not just their pockets or the economy, but people.  And not just the lower classes or the uneducated or coal miners or those whose houses happen to lie just a little bit too close to a coal field, but their own land, air, and water.  And from that their own families, as well as themselves.

I tried to tell a few of the people yesterday, as we argued about the direction of the market and the history of industry, and what that meant for a different kind of tomorrow, that Greenpeace is not just asking for an alternative to coal, but a safer and cleaner planet for us all.  That we are asking for these things because we care about them and their families and all of our future's.  

In pondering how long it will take the people in these rooms and hallways that promote and run one of the dirtiest and most destructive industries in America as well as on earth, I take some comfort in reminding myself that this idea of being a part of something larger than what man has made is actually, as far as I can see, inherent in being human, and that even if they do not recognize it now, something in them knows this despite themselves. Somewhere down the line, we will be forced to find our equilibrium.  And Greenpeace will try everything it can to make sure it is not found too late.

-- Amanda 

Drill here, Drill Now. That’s the name of Newt Gingrich’s new petition to open oil drilling off of America’s coastlines.

Build 45 new nuclear plants by 2030 – that’s McCain’s plan to combat global warming.

They sound like simple solutions, right? In fact, they’re deceptively simple. And they’re not solutions at all.

No offshore drilling

What does drilling off America’s coastlines really mean? Will it help skyrocketing gas prices? The economy? You?

No.

According to predictions made by The U.S. Energy Information Administration last year: “Leasing would begin no sooner than 2012, and production would not be expected to start before 2017” if the moratorium on offshore drilling were lifted. The agency also estimated that U.S. oil production would increase by a mere 7 percent - about 200,000 barrels a day - by 2030, which would have an "insignificant" impact on oil prices.

So what will drilling do? It will:

• Expose whales and dolphins to potentially lethal seismic testing
• Open the possibility of oil spills on our beaches
• Line the pocketbooks of big oil companies, who are already sitting on top of 68 million acres of leased land that they aren’t drilling on at all, despite their “concern” about high oil prices

No more nuclear plants

McCain says that building 45 new nuclear plants by 2030 is a course of action “as difficult as it is necessary.” Well, he is right in one regard: It will be difficult. It takes billions of dollars and at least 10 years to bring a new nuclear reactor online.

But necessary? Hardly.

In fact, we don’t have 10 years to wait for clean energy to come online. Not that nuclear is all that clean: you still have to mine the uranium used in the reactors – and mining is a dirty, polluting process – and you have to store the nuclear waste somewhere – waste that can be around for centuries, sitting in a storage facility somewhere, susceptible to leaks. Meanwhile, we have solar and wind technologies, and several other renewable technologies, that are ready to be implemented on a large scale right now.

Which brings me to my next point: nuclear reactors cost so much, the utilities aren’t likely to build new plants unless they are heavily subsidized by the federal government. That’s billions upon billions of dollars that we could and should be investing in clean, renewable technologies – the real solutions to global warming and the true path to America’s energy independence.

So what am I asking of YOU? Well that’s actually plain old simple. Newt Gingrich has convinced more than a million people to sign his petition in support of offshore drilling. So I’m asking you to digg here, digg now. Then send a letter to McCain letting him know you're AGAINST false solutions. And if you really want to stop these false solutions from leading us astray, don’t stop there. Tell your friends about this action, send them this blog, ask them to get involved too.

Tell McCain, tell Gingrich, tell Congress: Don’t you dare drill here, don’t you dare drill here ever. And no new nukes! We demand real solutions to global warming!

Today we morphed into an organization no one had ever heard of -- The Institute for Energy Solutions -- and gained entrance to Coal USA 2008, an industry conference that we would never have been welcomed to otherwise. We managed to place ourselves directly in the center of the discussions and activities of over 300 executives and investors in the coal industry. We gained this access covertly, by becoming an official "sponsor" of their conference, and taking on the airs of an industry player they could relate to. 

To enforce our legitimacy we created all the things that a real company would need: a logo, a website, information sheets, business cards, email addresses, and more. Then, once we had all the appropriate materials, we plugged them into our offer of sponsorship and moved to create the platform we needed.

I am sitting here now behind our booth, in the foyer to the conference room where all the heavy hitters are talking about the future of coal. Behind me is a large color banner printed with our company name and logo. In front of me is our table, which is covered in Greenpeace campaign materials that talk about the false hope of carbon capture, the possibilities of wind power, the problem of the polar bear, and on and on. 

To my right is a flower vase filled with coal from which orange gerber flowers are peeking out from the top. In front of them is a container filled with black pencils that have our website URL printed on them in white lettering. This website once led to information about our "company," but now leads to a site talking all about the dirt and lies of coal.

Next to them are our keychains, which bear the slogan: "Global Warming? Coal is the key." People pick them up as they go by, read the slogan, and drop them back down into the bowl, often with a look of disdain. Of course, every once in a while someone will keep the keychain, hide it in the fold of their hand, and happily walk away.

Next to the keychains are the asthma inhalers we collected from people with asthma; some of which were donated by an orgnization on the West Coast that collects different types of "trash." On the inhalers are the labels made especially by us that say: Coal takes our breath away. 

Earlier today, we had three young children standing outside the conference as it let out for lunch, handing out these inhalers to the mix of suprised, outraged, excited, desparate, and appreciative faces. Some took them and walked away looking at them, or discussing them with the person at their side, while others cursed our names or threw them back into the bowl.

Perhaps the booth decoration that I am the most proud of, however, is the water samples to my left. They were taken from a stream made of runnoff from the abandoned Gallentine Mine in Fayette Pennsylvania that empties into Indian Creek, which then flows into the Mill River Reservoir, which is used for emergency public drinking water. We have affixed the bottles with our own labels that describe where the water is from, punctuating it with a green puking face. Of course the bottles have black tops and have been glued shut, just in case someone might be stupid enough to try to drink out of one of them.

The business cards that we created, each of which proudly declares our company's name on the front -- The Institute for Energy Solutions -- also have stickers on the back that say: "The Institute for energy Solutions is a joke. So is clean coal."

People are both intrigued and repelled by our booth, and I'm loving every second of it. We can only hope that they will carry home some of what we talked about and some of the materials we gave them, and mull it all over in their minds. And from there we can only hope upon hope that they will come to some different conclusions than what they walked in here with today. Regardless, we will not stop trying.

It's the Golden Age of Coal! Did you know that? I admit, I myself had no idea. But apparently it's true. "There has never been a better time to be in the coal business and to be an advocate for coal!" How do I know that? Fred Palmer told me. And he must know, because he's Senior Vice President for Government Relations at Peabody Coal, the world's biggest private coal company.

Now, you must be asking yourself, why on earth would Fred confide that sort of thing to Greenpeace? I suspect that right about now, Fred is asking himself the same question. As are any number of other speakers at Coal USA 2008, which, according to its sponsors, is "the 'must attend' event on the Coal industry calendar."  

Maybe because we sponsored their conference! With the biggest wigs from 170 energy companies sitting in a single room and sharing their profit-fueled dreams for a coal-powered future, it seemed like just the sort of place we should be. So, we filled in a form, wrote 'em a check, and got ourselves four bright, shiny invitations to attend the conference.

Of course, coal people aren't the biggest fans of "those Greenpeace f**kers," as one delegate politely put it today. So, we took a play from the coal industry's own playbook, and created an organization they'd be more comfortable with. It's our own version of "astroturf," the fake environmental organizations the coal industry helped perfect decades ago (like the now defunct "Greening Earth Society," which argued that global warming was a good thing because all that extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would make the world greener).  

So, we created "Tomorrow's Energy Today," an upbeat if remarkably ambiguous website about the many virtues of coal. ("It's America's most abundant fossil fuel!"...Hard to argue with that.) And Tomorrow's Energy Today sponsored the conference.  

Lesson for the future: if you've got a few grand to spare, I highly recommend that you sponsor a coal industry conference. It's an amazing bargain! They put our logo and URL all over everything. On the conference website. On signs in the hall. On people's presentations.  And on every single page of the glossy conference brochure. They even gave us a booth!  Now that's value for your money.

And we put it to good use.  As a service to coal industry insiders, who seem a little blind to coal's many downsides, we redirected the URL www.tomorrowsenergytoday.org to take them right to the best information currently available on coal: the Coal is Dirty website.

We decorated the booth with precisely the sort of give-aways you should expect at a coal industry conference:  to educate coal execs about coal's role in America's asthma epidemic, we're giving away asthma inhalers with the label "Coal -- takes my breath away!" To help them understand how coal mining poisons streams and rivers, we brought water bottles filled with mine discharge. And to remind them that burning coal is the biggest single cause of global warming, we're giving away keychains that say "Global Warming? Coal is the key."   

In turn, we're learning alot from our new coal industry friends. For instance, did you know that Alaska is now a target for new coal mines? ("Shhh.  It's our secret", said the coal traders.) Or that you can expect your home energy costs to go through the roof because coal companies are finding it much more profitable to export "excess supply" to foreign markets than to sell it here at home? Or that the only thing the coal industry hates more than environmentalists is the natural gas industry?

Or that "the United States is a developing country." That one from Fred Palmer again. I could listen to that guy talk all day. He's like a Crazy Quote Machine. According to Fred, using MORE coal is in the public interest because "Coal is Life itself (through the medium of electricity)." Wow! Who knew? See, I told you we were learning stuff!

Although the industry guys weren't expecting our presence, they adapted pretty quickly, and at the end of the morning they asked me to speak. (I think they were worried I would stand up on a chair and yell if they didn't give me a mic.) The morning's presenters had talked about how this was a conference about coal, and not about the environment. I told them that for Greenpeace, and other environmentalists across the country, any conversation about coal is a conversation about the environment. When you mine coal, it wrecks the local environment. When you burn coal, the emissions affect the health of communities where it's burned. Acid rain and mercury pollution affect the environment and human health hundreds of miles away. And carbon dioxide from coal burning power plants is the biggest contributor to global warming. In light of these facts, I said, any discussion about coal is a discussion about the environment.  

I told them it was nice to hear coal industry execs admitting the reality of global warming after decades of denying it. It was also nice to hear them no longer arguing (a la The Greening Earth Society) that global warming could be a good thing. But it seems pretty ironic that, after so long denying the problem of global warming, the coal industry is now arguing that it's part of the solution. We can keep burning coal, they all said, we just need to dump the carbon dioxide into the ocean or into the ground. It'll all be fine! Our friend Fred Palmer certainly made that argument.

He gave a presentation on how Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology would allow us to go on using coal for decades while helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Fred called CCS an "Enabling Technology." I couldn't agree more.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, an "enabler" is someone or something that "enables another to persist in self-destructive behavior (as substance abuse) by providing excuses or by making it possible to avoid the consequences of such behavior." And that's precisely what CCS does: its a dangerous myth that provides America with a convenient excuse to keep burning coal and pumping carbon dioxide into the air, rather than confronting its fossil fuel addiction and taking real action to stop global warming. You don't get more self-destructive than that. Like Greenpeace noted in its recent report, which we've shared widely at the conference, Carbon Capture is a False Hope and a dangerous distraction from real climate solutions.

