Serious climate issues are often shrouded in complicated and arcane scientific and political language.  This makes it easy for corporate polluters to disguise their agenda and intentions when talking about climate and energy policy.  Below is a letter polluters sent to decision-makers this week urging them to increase the number of international offsets in climate legislation.  I’ve taken the liberty of translating it for you.  Read on to see what they’re really saying.

Also note the list of companies signing the letter.  Among them are many huge polluters such as Duke Energy, Dominion, Exelon and American Electric Power – the company that was a focus in the recent Greenpeace Carbon Scam report.

But also on the list is Intel, a company that strives to associate its brand with innovation and the future.  Why are they associating themselves with some of the biggest, most backwards polluters in the country?  Good question.  You can read more about how Intel stacks up against other tech companies on our Cool IT Challenge campaign site.

Anyway, read on…

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Re: The Importance of International Offsets for U.S. Climate Change Mitigation Efforts

Dear Senator Kerry, Senator Graham, and Senator Lieberman:

We, the undersigned, are companies that employ hundreds of thousands of American workers, and serve hundreds of millions of American consumers. We expect that our companies would be affected significantly by any greenhouse gas regulatory program. We write today to communicate our firm belief that in order for any such program to be both environmentally effective and economically sound it should be market-based and incorporate both domestic and international offsets. To this end, we are concerned about the further restrictions on use of international offset credits in S. 1733, reported last week by the Environment and Public Works Committee.

TRANSLATION: We are some of the biggest, richest polluters in the world and we have a lot invested in dirty business.  If you pass climate legislation without huge loopholes for us, we’re going to be very upset.  One of the most important loopholes we want are carbon offsets – cheap vouchers that allow us to side-step cutting our pollution with the rationale that someone else, somewhere else, will cut pollution instead.  Sure, the legislation in Congress already has massive subsidies for us and billions of tons of offsets in it, but we are still not happy.  We always want more.

The cost containment provided by international offsets is dramatic and critical. Every major study of greenhouse gas regulation has reached this conclusion. The Environmental Protection Agency’s analysis of the Waxman-Markey bill found that the costs of the cap-and-trade program would increase by 89% without international offsets. By cutting the costs of a cap-and-trade program almost in half, international offsets preserve U.S. jobs and U.S. competitiveness.

TRANSLATION: Outsourcing jobs saves us a lot of money.  Likewise, we want to outsource investments in green jobs and cleaner skies we would otherwise have to make to cut our own pollution.  It’s just so much cheaper for us to do it overseas.  If we have to do it here in the U.S., it will cut into our giant profits too much.  For example, the last American Electric Power quarterly profits rose 18% over last year to $443 million due to “higher rates charged its utility customers” despite lower demand for electricity.  We don’t need investments in green jobs and cleaner skies eating into that.  We want to keep our pockets well lined, thank you very much.

Until low-carbon technologies are widely available, U.S. companies need to have the ability to pay for low-cost, readily-available reductions wherever they may be found, which includes other countries. Put another way, allowing U.S. companies to invest in at least some reductions abroad, makes it possible to continue production here, allowing for a gradual transition of the U.S. economy to a low-carbon future. At the same time, international offsets give U.S. companies new export markets for low-carbon technologies made in this country.

TRANSLATION: We already have the technologies needed to dramatically reduce climate pollution, but we don’t want to pay for them.  We’d rather pretend that some miracle technology like “carbon capture and sequestration” will magically become effective and affordable in the future…and that we can’t take real action to clean up our acts until then.  Allowing U.S. polluters to buy their way out with cheap international offsets will allow us to slash investments in green jobs in the U.S. and continue to pollute American skies.  We want to avoid climate action as long as possible, so we can pass the buck to future generations of Americans.

International offset policies also offer an opportunity to address the serious problem of tropical deforestation, which causes 20 percent of carbon dioxide emissions annually and threatens the survival of more than half of the world’s plant, insect, and animal species. International offsets therefore offer a win-win situation; they make it possible for the U.S. to address critical global environmental issues, while saving jobs here.

TRANSLATION: By taking credit for “avoided deforestation” projects, we can really side-step American green job/clean tech investments.  That’s because avoided deforestation offsets would be among the cheapest and most abundant in the world.  Why build windmills and invest green jobs in the American Heartland if we could – for much less – pay to keep trees standing in, say, Bolivia?  It’s super cheap, we get to keep polluting, and we’ll have money left over to run TV commercials showing pretty rainforest animals we’ll claim to be saving.  This is the ultimate greenwash, and if you’re lucky Senators, we’ll let you in on it.

It is important that any international offsets are as environmentally rigorous as domestic offsets, which means that offsets from other countries should be subject to review by the relevant agencies. International offset credits subject to such review should not be subject to any arbitrary discounts or other barriers, which can only diminish their cost containment potential.

TRANSLATION: For years, evidence has mounted showing offsets often don’t deliver what they’re supposed to.  So, we have to pretend to be really concerned about the quality of offsets.  But, what we really want is universal green stamp of approval that will make people believe our offsets are 100% reliable so we can trade them in carbon markets and make buckets of money.  Don’t set up standards that are too tough -- just tough (and confusing) enough for people to believe in them.  Carbon markets could be worth trillions of dollars in coming years!  We want our carbon cake and want to trade it too!

Finally, we believe that well-designed international offset policies can play a vital role in encouraging other countries to adopt appropriate limits on their emissions, which will further limit the competitiveness impacts of climate legislation on the U.S. economy. International offsets are a necessary component of our diplomatic efforts.

TRANSLATION: Polluters in developing countries don’t want to change their ways either.  By counting offsets as a replacement for real U.S. pollution cuts AND counting them as cuts in developing countries, we really game the system.  It’s called “double-counting.”  Nothing like a little creative accounting to confuse the situation and make it look like we’re doing more than we are to address global warming.  And, if anyone asks you, just tell them you’re doing this to “protect American competitiveness.”  That always works.

For these reasons, we strongly urge you, as you consider cap-and-trade legislation, to ensure that the program protects the vital cost-containment role of international offsets, and avoids any arbitrary barriers to the use of such credits.

TRANSLATION: We’re watching you.  And the 2010 elections are right around the corner.  We’re making our campaign contribution list right now.  Don’t mess this one up for us, or there will be hell to pay!

Sincerely,

Alpha Natural Resources, American Electric Power, DTE Energy, Dominion, The