As the meeting broke for lunch, the meeting delegates were greeted by 3 unexpected activists. Kate, Drew and Mike, aged 9, 10 and 11, respectively, stood at the door handing out asthma inhalers to everyone who passed. A few people took them and said "Thank You."  Others looked away uncomfortably. And one of them summoned two burly security guards to escort the kids out of the room. "They were really big, scary guys," said Kate.

And the kids laughed. Because they were proud to be brave. And to stand up for what's right. Even against those really big, scary guys.

-Carroll Muffett

While we wait for Cape Wind to clear all of the legal hurdles still preventing it from becoming a reality, the title of “America’s First Offshore Wind Farm” might just be claimed by another project:

(CNN) -- A contract to build what is being called the nation's first offshore field of wind turbines was announced Monday by a Delaware utility and a firm that will build the generators off the Atlantic coast.

Officials from Delmarva Power and Bluewater Wind announced details of their agreement in Newark, Delaware. Bluewater spokesman Jim Lanard said the power company will get about 16 percent of its electricity from a field of 150 wind turbines, anchored in the seafloor about a dozen miles off Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.…

The offshore site is expected to be operational within four years, but the timing depends on how quickly regulatory agencies can review and approve the construction project.

Using electricity generated by the wind, " Delmarva Power will be able to light about 50,000 homes a year, every year" for the duration of the 25-year contract, Lanard said, with first power expected by 2012.

To me, the most important takeaway from the article is that an offshore wind project that has just been announced could be producing energy and helping stabilize the market as soon as 2012, assuming there are no significant legal challenges to the plan. Compare that with offshore drilling, which experts tell us will not produce any oil or gas for sale on the market until 2017. Just another reason why clean, renewable energy sources are by far the better investment.

This is a rough translation of the final blog that Junichi Sato wrote before he was arrested in Tokyo for allegedly stealing a box of whale meat, itself stolen from the Japanese taxpayers, that he presented to police as evidence of widescale fraud in the whaling industry:

June 20 2008

Whale Meat Embezzlement News No.11: toward IWC and G8

It is sad but it seems like this is the last update of this blog for a while. Last night TV news reported that Aomori police would arrest us.

As I have been continuously saying publicly, I will keep supporting and helping the investigation of what we have done and of the embezzlement of whale meat by the Nisshin Maru’s crew.

We have been helping the investigation. For example, we gave written reports of what we have done to Aomori police, even before I was asked.

I will continue in this supporting spirit.

One month has passed since we revealed the whale meat embezzlement. We have received many supporting and opposing opinions from many people since then. We were even contacted by someone who had further information about the whale meat embezzlement.

Every opinion and all information is very important. Please keep sending it to us.

As my knowledge of the embezzlement grows deeper and deeper, I have re-realized that the corruption runs deep in the research whaling program, which has been conducted by Amakudai-politicians with more than 10,000,000,000 yen in tax money.

Our arrest was reported when this major corruption began to become clear.

I wish this to be a good chance for the Japanese people to think again about the research whaling with a calm mind.

It is true that the whaling issue is not as famous as many other issues. When the whaling issue is discussed, it tends to conclude something like “Whaling is Japanese culture” ”We do not want to prohibit eating whales by Westerners.”

This kind of cheap and easy discussion has become a curtain for the corruption to hide behind.

We should think, as taxpayers, if there is a necessity to use our tax money to conduct this research whaling, which only a very few people profit from.

I want to ask to hearts of people who has been involved to this embezzlement.

Is it OK to keep being silent?

There are many people who know about it.

There was a whale meat eating party at Nagata-Cho(governmental and political center city) on 11 June. Rich whale meat was served to many invited politicians. The whaling is supposed to be “scientific.” Do you think there is no problem using the byproduct this way?

Japanese whaling will be discussed at the IWC starting from next week. It will be interesting to see how the Japanese government will act.

It is certain that the centre of people’s interest will be if Japan can protect the Southern Ocean cooperated with international bodies.

I believe that the crews of Nisshin Maru should contribute to the non-lethal cetacean research since they have special skills and experiences. I believe this is the positive resolution. Prime Minister Fukuda, what do you think about launching a scientific research proposal which includes the impact of global warming in the Antarctic before G8 meeting?

If Japan really wants to be a leading country in environmental issues, I ask the Japanese government to deal in a way which shift this international conflict to international co-operation.

Please support a true discussion about this whaling issue.

I would appreciate it if you would read all my back blogs about the embezzlement.

I believe and hope the Tokyo Prosecutor’s office will reveal the truth.

Greenpeace Japan

Junichi Sato

Junichi is being held without charge in a small whaling town. Demand his release:
http://members.greenpeace.org/action/start/203/

 

The tipping point on global warming is close, according to James Hansen,  director at NASA's Goddard Institute for space studies.  

In his speech to congress on 23 June, Hansen has issued his strongest warning yet about the state of the climate. 

He focuses, at one point, on the CEO's of major companies, singling out Exxon and Peabody in particular.  "In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature."

The crimes, as we know, are the continued funding of the denial industry, peddling confusion and doubt in the public.  This week also saw an new poll in the UK paper, The Observer, pointing out the rise of climate scepticism, which follows an earlier poll in the US saying the same thing.  The US poll, though, showed that the rise was amongst Republicans. 

That would be the Republicans who are the denial industry's audience.  

So again we point to the 23 organisations that Exxon continues to fund.  The sooner they stop, the better.  

 

 

 

 

 

So I’ve been wondering lately if maybe we should start referring to man-made climate change as something other than “global warming.” While a rise in average global temperatures is the main effect of the unprecedented amount of greenhouse gases we are dumping into our atmosphere, and higher global temperatures are in turn the root cause of many of the drastic impacts we will experience, “global warming” as a premise is too easily attacked in the minds of the average public citizen.

For instance, as weather patterns change, some regions experienced higher than average snowfall last winter. In the minds of the general public – people who aren’t scientists and don’t follow global warming science and news closely – this can automatically debunk “global warming.” Yet, according to James Hansen (via ClimateProgress.org), there are many reasons why we might experience short-term cooling, including a volcanic eruption or ocean dynamics like the Southern Oscillation (more commonly known as the El Niño - La Niña cycle).

I’m not proposing that the environmental movement should cater our entire message to people who are willing to discount something as massively urgent as global warming just because they got a few extra inches in their yard. What I am saying is that there is perhaps an even more powerful and unassailable framework we could be employing, something everyone can recognize and identify with.

I have a friend who works during winters as a snowboarding instructor, and she says that in the snow sports industry it is referred to as “global weirding” when the weather acts all crazy. And the weather has certainly been acting crazy lately:

We’ve all come to know the words “extreme weather.” Wildfires rage across California, and a state of emergency is declared in several counties. Torrential rain in the Midwest and historic levels of flooding from Iowa to Missouri. At least six people are killed by tornadoes in Iowa and Kansas. A heat wave on the East coast has claimed the lives of a number of people. In China, people have barely had time to recover from the recent earthquake. Flooding and rain have killed over sixty and left over a million people homeless. Meanwhile, record drought in many parts of the United States and Australia continue.

The words “extreme weather” are rarely associated in the mainstream media with another two words: “global warming.” But scientists argue these extreme weather events are consistent with changes they have long predicted would accompany global warming. (Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!)

I kinda like the term Global Weirding because it points up the fact that the global ecosystem has been thrown out of whack. But it doesn’t quite convey the severity of the situation. Anyone got any good suggestions?

Bush has been pushing for offshore drilling the whole time he’s been in office, but what else can you expect? He's an oilman. He's just using the power of his office to make his friends even more disgustingly wealthy. Now John McCain wants to help Bush's buddies get rich too! That's right, he's pandering to the lowest common denominator in American politics and calling for opening up all of America's coastlines to oil drilling.

Lots of others are jumping on the bandwagon, as well – including Florida governor (and potential McCain running mate) Charlie Crist and Newt Gingrich, who has started a petition in support of the proposal that claims to have 750,000 signatures.

All of these politicians are trying to exploit the insecurity people feel due to $4+ gas prices to score political points and make their friends in the oil business even richer. And yet opening up our nation’s coastline to drilling is an absolutely ludicrous proposal.

Not only will it pollute the shoreline and harm marine life, but it won’t really do a thing to lower today’s hyper-inflated energy costs – the gas from those oilfields wouldn’t even be on the market until 2017 at the earliest. And there’s not enough oil reserves off our coasts to even make a significant impact on our energy security in the long run. It’s estimated that only about 3% of the world’s oil reserves lie on or off the coast of America – yet we consume 24% of the world’s oil.

The only real, long-term solution to our energy problems is to move toward renewable energy sources like wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, etc.

Thankfully, the coastal states that will be most affected are not staying quiet about this proposal. For instance, Florida Today has a really excellent piece up about how “utterly reckless” it would be to open Florida’s coastline to drilling. It’s well worth the read.

And Greenpeace has launched its own online action to counteract the call for offshore drilling. Hit it up and help us tell McCain that this is not the proposal he should be running on.

 

Today we are launching a local campaign Strike Out Exxon to flush the red beast out of the brand new Washington Nationals baseball park.  The park is touted as a certified "green" faciltiy by the US Green Building Council. 

Exxon has bought the advertising rights to the 7th inning stretch...so now its no longer the...mom and apple pie, GodBlessAmerica, Take Me out to the Ballgame, Root Root Root for the home team, my first Phillies game with dad at Connie Mack at age 6, peanuts and crackerjack 7th inning stretch...

no no no... it's now branded "THE EXXONMOBIL 7th INNING STRETCH" 100 feet tall on the center field scoreboard with bright red ExxonMobil logo on every LED ad screen ringing the park. 

Instead of singing our song, having a stretch and going to get some crackerjack and a beverage of choice from the concession stands, eager Washington fans are reminded of the $95 fill-up the just plowed into their Chevy Tahoe that GM wont even take back on trade-in!

I called the advertising guys at the Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies and a few other teams to get a sense if it was unusual to have an monster oil company as a sponsor of the "stretch" advertising parcel.  I learned the BoSox have Coca Cola as a sponsor, which makes some sense, thirsty after 7 innings?  The Yankees have Cracker Jack, which makes even more sense, its their song after all.  The Yankees guy said he had never heard of an oil company buying that space before and seemed a little perplexed that a promotions person would take such an offer.

By the way, the song Take Me Out to the Ball Game is 100 years old this year, I read the other day in a great children's book by Jim Burke on the song's origins in NYC at the turn of the century when baseball came of age and became a integral part of the nation's fabric.

I updated the lyrics with apologies to Jack Norworth:

TAKE EXXON OUT OF THE BALL GAME
GET THEM OUT OF THE CROWD
TIRED OF FOUR DOLLAR GAS-O-LINE
AND GLOBAL WAR-MING IS MA-KING ME SCREAM

LETS ROOT, ROOT, ROOT FOR THE NAAATIONALS
AND STRIKE EXXON OUT OF THE GAME
FOR ITS 3…2…1 POLAR BEARS AND WE KNOW WHO TO BLAME.

The Strike Out Exxon campaign was spurred this spring by Chesapeake Climate Action Network, a great regional global warming advocates here in DC, and our friends at Oil Change International, Friends of the Earth and the Hip Hop Caucus.  We welcome additional member organizations but hope this campaign is swift.  There were even rumours that Exxon might vie for the naming rights to the park to be auctioned later this summer.  Hopefully the Nationals owners think that through.

Because the only thing Exxon is stretching is the truth about global warming and its monster bank accounts. Stay tuned for updates and contact CCAN for free tickets.

Senator McCain, once lauded by environmentalists for breaking with the Bush Administration and the republican establishment by acknowledging the need to address climate change, has once again failed to offer realistic solutions to the climate conundrum.

In 2005, McCain larded up his climate legislation with billions of dollars in nuclear subsidies and lost support for his bill. His blind and unquestioning support for the nuclear industry cost him and this country the opportunity to pass climate change legislation.

(See David Corn’s article in Mother Jones, McCain’s Nuclear waste
http://motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2008/03/john-mccain-nuclear-waste.html)

Yesterday Senator McCain called for 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030. 

The Senator obviously hasn’t learned from his mistakes….

To address climate change, we need solutions that are fast and affordable and nuclear is neither. According to NASA’s climate change guru James Hansen, we have approximately 7 years to address  the most catastrophic impacts of climate change.  Senator McCain’s call for 45 reactors by 2030 ignores this reality.  Even if the Senator becomes President, it will be another decade before any new nuclear reactor in the US generates electricity.  Nuclear power will be too late to abate climate change.  

In addition, new nuclear plants are so prohibitively expensive they may never be built.
In December, nuclear corporations told Florida regulators that a new Westinghouse designed nuclear plant would cost between $12 and $18 billion dollars – more than double earlier estimates for the very same reactors.  [A new Areva designed nuclear plant could cost as much as $24 billion.]  That same month MidAmerican, a subsidiary of Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway, became the first corporation to postpone a new reactor.  After performing their due diligence review MidAmerican found that building a new reactor did not make economic sense.  

Energy experts ranging from MIT to the Rocky Mountain Institute recognize that energy efficiency and renewable energy are a much more effective hedge against global warming than nuclear power.

Estimates vary, but every dollar spent on efficiency and renewable energy goes 5 to 10 times further in displacing CO2 than a dollar spent on nuclear power.  Wasting hundreds of billions of dollars on nuclear power would put America and the world even further behind the climate curve ball. Its time for Senator McCain to get back on the “straight talk express” and provide real solutions to climate change that America can afford and implement before its too late.

-- Jim Riccio 

In Washington, you never know who you might run in to, including the rich and powerful. On my way home from work recently, I stopped at Olsson's Books to return some DVD rentals. I was immediately struck by the long lines at the registers.  The last time I'd seen such a crowd was for a book signing by Kristen Breitweiser.  Kristen is one of the 9/11 widows who fought for the 9/11 Commission report. Her book, Wake-Up Call, is a moving account of the loss of her husband at the World Trade Center and how she became a leading voice for holding our leaders accountable.  She has also joined Greenpeace in urging Congress to require U.S. chemical plants to convert to safer chemicals and processes to prevent them from becoming targets of terrorism.

As I scanned the crowd, one face jumped out at me, Michael Chertoff, the Secretary of the Homeland Security Department. He was waiting on line with an armful of books. The reason for the crowd was more mundane, a 50%-off-everything sale because the store is about to close.

My mind raced, what would Kristen Breitweiser do? I looked in my book bag and found a copy of a June 10th letter from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to Congress.  The letter was in opposition to chemical security legislation (H.R. 5577) adopted by the Homeland Security Committee in March. The DHS letter also mirrored the chemical industry's lobbying agenda.

Knowing Chertoff had been criticized for a lack of accountability in the wake of the devastation of New Orleans after Katrina, I decided to appeal to his self-professed independence. After he completed his purchases I introduced myself and showed him the letter and asked him to reconsider his opposition to this critical legislation.

As Chertoff looked at the letter he clearly recognized it as well as the difficulty in defending it.  He abruptly said, "if you want to talk to me, you'll have to go through channels...I don't do DRIVE-BYS." I could see why he’d want to avoid a public debate about his position but comparing my question to a "drive-by," especially in D.C., was way out of proportion.  So I said, "Sorry but as a taxpayer I'm concerned about the millions of Americans at risk from poison gas release due to a terrorist attack or accident at any one of 100 U.S. chemical plants."  He then seemed to realize he may have over reacted and said, "what's holding up the legislation is not me but a rivalry between two congressional Committees" and then he walked away.

However passing the buck is not a sufficient answer. At a June 12th hearing, the House Environment and Hazardous Materials (EHM) Subcommittee grilled Chertoff's DHS for failing to provide the Committee with requested input on legislation. Meanwhile the DHS had already sent their June 10th letter to a different Committee embracing the chemical industry's legislative agenda. Both Committees see through this divide and conquer tactic. The EHM Subcommittee expects to move legislation in July.  Greenpeace and a broad coalition of labor, public interest and environmental groups are pushing to get the legislation to the House floor as soon as possible.

On June 17th Polico ran an excellent summary of the situation at:
www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/11123.html

-- Rick Hind 

It’s no secret, I hate grocery shopping. It has turned into a weekly chore that I dread and try to get through as quickly as I possibly can. I know I need food to eat for the week, but there are ultimately too many food choices for me to make and too many people cluttering the aisles.

As a consumer, buying up products at the supermarket, I have a say in what kind of products do well or fail miserably. And, now a new Greenpeace report shines a light on how seafood purchases do just that. If supermarkets sell endangered fish, we buy these poor fish and the need to continue fishing for them continues.

It’s amazing how much seafood sales affect the oceans. Greenpeace put together a red list of fish that are in jeopardy. By encouraging supermarkets to keep these fish off the shelves, the oceans can become healthier and more robust. But, I’m sure that’s not an easy task. Supermarkets rely on the bottom line and need to stay profitable.

This is where us consumers can flex our muscles! Even if you hate grocery shopping, like I do, you can pass up the red list fish next time you’re at the supermarket. You can even badger the supermarket manager each time you visit to encourage them to stop selling seafood that is damaging the oceans. It’s worth a try.

Another cool thing I noticed on the Greenpeace site was the ability to check out (pun intended) how your supermarket stacked up in their new report. They looked at what kind of seafood each supermarket sold and how sustainable their purchasing practices were. It looks like all the stores failed, but some failed less miserably than others did.

The oceans seem so vast and limitless. But, when I hear about the destruction that’s going on, I wonder what the heck can I do to help! And, now I’ve found at least one way I can contribute to promoting healthier oceans and a more sustainable future.

-Michelle

 

The current administration has been woefully inadequate in a number of ways, and the environment – especially with regards to addressing global warming – is definitely one of its chief inadequacies. Many environmental organizations are already looking to the next administration for leadership on global warming, and it appears no matter who gets elected, they will be stronger on the environment than Bush & Co.

McCain, rightly, felt it was important to distance himself from the President on the environment, and has recently begun airing an ad in which a narrator declares: “John McCain stood up to the President and sounded the alarm on global warming five years ago. Today, he has a realistic plan that will curb greenhouse gas emissions” (via CNN).

Well, the timing of this ad could not be more perfect: “The ad is being released the same day McCain is set to give a speech on energy policy in Houston. During the address, McCain will propose lifting the federal moratorium on offshore drilling for oil” (also via CNN). And yes, he does support drilling for oil in ANWR. Way to stand up against Bush there, buddy.

McCain has yet to release an energy policy, so it’s troubling at best that when he finally addresses the topic, he’s coming out in favor of drilling for oil all over our coastline rather than promoting the renewable energy technologies that will propel us towards a sustainable future. In fact, this has become a troubling pattern of McCain’s campaign: spinning away in the media to pander to voters, while pursuing a dubious agenda in reality.

That’s why I dig the “Searching for McCain” action created by Chris Bowers over at Open Left. Here’s how he describes it: “The utilization of simultaneous, widespread embedded hyperlinks in order to connect voters looking for information on John McCain to nine revealing, important news articles on John McCain.” Similar to Bowers’ “Googlebomb the Elections” campaign back in the ’06 election cycle, this is an effort to boost the Google search ranking of 9 news articles on John McCain that provide the real dirt on his voting record and policies – in other words, what you won’t get by simply listening to the man or his representatives in the media.

If you have a blog or website, you should head over to Open Left and link to one or some or all of the articles listed there. To explain how it works very quickly: Google uses links to websites to “contextualize” the content of that website and decide which search terms apply to it; the more links to the site it finds, the higher it is ranked and hence the higher it shows up in search results.

None of the articles pertain to McCain’s energy or environmental policies – or anything that Greenpeace works on directly, actually – so I’m not going to link to them here. It’s a shame, I would love to have participated in the Googlebombing of an article about McCain’s doublespeak on energy and environmental issues.

Well then, guess I just have to get it started: “McCain Touts Green Policies At Wind Energy Firm – But He Opposed Their Key Legislation” (via HuffPo).

If you don't know about RealClimate.org, you should definitely check it out. "Climate science from climate scientists" is their tagline, and that is exactly what you get: real, informed scientific discourse about global warming. Sometimes the posts are hard to read if you're not a climate scientists yourself, but they're always fascinating, well-written, and damned informative.

If you like your climate science news and opinion to be on the useful side, go the RealClimate.org Index page and scroll down to "Responses to Common Contrarian arguments." This section of the site rules. An example is this post, which discusses what real "scepticism" actually entails and why many global warming deniers are not in fact practicing true scepticism at all, but what might be "more accurately described as contrarianism, or 'la-la-la-I-can't-hear-you'-ism."

RealClimate recently dissected the shortcomings of an article in WIRED. You might already know which article I'm talking about, because it had this teaser boldly splashed across the cover: "Attention Environmentalists: Keep your SUV. Forget organics. Go nuclear. Screw the spotted owl." Yeah, a bit melodramatic.

And according to RealClimate, not even close to a fair and accurate assessment. About a section called "A/C is OK," RealClimate wrote: "WIRED got the story egregiously
wrong, and not just because they did the arithmetic wrong. In their rush to be cute, they didn't even make a half-baked attempt to do the arithmetic." If you, like me, were dismayed by this article, the full post by RealClimate, "WIRED Magazine's Incoherent Truths," might also be a good place for you to start digging into the site.

Earth: The Sequel is pretty heavy on the numbers – tons of pollution, millions of dollars in venture capital, megawatts, gigawatts , and so on – but if you can get through the wonkiness, it is a very thought-provoking and inspiring book. Its overall theme is summed up thusly on the final page:

The question is no longer just how to avert the catastrophic impacts of climate change, but which nations will produce—and export—the green technologies of the twenty-first century. A cap-and-trade system for carbon dioxide will mean billions of dollars for the innovators who figure out how to save the planet, and provide the opportunity to mobilize virtually every realm of economic activity.

In explaining the “Sequel” bit in the title, the website has this to say:

Earth: The Sequel is the riveting story of the next new thing that none of us can afford to miss: how the multi-trillion dollar energy sector is being transformed — right now — by the American entrepreneurial spirit.

Fred Krupp, author of the book and president of the Environmental Defense Fund, and his co-writer Miriam Horn make a compelling case for a cap-and-trade system as a necessary measure to spur the energy revolution this country needs. Cap-and-trade will level the energy playing field, they argue, giving fledgling renewable energy sources a fighting chance in today’s market. In making their case, Krupp and Horn provide intriguing snapshots of the most promising renewable energy technologies out there – solar, biofuels, ocean/tidal, geothermal, and more – the companies developing them, and the people behind the companies. Earth, The Sequel does a fantastic job of juggling its human interest angles with its business and technology reportage.

The technology I found most interesting: reengineering “the metabolism of yeast to ferment sugar into a pure hydrocarbon fuel.” Now that’s resourceful.

What I found most thought-provoking about the book, however, was a subject only mentioned in passing: the social justice issues that can get entangled with renewable energy development. For example, the Makah tribe have lived off the bounty of Makah Bay in Washington state for thousands of years, and now they’re using the relentless waves of the bay to generate electricity for their homes. The basic mechanics are this: three miles out from shore, a company called AquaEnergy Group has placed pistons that are connected to a buoy on the surface and anchored to the ocean floor. As waves wash past the buoys, the pistons are driven up and down, and they are designed so that they pump water into a turbine, generating electricity. The Makah and AquaEnergy are generating 14 megawatts with the so-called AquaBuOY’s they have installed so far.

The Makah chose to pursue renewable energy over fossil fuels, going so far as to help create the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary when the U.S. Minerals Management Service was proposing to reactivate leases for gas and oil development off the coast of Makah Bay. Now, that very same marine sanctuary the Makah helped create is the single largest impediment to developing their ocean energy project to commercial scale. Tribal councilman Micah McCarty sums up his view of the situation this way:

We are an ancient society that still has a living relationship with our ancestral fishing and hunting grounds. By continuing to sustain ourselves from these resources, we keep the breath of our ancestors alive. It has spiritual meaning. But we repeatedly run up against a belief that nature should be viewed without touching it, kept pristine. I understand where that view derives—it comes from people who live in a wholly altered environment, see a devastating human impact, and overcompensate for that devastation. But it winds up disenfranchising the people who depend on the land.

Marine sanctuaries are definitely a good and necessary thing, and no doubt performing an environmental impact assessment before installing dozens of AquaBuOYs is necessary. The technology is so new there is no previously compiled data for the stewards of the marine sanctuary to refer to. But how can we decide to deny a people their right to live off of their land however they see fit – especially a people who have been so violently denied their right to self-determination in the past as have the Makah tribe? There are two societal views of nature at odds in Makah Bay – the Makah tribe’s, which views nature as something to live with harmoniously while drawing life and sustenance at the same time; and mainstream American society’s, which has traditionally viewed nature as an inanimate resource we can use and abuse however we want, to the point that we have so severely depleted and degraded our natural resources that we now must atone for our sins by setting certain portions off-limits.

It’s a thorny and complex issue, one with no easy answers. Hopefully some compromise can be reached. Earth, the Sequel does not speculate on what the outcome might be for the Makah tribe, but in raising the issue at all the book provides a considerably hearty meal of food for thought. Definitely worth a read if you’re interested in the energy future of our society and the myriad issues we are facing.

Project Hot Seat got a couple good mentions in the national media this past week:

Politico:

Greenpeace is ... expanding Project Hot Seat, the nonpartisan, grass-roots global warming campaign that focuses solely on House districts.

Since 2006, Project Hot Seat’s presence has grown from six congressional districts to about 50, with several offices set to receive a new round of staffers.

“We need real leadership next year,” said Kate Smolski, Greenpeace’s legislative global warming coordinator. “We’re talking to incumbents and challengers in all districts. It doesn’t matter what party gets elected, as long as the party that gets elected gets the next bill right.”

The Nation (though they call it "Global Hot Seat," for some reason; but hey, they got the link right):

As the catastrophic consequences of inaction seep into the public onsciousness people everywhere are starting to take steps to fight global warming. But it's not enough to change light-bulbs and dispense with plastic bags -- we need bold, fundamental, and rapid action on climate change -- action as outlined at 1sky.org, CoolCities.us and Greenpeace's Global Hotseat. 

So I realized that, since my contention in my original post on Radiohead's green tour was that Radiohead is pioneering new ways of addressing global warming by using new tools that we have at our disposal, it would have been good of me to actually demonstrate that in action.

Not everyone lives in a city as small as San Francisco that is simultaneously big enough to have Radiohead come play there, so not everyone will be able to ride their bike to a Radiohead show. The cool thing about the carbon calculator they have up on their tour blog is that you can compare various methods of travel. I went ahead and calculated the carbon emissions for driving a car and taking the bus to the show. Check it out:

 

As you can see, if I took the bus, I’d be responsible for 1.06 kgC02, versus 1.85 kgC02 if I drove.

I'm extremely pumped because Congress is having a hearing on the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act of 2008.  I’ve been an intern on the Toxics campaign at Greenpeace for the last 8 months, but this chemical security bill has been in the making for almost 8 years.  Since 9/11 when chemical facilities went from being considered not only toxic polluters, but also a homeland security threat.  

This is because certain toxic by inhalation (TIH) chemicals, like chlorine gas and anhydrous ammonia, are stored at chemical facilities in bulk quantities (we’re talking 90 ton railcars) with extremely limited and vulnerable security, like chain link fences and cameras.  

These facilities are sometimes located right next to neighborhoods and major cities (google earth is a great tool!).  There are at least 100 chemical plants that would put over a million people at risk if there is an accident or terrorist attack involving a poison gas leak!  That’s like 100 potential Bhopals…  

As you can imagine, I've become sort of paranoid since I started learning about all this stuff.  You’ll see me on the metro, hands pressed against the glass, nose at the window, ogling the rail-cars running alongside the tracks for the chlorine gas label.  

But we aren’t all doom and gloom here at Greenpeace.  The good thing about chemical facility security is that safer alternative chemicals do exist and are used by some companies.  This is actually a preventable and quite solvable homeland security problem.  As it is now written, the bill to be discussed at the hearing tomorrow by an Energy and Commerce subcommittee would require high risk facilities to assess and implement safer chemicals as a way to improve plant security. 

This provision is supported by the labor unions, the railroad industry and environmental organizations.  Not surprisingly, the majority of the chemical industry is opposed to safer technology.  Both sides have been lobbying Congress for years on this issue, and so far the industry has had their way with weak bills and no permanent legislation.    

So the hearing should be pretty exciting!  The witnesses who will share testimony include a well-known lobbyist from the American Chemistry Council, a front group for major chemical producers such as DuPont and Dow, and a homeland security expert from the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank.  The information they share will hopefully persuade members of the committee to keep the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act of 2008 alive and strong so it can keep moving to the House floor.    

Before embarking on their current world tour, Radiohead commissioned a study of the environmental tolls of their past two trips across the pond (the band hails from the UK). In an effort to reduce their tour’s eco-footprint, they now transport their equipment by ship rather than air-freight, use LEDs in stage lighting, and had two complete stage sets built – one for Europe and one for America – to cut down on carbon emissions from transporting gear even further. They also work with venues to make special parking available for fans who carpool to the show.

This last measure might be the most important. According to a recent Rolling Stone article, the report Radiohead commissioned found that:

97 percent of the environmental damage done by the group’s 2003 tour – nearly 10,000 tons of C02, the equivalent of 4,000 trans-Atlantic flights – was fan-related. The conclusion was so demoralizing that the group considered scrapping the tour altogether.

Thank god they didn’t cancel the tour! (I’ll be catching them when they play the Outside Lands Festival here in San Francisco!) But that doesn’t mean that they just decided it was out of their hands and to hell with the environmental cost. For instance, the carpooler parking lots they’ve negotiated can reduce the number of cars driven to shows by as much as 10%, according to the Rolling Stone article. And even cooler, Radiohead launched a whole website about the carbon footprint of their tour, where the band discusses the complexities of trying to run a green tour. There's even a carbon calculator that fans can use to determine the most environmentally friendly means of traveling to the show they plan on attending.

The Outside Lands Festival is happening in Golden Gate Park, so I’ll be riding my bike. Which makes me not the best test case for the carbon calculator, but I thought I’d share my results with you anyway:



This is the kind of creativity it’s going to take to stop global warming. We need to rethink everything we do as a society. Luckily, as Radiohead has demonstrated, there is no shortage of tools that we can use.

Who's being cute, Exxon?

While Exxon may have dropped some groups and is starting to admit that they "divert attention" CEO Rex Tillerson reverted immediately to type in comments made to the media after the shareholder meeting.

He duly trotted out the Bush/Exxon/Lee Raymond "more research" [therefore no action] line on climate, and  told the Canadian Financial Post 

"We have to let scientists to continue their investigative work, unencumbered by political influences. This is too important to be cute with it."

Excuse me?  "unencumbered by political influences"?  This is the company which spends millions on lobbying, which has spent $23 million on front groups to continue their climate denial.  Or is Exxon not a "political influence"? 

Yes, more research on climate is needed in all sorts of areas - but this is not an excuse for sitting on your hands, Mr Tillerson. If anyone is being "cute" it has to be your continued funding of 28 climate denial organisations. 

If Exxon had gotten its hands out of political influence on climate science back in the early 1990's,  things could be very different today. 

And speaking of cute,  check out Exxon's takeover of the new baseball park in Washington.

Unbelievable. 

Greenpeace and  Kimberly-Clark have announced the successful resolution of the Kleercut campaign as the maker of Kleenex has established a new sustainability policy focused on protecting Endangered Forests. Go to www.greenpeace.org/kleercut to find out more!

As we all know, Kimberly-Clark (largest tissue maker in the world) still refuses to stop destroying ancient forests for Kleenex.  

In April I attended the company shareholder meeting and when called to speak I highlighted the fact that I have worked on this campaign for over three years.  Every year in front of shareholders, the Kimberly-Clark (K-C) CEO stands to speak about company accomplishments and yet when it comes to issues of sustainability, K-C takes the tiniest of baby steps.  The baby steps don’t cut it when you look at the impact of Kimberly-Clark.  Each year they remove 342,000 metric tons of fiber from the Boreal forest--most of which was removed by clearcutting the forest.

Today activists decided to show how concerned they are with K-C’s ancient forest destruction for Kleenex, Scott and Cottonelle brands that are used once and then flushed.  Three activists launched a blockade of the New Milford, CT Kimberly-Clark facility that produces 40% of the American supply of Kleenex and Scott products.  While locking down to the gate used by large transport trucks another group of activists descended on the parking lot to distribute messages to employees.  On each car the activists left a fact sheet on the Kleercut campaign and a tree sapling with an attached note that read: “We know Kimberly-Clark can do better. Here is a start.”

We do know that Kimberly-Clark, at its core a paper company, can do better and it is time they start by working with us to protect the North American Boreal forest.  

- Lindsey

If you are interested in learning more please visit our Kleenex Free Schools project and take a look at our latest report on Kimberly-Clark’s destruction of the Kenogami forest in Ontario, Canada.

This is a very cool tool, courtesy of the Drexel University College Democrats, for keeping the pressure on McCain to release his energy policy. In 2000, Bush issued his own energy policy barely a month before the general election, leaving very little time for scrutiny of his proposals. Is McCain trying to pull a similar trick? Given that most of McCain's policies amount to a continuation of the Bush presidency, and Bush's policies have brought us the horribly unstable energy market we have today, it certainly would seem McCain is attempting to use a similar tactic to avoid scrutiny, given that, as of this posting, he has been running for more than 411 days.

John McCain has now been officially running for president this cycle for more than a year, and he has yet to put forward any concrete or specific policy proposals regarding America's energy challenges. I first noticed this some months ago, reading his issues pages and realizing that nowhere does he address energy issues. There is an environment page which is entirely devoid of policy proposals, and several places he refers to the importance of reducing reliance on foreign oil, usually in a national security context. But nowhere does he have any proposals to do that.

You can post the widget to your webpage/blog by visiting the above link and copying the embed code. While there, you can also check out the detailed breakdown of the energy policies laid out by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton that the Drexel Dems have compiled.

Exxon has admitted - for the first time - that the climate deniers it funds are causing problems for action on climate change.

This is a first for the company which has spent, since 1998, $23 million funding the climate denial industry. 

And it's official - Exxon made this statement in this year's Corporate Citizenship Report, released in time for its shareholder meeting. 

 The statement reads:

 "in 2008 we will distcontinue contributions to several public policy interest groups whose position on climate change could divert attention from the important discussion on how the world will secure the energy required for economic growth in an environmentally responsible manner."  (page 41 under "public policy research contributions."

"Could divert attention"?  We award Exxon a special prize for the Understatement of the Year.  The denial industry can be held responsible for the US's failure to act on climate. And Exxon has been at the heart of it for more than a decade. 

So which groups is Exxon dropping?  According to Reuters, gone from the funding list in 2008 are the George C Marshall Institute,  the Committe for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), Frontiers of Freedom... and others.  

These groups are what you might call the "engine room" of the climate denial industry.  

But even Exxon's walking away from them now. 

The company started dropping groups in 2006, with the Competitive Enterprise Institute being the first to go.  Last year, it dumped the Heartland Institute, which organised the biggest denial conference for a long time, in New York in March and has been running a slightly ridiculous campaign against Al Gore. 

 The other groups were all co-sponsors of the Heartland conference which concluded, surprisingly enough, that global warming isn't happening.

 We note that this announcement didn't come from the usual spokesman from Exxon, Ken Cohen, who chairs the company's funding committe, but from a new person.  Clearly the new CEO Rex Tillerson is trying to shift his company from the poisoned chalice left to him by former CEO and arch denialist, Lee Raymond. 

But is cutting nine groups getting the job done? 

In short, no.  From the 2007 Worldwide Giving Report, posted on Exxon's website on Friday, we can see that Exxon funded a total of 37 global warming denial groups, to the tune of nearly $2 million,  which is pretty similar to 2006. Even cutting nine of them means the company is still funding 28 groups engaged in climate denial. 

Tillerson needs to make a much wider sweep if he really wants to shake off Raymond's legacy - he has started, but we think he should apologise to the global community for the harm his company has caused.

1998 communications strategy groups finally seen off

The latest round of Exxon cuts means an end to the funding of the organisations who gathered together in 1998 to plot a communications strategy designed to foster public scepticism of climate science and undermine the Kyoto treaty. 

The plan was drawn up by a small cabal of groups and companies, including Exxon, Chevron and the big energy provider, the Southern Company, and Fred Singer's outfit, SEPP.  In there were also Frontiers of Freedom and the Marshall Institute, who have both enjoyed Exxon funding ever since. 

The memo stated that "Victory will be achieved when:

... average citizens "understand" (recognise) uncertainties in climate science; recognition of uncertainties become part of conventional wisdom;

..."Those promoting the Kyoto Treaty on the basis of extant science appear out of touch with reality."

Well, sorry guys,  while you may have achieved a certain level of climate scepticism, the IPCC's latest report is absolutely clear on the climate science - and governments are acting on it. 

Will this stop the denial industry?

 Well, no.  We note that Walt Buchholtz, Exxon's former funding man, left the company and went to work at Heartland for a year. No doubt he helped set up Heartland's new sources of funding from other members of the business community. 

There's still a ways to go, but it's a start. When companies like Exxon start questioning this lot, there's not a lot of people who will continue to support them. 

 

When I have time I love standing at the bow and watching the waves. Sometimes hundreds of flying fish rise up out of the water all at once and glide over the surface ahead of our ship for an astonishing distance before disappearing into the big blue. I'm always hoping to see dolphins but I haven't been as lucky as some of the crew - yet. We've seen quite a few birds too and even had a brown footed booby stay with us for 2 days. I was delighted to have an animal on board but the deck crew weren't happy about it at all. By the time the booby left I realised why... the deck underneath the mast at the bow was totally covered in bird poo.

Living and working on board is very different to being on land. Each day, before anyone starts their job - the toilets, showers, alleyways, mess, laundry and lounge all need to be cleaned and everyone is expected to share these duties. On Saturdays we give everything a special, big clean. Sakyo signed up to do the showers last Saturday while I was scrubbing the alleyways. The drains needed to be opened up and this brought out the most disgusting smell I have ever come across. I had to try really hard not resurrect my cheese toastie but Sakyo went right inside one of the showers and closed the door in order to give it a good clean. I thought he might actually die in there and was about to attempt a rescue operation when he surprisingly came out by himself - looking a dodgy shade of green I might add. If anyone is thinking of working on board a Greenpeace ship - my advice to you would be to avoid cleaning showers on Saturdays - at all costs.

Lately I've had a craving for orange juice but haven't seen any since I arrived on board so I went to ask the cook with the cutest face I could possibly muster and managed to get my hands on some grapefruit juice (a triumph in itself!). As I poured myself a cup of liquid gold I immediately attracted several other crew members towards me like honeybees to nectar. It's funny how so many things that you take for granted on land suddenly end up being a treasured rarity at sea. Last night I opened up the fridge and found a bottle of organic orange juice in there. I felt like I had won the jackpot on a slot machine! Perhaps there is an orange juice fairy on board who has finally granted me a wish I have been silently making every morning.

Another treat we had was when the folks on board from Japan and Korea made an Asian feast. I pitched in and Sakyo showed me how to make vegetarian sushi. It's actually a lot easier than I thought and we managed over 30 long rolls with different fishless fillings. The crew absolutely loved it and the cook enjoyed a well deserved evening off.

The ship has been getting a makeover while we've been on the move - and a lot of new paint has gone on (obviously it's important to look good while saving the planet!) but now we're all gearing up for action again. As I write this the paintbrushes are being packed away and Dingo, our helicopter pilot, is pulling the covers off Tweety.

I'd better go and get ready

             - Lisa 

A clear window into what happened to our democracy could be seen today as the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing, “Exploring the Skyrocketing Price of Oil,” with executives from BP, Shell, Chevron, Conoco Phillips and ExxonMobil.  I found it on C-Span.  Some of the highlights:

None of the executives could remember how much they make, although most admitted it was in excess on 2 million dollars.  They all did their best to look somber about the record high prices of oil and then went on to blame China, OPEC (remember that old boogeyman?) and most importantly, lack of access to new places to drill for oil to help make America energy independent.  These guys are paid enormous amounts of money to pretend they care about the pain the public feels when they tighten the screws on us.  Congress throws some theatrically tough questions and act concerned, although they don’t pay for the gas for their own limos.  You and I do.  So its sort of like Broadway except it seems the makeup artists use brooms.    

J. Stephen Simon, the Senior VP of ExxonMobil went through a series of arguments showing how dramatically the oil industry margins have been reduced.  By the end of his explanation it seemed that ExxonMobil was profitless, although thanks to public records we know that their profits were a record 40 billion dollars last year and are on pace to crush that record this year.  He spoke of working together to strengthen American competitiveness, advised us not to worry about the current “upcycle” (that was his euphemism for the sky high gasoline prices) and all the while whining about taxes.

All the executives stated directly or implied that the oil price crisis could be alleviated by giving them access to the last wild places where oil is still to be found in America: the Rocky Mountain Front Range, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and more coastal drilling.  If your grandmother had oil in her teeth they’d want those too.  The fact is that these sources take years to explore, destroy wild areas permanently and would only reduce the price of oil marginally.  But they would add handsomely to the oil companies’ profits.  It’s the perfect argument for the oil companies: they want more of the same, record profits, easy access to our lands and waters, continued subsidies of about 40 billion dollars a year for oil and gas (easy to remember as it is the same as ExxonMobil’s 2007 profits – and both are on track to go up in 2008), and blame the lack of access on the environmentalists.   

The fact is I am not against oil prices going up.  That is what is going to make us use less.  If oil prices were being driven up by a federal system that put a cap on the carbon that these and other companies bring into the economy and force them to buy credits to emit permitted amounts, the revenue from the credits would then go back to Americans, all Americans to help offset the higher energy costs – not drive profits higher.

The retiring head of Shell had a fun way to try and downplay the record profits.  He mumbled out something about the profits they are reporting being very large in absolute numbers but you have to look at the segments of our business, the upstream something or another, historic age of oilfields, marginal costs… 

I started to feel sorry for these guys, I felt less resentful of the 40 billion dollars in subsidies that we give these guys each year who can’t remember how many millions of dollars they are paid.  Heck, I felt like running down to the Hill and bringing them flowers.  After all, they got some pretty tough questions from the Senators.  To make matters worse, a protest kicked in, I could hear the voices in the back of the room while watching on my computer screen the faces of the witnesses as they heard somebody demanding that we separate oil and state  Dammed hippies insisting that the politicians stop taking campaign donations from the executives that they are supposed to protect Americans from, yeah, and wreck the whole game.

Pretty nuts… like enough to make you wanna take the bus.

 

 

Solomon Islands talk about the impact of overfishing on their country and their lives.

Today, HuffingtonPost's RFK Jr. and Brendan Demelle detail a revealing interview with Steve "Junk-for-Brains" Milloy in the Pittsburg Tribune-Review this week.

In the interview, Milloy talks about his current anti-corporate responsibility campaign against corporations who are better than the laggards at Exxon on global warming policy- which would be most of them at this point...Milloy is targetting General Electric, Alcoa, Fe-Ex and other movers to the left of Exxon on the climate consciousness continuum.

We at ExxonSecrets, remember that Exxon seeded Milloy's Free Enterprise Action Fund in 2003 with a $50,000 grant for "Research" to the Free Enterprise Action Institute, an organization that exists nowhere in the world except in Milloy's mind and on Exxon's World Giving Report documents.  Exxon followed this with a $70,000 grant in 2005 to the Free Enterprise Education Institute for "Corporate Social Responsibility and Climate Change" though this annotation did not appear in the public Exxon World Giving Report, only in Exxon's tax forms to the IRS...hmmm  but remember that Exxon dropped Milloy in 2006...so sad

Also of interest is the leading stock holding of Free Enterprise Action Fund is none other than Exxon at over 4% of stock held.

We also note that Milloy was scoffed at during a recent Wall St Journal green forum for trashing corporate leaders on climate policy.  Hopefully corporations will brush Milloy aside at their annual meetings this year, as you would an annoying gnat...

 

 

oceans campaigner.

Our work reaches out to the 20 Pacific Island countries in this region to move towards a sustainable and equitable fishery. I am from Fiji and as a Pacific Islander allow me to point out that the Pacific is about to hit a catastrophe with the global tuna industry that could see an end to our poor countries' economy and most importantly the livelihoods of my fellow pacific islanders.

Let me give you some shocking facts about the Pacific and I will tell you a bit about why Greenpeace is here in the Pacific and why we do what we do best and that is confront the truth, tell the world by bearing witness and speak the unspoken.

The Pacific contains the last relatively healthy tuna fishery left in the world. Most of our island countries have nothing else but their huge ocean resources to survive on both as an economic need and an important livelihood that most of our people depend on for survival. The ocean for us defines and makes us who we are and I see that this is slowly being taken away from us.

If you’re paying attention to the news today, you’ll have heard that the federal government decided to list the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).  What you’re probably not hearing is that this threatened listing comes with a huge exemption that effectively neuters any protections today’s decision could have brought to the polar bear.  What happened? The Interior Department will include an exemption so that federal agencies will not have to consider the impact of global warming pollution on the polar bear.  That’s like the Bush administration announcing it is going to stamp out lung cancer, but it’s exempting the impact of cigarettes in its plan.

Am I mad? You bet I am.  Once again the Bush administration is ignoring the science that is staring it in the face: global warming is threatening polar bears with extinction.   The federal government’s press release announcing the decision carried the headline, “Secretary Kempthorne Announces Decision to Protect Polar Bears under Endangered Species Act,” but it’s clearly mistitled and would have been more aptly written if it had said, “Secretary Kempthorne Announces Decision to Protect Oil and Gas Industry.”  Exempting global warming pollution caused by unabated oil and gas drilling spells doom for the polar bear, pure and simple.

I have been following this issue for quite some time, and I have seen firsthand the impacts of global warming in the Arctic. I’ve been in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea when the sea ice retreated so far offshore that a lone polar bear was stranded in open water, swimming for what little ice it could find in search of its ringed seal prey that were hundreds of miles away at the ice edge.   That bear was not long for this world, and the image haunts me every time I read another grim report about the plight of polar bears in our warming world.

The federal government’s own scientists predict that 2/3 of the world’s polar bears will be gone by mid-century, including all of Alaska’s polar bears, because of sea ice loss caused by global warming. Global warming is literally causing the polar bears habitat to melt out from under them, causing them to drown, cannibalize eachother, increase mortality in yearlings, etc.  The ESA is supposed to protect plants and animals from going extinct, yet our federal government is shirking its responsibility to the American people by looking the other way while global warming spells extinction for US polar bears.

I’m sure some of you are reading this and thinking that saving the polar bear is a laudable goal, but what’s more important is drilling for oil, jobs and the economy.  Consider these facts:

• The US will never be able to drill its way to energy independence since it has only three to four percent of global oil reserves, yet burns one-quarter of the world’s oil.

• The government of every other industrialized country on the planet is ratcheting back on its emissions of global warming pollution, without sacrificing jobs, their economies or their quality of life. Case in point: Europe is cutting back on global warming pollution, and the EU economy and Euro are walloping the dollar.

• The Arctic is a harbinger for things to come at lower latitudes. What we see now in the Arctic – unprecedented sea ice loss and species threatened with extinction – will not be limited to the Arctic.  Serious global warming impacts and species’ extinction will accelerate in the mid-latitudes as it is in the Arctic.

• Stalling action now means more disruption and economic cost down the line. It’s not just about polar bears and the Arctic, the entire country will benefit if the government replaces dirty sources of energy such as oil, gas and coal with cleaner, climate friendly forms of energy like solar and wind.  Conservation can go a long way toward cutting US energy needs as well.

I have to get back to work, but I’d be interested in hearing what folks think about today’s decision, and if you are getting the message that the threatened listing is nothing but a hollow victory for the polar bear.

I was on standby from 5.30am but it wasn't until 11.00am that we we finally got close to the reefer. Being on standby for that long really starts to get to you, The tension and the adrenaline really puts you on the line.

Boats were launched and we took off towards the reefer, radio contact was done already and Lagi our campaign leader came with us. When we arrived at the reefer some of our crew were welcomed on board. The captain and crew were very helpful and even our photographers were allowed on the reefer, which was really nice of the captain. I stayed in the inflatable for a while and bobbed alongside the ship for about 2 hours and then finally the radio contact was made asking me, my wantok Danny (from Papua New Guinea) and Sakyo (a Japanese activist) to also board the ship.

We managed to get on the boat without any mishap and I am still surprised that I actually climbed up that ladder because I am afraid of heights. But with the encouragement from my fellow crew on board the African Queen I managed to climbed up that ladder with shaky knees! Thank you Helena for your patience and encouragement from the rest of the team. We were invited to go down to the cooler which was half full with tuna of various sizes. We climbed down the ladder to document the cargo of tuna in there.

Being in the cooler, I got a close look at all the fish and it made me really sad because the smallest tuna that I could see was the size of my palm. No wonder there is a decline in the tuna stock because these foreigners took whatever size of tuna that they could get their hands on. I was filled with rage when I came out of the cooler I had to sit down for a while to get my emotions back together. In order for the Pacific to have tuna stocks for our children tomorrow we need to act now.

Images © Greenpeace/Paul Hilton

So i have to apologize for not posting recently.  Sadly, my time on the Esperanza has come to a close, for now.  I am back in Washington DC and watching the rest of the tour from here.  As the Esperanza continues to defend the Pacific, I will do my best to keep you all informed.  Let me know if there are questions you have about what I post and I'll do my best to get answers from the crew.  Stand by everyone, this fight is far from over! 

When I read in the NYT that there were reports being published in the prestigious journal Science showing that biofuels were actually creating more global warming pollution than conventional fuels, I was disappointed but not shocked. A lot of businesses had bought into biofuels, converting commuter, transport, and other vehicle fleets to run on biofuels, so it was disappointing to see that their efforts might have been wasted – or worse, anti-productive. But when you really think about it, adding a small percentage of (what was thought to be) more sustainably produced fuel to regular old fossil fuel is a pretty weak remedy for global warming in the first place.

Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) is based on an even more ludicrous premise: keep burning coal, the dirtiest energy source around, but take all of the pollution and bury it underground?!? It almost sounds like a bad joke.

Both of these technologies have the same obvious liability: they allow business as usual to commence rather than fostering the energy revolution our society and global ecology desperately need.

Sadly, the idea of CCS has gained traction as coal industry lobbyists have pressed hard on lawmakers in an attempt to cast CCS as a remedy for global warming, a ploy ultimately aimed at winning more federal subsidies for their clients. But, as a new Greenpeace report shows, there’s no way CCS can be functioning on a large scale soon enough to play a role in mitigating the climate crisis. And even if it was ready to go right now, there’s always the danger that our storage methods could be compromised. All it would take is a small leak to reverse the benefits of storing all that carbon underground.

That’s why we need to tell Congress not to throw our money at this unproven and risky technology.

To play devil’s advocate for a moment: Perhaps the best and only viable argument for developing CCS is that it could be a useful “bridging technology.” In their book The Hot Topic, Gabrielle Walker and Sir David King explain what that means thusly:

[CCS] has the great advantage that it can remove emissions from traditional fossil-fuel plants, thus buying the world some time to develop new low-carbon alternatives. CCS is likely to be especially important for countries like India and China, which are currently exploiting their vast coal reserves at an increasing rate to fuel extremely rapid economic growth.

It is true that China and India are currently developing several new coal plants, and will therefore get substantial amounts of their energy from coal for at least the next several decades. And if the emissions from those plants could somehow be captured and safely stored where they will do no harm, that would be a good thing. But CCS is still in very early stages of development, and there’s absolutely no guarantee that it will ever be a viable technology. It is certain, however, that it won’t help us stop global warming, which is why it is nothing more than a distraction from the real solutions. Our government should not be subsidizing its development with taxpayer dollars.

We have totally clean, renewable, and proven sources of energy available to us right now, like wind and solar. Every dollar our government spends on CCS is a dollar not spent on the truly clean technologies that will fuel the energy revolution, and we should not accept that.

 

Ahhhh, another good news for Exxon-bad news for the rest of us day...

The economy in shambles, food prices skyrocketing, gas prices at all time highs and going higher...at least Exxon is smiling.

Exxon's quarterly earnings report today turned out another record breaker - with $10.89 Billion, which works out to over $120 million a day and over $5 million an hour.

and what is Exxon spending all this loot on?

they tell us, don't worry they are exploring for more oil to sell to us, to make more record profits... what me worry?

oh, and they have been buying back their own stock at a record clip...they repurchased $8 billion in shares in the 1st quarter of 2008.

The quarterly profits announcement brought out the predictable calls for "windfall profits tax".  Even Barack Obama took a shot at Exxon's profits in a recent TV Ad

But then it turned up that Obama, Clinton and McCain have all gotten money from Exxon employees during the '08 election cycle, and ironically, Obama has seen the most!

Obama $23,550

Clinton $15,700

McCain $8,450

Exxon is right behind Koch Industries lead in total campaign cash doled out this cycle according to OpenSecrets.org

 

If you want to see if your Congressperson has recieved Exxon cash go here

So far 85% has gone to Republicans...go figure. 

In a new Greenpeace investigation of more than 500 congressional lobbying records of the chemical industry and allied businesses researchers identified 238 lobbyists who registered to lobby against strong chemical security legislation in 2007. With at total lobbying budget of $130 million dollars, Greenpeace estimates that the industry averaged about $1 million a month to forestall strong chemical security legislation.

The Greenpeace report, as well as supporting documents, can be found here

 

The report documents multiple layers of a quiet but extensive lobbying campaign to prevent strong regulations and to keep chemical users from switching to safer, more secure chemicals and processes. The report includes 20 trade associations such as the chemical manufacturer's American Chemistry Council (ACC) as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and 30 companies including Dow Chemical Company, and ExxonMobil and high priced lobby firms such as Hogan & Hartson.


Since 9/11, the chemical industry lobby has succeeded in delaying the enactment of permanent, comprehensive chemical security legislation. In 2006 a 740 word temporary law was enacted with the expectation that Congress would revisit the issue in 2007.

Jack Gerard, CEO of the ACC summed up the chemical lobby's agenda, “We believe the Department of Homeland Security should have the ability to put these regs in place. Let's let the dust settle, and then a few years down the road let's take a look at it."

In contrast the Association of American Railroads recently issued a strong statement on ultra-hazardous chemicals: "It is time for the nation’s big chemical companies to stop making the dangerous chemicals that can be replaced by safer substitutes or new technologies currently in the marketplace…And if they won’t do it, Congress should do it for them in the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act of 2008."

On March 6th, the House Homeland Security Committee adopted a comprehensive bill (H.R. 5577). The House Energy and Commerce Committee which is expected to take up this legislation soon and has scheduled a hearing for May 15th. To avoid a renewal of the hopelessly weak temporary statute, Congress must pass a permanent law this year.

Last night, as the sun was setting, I got my first glimpse of land in 3 weeks. When I woke up, I could see that we were passing islands. The Esperanza pulled into Honiara, Solomon Islands this morning. The ship and crew were greeted with a traditional welcome, which if I hadn't gotten a head's up earlier probably would have scared me, a little. In the challenge part of the welcome, island warriors wave long spears around and scream at you. The entire crew were led by the captain off the ship and the warriors continued screaming and waving the spears. The proper response to this challenge is to hold still and stare straight ahead without a reaction. After a few minutes of challenge, the warriors all walked to one side and the captain walked forward. We had passed the test. There was some press there and a group of men playing pan flute drums to greet us.

Gordon Darcey Lilo the Minister for Environment made a speech welcoming Greenpeace to the Solomons and recognized the work we have been doing in the Pacific Commons. And Joel (the Esperanza's Captain) also made a speech thanking the people of the Solomons for welcoming us.

Afterwards, all those that welcomed us came onboard for a press conference and a look around the ship. Photos from our work in the Pacific over the last few years hung in the helicopter hanger and people seemed to be really interested in them.

We're in Honiara for the rest of the week and there will be an official open boat on Saturday 10:00 to 5:00. If you are in the Solomons be sure to stop by and take a tour of the Esperanza!

Tissue giant Kimberly-Clark is spending $100 million on advertising to sell more Cottonelle toilet paper.  They’ve got some problems though.  First, Cottonelle has no recycled content and is made from ancient forests.  Second, their advertising campaign is ludicrously silly.  Someone decided a weird-looking dog-bus wearing a fake cable knit sweater should tour cities across North America to encourage people to “be kind to their behind” and buy Cottonelle toilet paper.  Seriously.

I’m not the only one who thinks the toilet-paper peddling dog-bus looks like the “Mutt Cutts” van from the Dumb and Dumber movie.  Can you tell which one is which?  Hint: the Mutt Cutts van looks less goofy!  Here it is: Mutt Cutts vs. “Mutt Butts.”

 

If you read this blog, you’ll know that Greenpeace greeted the toilet paper dog-bus on its first tour stop in New York City.  When it showed up in Philly, we were there again!

This time the mutant dog-bus was parked across from Independence Hall in Philadelphia.  Cottonelle-hawking marketers were inviting passersby to come aboard the bus to sit in a fake beach scene, (complete with sand and plastic drinks) and engage with spandex-clad trainers about rump exercises.  Remember, I’m not making this up!

Our activists changed their plans, unfurling a bright yellow “Forest Crime Scene” banner in front of the dog-bus.  The activists then began outreach to passersby, beating Kimberly-Clark at its own game.  Hundreds of people learned about Cottonelle’s connection to ancient forest destruction.  Ouch!

GET INVOLVED!
As the “Mutts Butts” bus tour continues, you can be part of the fun.  If you see the bus on the road, or think it is coming to your town, click here and let us know!

So far it’s Greenpeace 2, Mutt Butts bus: 0.  Stay tuned to the Treehuggers blog for more news!

-Rolf

At 8:30 this morning, I stood on the deck of the Esperanza staring out at a ship in the distance. We had spotted a fishing vessel in international waters and had sent a team to see if they were actually fishing. As the information came in, we learned that it was a purse seiner from the U.S. and it just started to pull in the net. Purse seine vessels surround schools of fish with curtain-like nets to catch tuna. A rope along the bottom of the net is pulled like a drawstring and the whole catch is hauled onboard. A purse seine net can be over one hundred meters long and catch up to 3000 tons of fish in one trip.

We launched the boats immediately and set off towards the U.S. vessel, Cape Finisterre, to give them the same message we had given the Korean fishing vessel, Olympus just a few days earlier. It’s time for international commercial fishing vessels to stop overfishing the Pacific Commons. As we approached, I could see the net being pulled in and loaded on the deck of the ship, it looked massive.

Henry and I, both from activists from the U.S., deployed a banner demanding “Pacific Marine Reserves Now!” as Lagi, our oceans campaigner from Fiji delivered the message via radio to the U.S. purse seiner Captain. The Cape Finisterre continued to pull in their net and reload their skiff (a small boat used to set and retrieve the net when fishing with a purse seine) and seemed to go about their business. We learned over the radio that the vessel would not be leaving the Pacific Commons. Alain, our boat driver moved the boat closer to the Cape Finisterre and Henry and I painted the side of the vessel with the words “Tuna overkill.”

I looked at the hull of the Cape Finisterre with mixed emotions. I was embarrassed because every country that fishes in this region has the scientific data that shows that bigeye and yellowfin tuna are in trouble and they chose to ignore the warnings - including the U.S.. And I felt proud to be here with Greenpeace taking action against overfishing in the Pacific Commons. It’s time for the Cape Finisterre and other ships like it know that the world is watching. We will not let their destruction the tuna population of the Pacific Commons go unreported.

This morning I woke up still pretty sore from spending a whole day in the RHIBS on the open ocean Wednesday. I glanced over at the alarm clock and realized I had more than an hour before I had to get up for breakfast. I looked out the porthole of my cabin and I could see the sky starting to turn bright pink. I could tell it was going to be a beautiful sunrise. I decided to stay in bed a little longer and my mind drifted back to our day of action on the South Pacific.

I thought about how fast the Koren purse seiner was moving next to our boats (doing almost 13 knots), about the fishermen watching us from the deck, the salt water spray that was pelting me in the face but my mind kept flashing back to the flying fish that were escorting us to the Korean purse seiner.

We launched the boats from the Esperanza with almost a 30 minute ride ahead of us. About half way through, a flying fish shot out of the water, flew for what seemed like forever and then shot back into the water. A few seconds later, a few more flying fish came up for a flight and dove back into the ocean. This continued for a while with varying size to the groups that joined us on our trip to the fishing vessel.

It felt good to have a few of the locals accompany us that morning. Being in the middle of the ocean, you can go for hours and sometimes days without any visible sealife. That morning, the flying fish were a nice reminder that we aren't just fighting for the tuna. That we are fighting for the health of this ocean and all of the things that live in the delicate balance of these eco-systems.

Flying fish are found in all the major oceans, mainly in the tropical and subtropical waters of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. Their pectoral fins are unusually large and what allows them to take flight above the water. The fish usually fly out of the water to escape from predators such as tunas, swordfish, mahi mahi and other larger fish.

 

Today I witnessed the kind of fishing practices that are threatening to drive the tuna fisheries in the South Pacific to near collapse. In a time span shorter than a normal day at work, I witnessed both a purse seiner and a FAD (Fish Aggregation Device) both set in international waters, both by foreign vessels.

At 9am, a Korean purse seiner appeared a short distance from the Esperanza. After Tweety went up to confirm the location and nature of the fishing vessel, we launched two boats and headed to the Korean purse seiner. Our Korean translator contacted the fishing vessel and informed them they must immediately leave the area we are defending as a no-take marine reserve. While the conversation appeared to be very polite, the only change I noticed was the vessel speeding up and the crew seeming to be getting their fire hoses ready. As the crew from the Korean ship came out on deck, we deployed banners demanding an end to the overfishing of the Pacific Commons. As we arrived back at the ship, the crew told us they had spotted a FAD while the boats were out with the Korean purse seiner. The boats were sent out once again, this time with a dive team ready to document the FAD.

Following the documentation, the Esperanza confiscated the FAD by hauling it onboard. This was no small feat as the FAD was more than 80 meters long.

While we have no idea how many of these devices there are out here, tonight we can all go to bed knowing there will be one less.

The seven hours I spent in the hot equatorial sun of the South Pacific have left me exhausted, a little bruised and very determined. I am grateful to be here in the South Pacific as the Esperanza fights to defend the Pacific Commons from overfishing.

Big news here in the South Pacific today. The president of Palau announced the Fisheries Protection Act of 2008. With an acknowledgment that large scale fishing operations are responsible for the decline of the world’s fish stocks, especially tuna, President Remengesau has proposed a bill that would protect migratory fish in Palau’s waters. The proposed bill would prohibit the commercial export of fish like tuna, billfish, and sharks from Palau and would ban foreign fishing vessels from Palau waters.

“If these activities are allowed to continue unchecked, the world faces the collapse of the marine ecosystem that supports the planet. It is Palau’s obligation as an international leader in environmental conservation to take this step,” the president said.

Catching these fish and exporting them on a non-commercial basis would still be allowed. And foreign fishing companies that already hold permits would be allowed to continue to fish until their agreements expire in 2012. Afterwards, no foreign fishing vessels would be allowed to enter Palau’s waters to fish.

President Remengesau hopes the bill will help leave these fish for the Palauan people and possibly develop the sport-fishing industry of Palau. But this is not the first time Palau has been a champion for oceans. In 2006, Palau signed into law a ban on bottom trawling and called for a moratorium on bottom trawling for the Pacific at the opening session of the United Nations Working Group on Marine Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction.

While the president acknowledges that the government might lose money when it loses its revenue from commercial permits in the beginning of 2012, it seems he is hoping it can be made up in donations.He thinks that the money will be made up in donations by environmental organizations. The proposed piece of legislation even sets up a trust fund to accept these donations.

Actually published April 13, 2008

We have finally left the Lautoka Wharf. I've only been with the ship for a few days at dock but I think I'm so anxious to start sailing that it has felt much longer. We took a RHIB out to photograph the departure of the ship and I was able to be crew for the short trip. We were only on the water for about an hour but I was grateful to be able to watch the ESPY pull away from the dock. Sunday is supposed to be day off for the crew so most people will do their own thing today. My bag arrived 2 hours before we had to be on the ship for customs. I'm thinking it's about time for me to finally get settled in my cabin.

John Javna’s original 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth, released in 1990, was a breakout bestseller. The book contained 50 eco-tips that were a revelation to many people who were just beginning to understand the severity of global warming and waking up to the environmental cause. But, according to Javna, the book ultimately might have been responsible for creating a certain sense of complacency about the problems we face:

Eco-tips alone can never have a significant impact on “saving the earth.” They’re baby steps—and if they don’t lead to something bigger, then we’re in a world of trouble. Literally.

The problem, as Javna saw it when he set out to remedy the situation in the 21st Century edition, which has just been released, was that the original 50 Simple Things “didn’t really educate people about the nature and extent of the environmental problems themselves.” Such a charge will never be leveled at this new edition of the book.

Javna partnered with 50 leading environmental organizations to create mini-primers on 50 of the most pressing environmental issues facing us today. He suggests that you don’t read the book straight through, but instead pick an issue you think you might be interested in working on and start there. The new 50 Simple Things lays out each problem, introduces you to the partner organization for that problem, and provides a basic road-map for action. (I just went ahead and read the book straight through anyway, because I really found it quite horrifying to read about all the problems we face and quite inspiring to read about all the dedicated groups working towards solutions. It was a good read.)

The new 50 Simple Things is still based on a pretty simple idea, and the book is easy to use. There’s really nothing simple about most of the solutions, of course, as the problems are fairly large and complex. And most of the solutions certainly won’t be easy to accomplish. But if even half the people who were inspired by the original 50 Simple Things are galvanized to action by the 21st Century edition, it could be a significant boon to the myriad organizations that make up the environmental movement today.

1Sky partnered with Javna to stop global warming.

Greenpeace partnered with Javna on the issue of pollution in our oceans:

The United Nations estimates that there are 46,000 pieces of plastic per square mile in the world’s oceans. Plastic bags in oceans kill a million seabirds and 100,000 sea mammals a year.

Visit www.50simplethings.com/ocean to learn more about the issue and how you can get involved with Greenpeace.

Help us protect our oceans!

I’ll be guest-blogging on the 50SimpleThings.com site very soon. I’ve also been promised a link to a site where Greenpeace members can get a discount on the book. To tide you over, check out the Greenpeace page on the 50 Simple Things site: “The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.” And check out all the other fantastic organizations and causes as well. Like John Javna says: “Just pick a spot and jump in.”

Actually published April 13, 2008

Last night was my first night onboard the Esperanza.  I arrived to the ship around 4 pm, it turned out they had actually pulled in earlier in the day and had been in Lautoka for a few hours already.  It was really nice to meet the people that I will be living and working with for the next month and to see a few familiar faces from time I have spent on the ships before.  After dinner, I tried to keep my eyeballs open for a few more hours in an attempt to get over my jet lag.

This morning, I woke up, went out onto the deck for a bit and read. As ports go, Lautoka is beautiful and it was a really nice place to start my day. After breakfast, everyone that was just joining the ship met up for introductions and then we got a tour of the ESPY. The ship seems so big and kind like a maze to me at this point.

I've spent the last few hours on the phone trying to track down my luggage. The ship is set to depart on Saturday and I'm really hoping that I'm able to get my bag by then. Otherwise, I might have to spend some time tomorrow exploring my options for clothing in Nadi.

Actually published April 13, 2008 

I finally arrived in Fiji this morning! My flight was delayed a bit and wouldn't you know it, despite a 4 hour layover in LA my bag didn't make it onto the plane to Nadi. That aside, I was very happy to land here in Fiji and even happier to have one of my colleagues here in Fiji at the airport to pick me up. The Esperanza is set to pull into Lautoka this afternoon and I'm very excited to see her. I've spent a little time on the Arctic Sunrise but this will be my first time setting eyes on the Esperanza. I've been dreaming about her for weeks.

After a short drive to Lautoka, I was dropped me off at the hotel so that I could make an attempt at getting rid of my jet lag before the rest of the crew showed up. I had a small breakfast at the little restaurant they have at the hotel and then went back to room for some much-needed shuteye. I woke up a few hours later and decided to head into town. I was looking to see if I could exchange some money and maybe buy something a little lighter than a black dress to wear until my luggage arrives.The town of Lautoka is a busy town with plenty of places to shop, tourist centers, jewelry stores and restaurants. The people are incredibly friendly and it's not unusual for visitors to be greeted with a “Bula” as they pass on the street.

I'll be joining the Esperanza for the next few weeks. This is my first time onboard one of our ships for more than a week or so and I just can't wait. I can remember being in High School and my sister and I sitting on our beds thinking of ways we could convince Greenpeace to let us on one of their zodiacs.Fifteen years later, here I am about to join one of our ships. I can’t find the right words to describe exactly how I'm feeling but I promise to my best to describe it over the next few weeks.

If you’re concerned about global warming and want to do something about it, Joseph Romm’s Hell and High Water: Global Warming – the Solution and the Politics – and What We Should Do (HarperCollins, 2007), is a fantastic primer.

Romm starts off by discussing what the best scientific models predict will happen to our planet if global warming goes unchecked for the remainder of the 21st century – hence the title, Hell and High Water, since we’ll probably see rising sea levels and recording flooding coupled with record droughts and uncontrollable wildfires.

The second half of the book discusses global warming solutions. Romm clearly and concisely details the technologies and policies we need to adopt to avoid the worst consequences of global warming and, along the way, dissects the rhetoric used by Republicans and conservatives to continually deny global warming is a serious problem (and somehow still be taken seriously) in order to delay any kind of meaningful action.

Rather than rehash Romm’s arguments, since you can read them for yourself, I’d like to share a few ideas I had while reading the book. I found the chapters on global warming rhetoric to be the most interesting.

Even Republican messaging guru Frank Luntz admitted, in a 2002 memo, that “The scientific debate is closing” against the Republican position on global warming. Since they can’t possibly prove the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community is wrong, they have to rely on obfuscating and creating doubt around the issue. As long as the public has any doubt left in their minds, they are going to be okay with delaying action.

Here are some ideas for reframing the global warming debate that were suggested to me by Hell and High Water:

•    Skeptics = Deniers

“Skeptics” is a term that makes it sound as if the viewpoint that global warming is not caused by humans and/or is not a serious problem is actually legitimate. Romm prefers to call them Delayers and Denyers, which implies they are denying reality and delaying the inevitable, and I think that is a very valuable tactic. (Minor quibble: I would personally rather spell it Deniers; not sure if Romm’s spelling is the British version or what, but “deniers” is actually a word, whereas “denyers” isn’t.)

•    Climate Change = Global Warming

Luntz encourages his devotees to always use the phrase “Climate Change” because it “sounds less frightening than global warming.” Well, it is in fact a frightening situation. I’m not saying we should use fear to persuade the public – that is another Republican tactic – but Global Warming does indeed connote the severity of the situation. It denotes that something is being done to the planet, whereas Climate Change is more passive and sounds like something that would probably be happening anyway.

•    Sound Science = Politicized Science or Science Fiction

Republicans like to use the term “Sound Science” as often as possible in order to give the impression that that is what they are basing their views on. But there is no reason to deny the existence of global warming except for political or monetary gain. The arguments the Deniers are peddling are not based on science at all, they are pure fiction.

•    More research/New technological breakthroughs are needed = We can’t afford to wait

As far back as 2001, Donald Kennedy, editor-in-chief of Science, said: “Consensus as strong as the one that has developed around this topic [Global Warming] is rare in science.” There has been exhaustive research done on the causes and effects of Global Warming, and the overwhelming consensus is that humans are heating the planet and that this will have extremely dire repercussions for the planet and all of the creatures living on it. What’s more, we have the technology needed to begin drastically lowering the amount of greenhouse gases we are releasing into the atmosphere. What’s really needed is the political will to implement progressive emissions standards and clean technologies, because we can not afford to wait any longer before taking bold and decisive action. The truth is that if we don't implement some sort of emissions caps and cleaner energy standards now, far more restrictive and onerous regulations will be required in the future when the situation has become more dire.

The scientific community has been identifying the causes and predicting the effects of Global Warming for decades now. Those predictions have been consistently reliable. There is no longer any room for doubt and, unfortunately, no time left for debate.

Tissue giant and forest destroyer Kimberly-Clark launched a $100 million advertising blitz for its Cottonelle brand last week – and activists were there to greet them on the first day.

The set-up was as silly as it was expensive: Cottonelle paid for a eerie-looking mutant dog-bus filled with public relations hacks to tour New York City and tell people how to “be kind to your behind.”  Don’t ask me what dogs have to do with toilet paper.  Last time I checked…oh, nevermind.

Anyway, things didn’t go as planned.  Before long, people began asking the Cottonelle reps about their ties to ancient forest destruction.  Cottonelle’s day spiraled down the drain from there.  Click here to see photos of the day.

Activists unfurled a banner in front of the mutant dog-bus and told passersby how Kimberly-Clark products like Cottonelle and Kleenex drive the destruction of ancient forests.  People learned that Cottonelle contains no recycled content, but plenty of wood fiber from the Canadian Boreal forest – the last great ancient forest in North America.  They learned that the Boreal forest is crucial for efforts to fight global warming, critical habitat for caribou, songbirds and bears, and important to Canada’s native First Nations.  They also learned Kimberly-Clark could make Cottonelle from recycled fiber and sustainable wood, but favors spending cash on butt-themed advertising campaigns and greenwashing.

Suddenly, Cottonelle didn’t seem very “kind” to forests, the climate or people.  Folks on the street agreed to keep Cottonelle far from their behinds.  After all, there are plenty of other quality tissue products that are forest friendly (click here for a list).

New York City commuters have expressed disgust over Cottonelle’s toilet-themed ads that literally line the interior of subway cars with headlines like “Too Much Bran?” and “The Average Man Keeps His Underwear Until the Elastic Breaks.”  That’s not what I want to think about during rush hour.

Throwing Cottonelle’s adolescent attempts at bathroom humor back at them, activists donned boxer briefs with slogans such as “Be Kind to Forests” and “Leave Cottonelle Behind.”  Onlookers were amused -- even the famous Times Square “Naked Cowboy” got into the spirit, posing for photos holding a pair of shorts stating: "Leave Cottonelle Behind."

When the day was over, forest defenders left behind literature on Cottonelle tour vehicles (printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper of course) to educate their public relations staff.

Here’s more good news: the Cottonelle toilet paper dog-bus is scheduled to tour cities in the US and Canada for next few months, including Philly, Chicago, Toronto and San Francisco.  Here’s how you can help:

1. Keep your eyes out for Cottonelle ad blitzes and the mutant dog-bus!  Let us know if you spot the bus or think it is coming to your town.

2. If you see the bus, stop by and talk to Cottonelle reps (in a respectful manner, of course) about their role in ancient forest destruction.  Tell them you, your family and your friends won’t buy Cottonelle, Kleenex, or other Kimberly-Clark products until the company protects ancient forests.

3. Take action at our new Kleenex website.  Click here to send a message to Kimberly-Clark, upload photo messages, design your own spoof Kleenex box and more! 

The story of Greenpeace versus the forest destroying dog-bus has just begun.  Stay tuned!

-Rolf
 

If you’re a parent with school age children, a student, or a teacher, there’s a new way you can stand up for ancient forests: make your school Kleenex Free.

If you’ve participated in our Kleercut campaign before, you know tissue giant Kimberly-Clark, the maker of Kleenex, Cottonelle, Scott, Viva and other products, destroys ancient forests to make its disposable tissues.  Flushing away ancient forests doesn’t make sense – a grade school student could tell you that!

Of particular concern is the Canadian Boreal forest – the largest ancient forest left in North America.  Kimberly-Clark has a long history of gobbling up ancient forests in the Boreal to make its throw-away products.  In the process they’re chopping apart habitat for woodland caribou, wolverines, songbirds and many other animals.  They’re also cutting into the largest storehouse of carbon on land – something we can’t afford to do if we want to curb global warming.

People are also affected.  About 80% of Canada’s native First Nations are dependent on the Boreal forest for their livelihood and cultural survival.  Many parts of the Boreal are being logged without their input or consent.

So, Kimberly-Clark is earning a failing grade in a lot of basic subjects.  Thankfully, there are plenty of high quality forest friendly tissue products to choose from.  Check out our tissue buying guide to learn more.
 
The other good news is that there are new ways for students, parents and school faculty to teach Kimberly-Clark a lesson.

You can show Kimberly-Clark how you feel about forest destruction. We've unveiled a new online tool so you can send a photo message directly to the company.

Start your own Kleenex Free Schools project today by downloading our new toolkit – a resource guide with tips and info to help you make your school more forest friendly.

All of this and more is available on our new website.

Click here to spread the word to friends, family and colleagues.  If we work together, we can help Kimberly-Clark finally earn a passing grade!

-Rolf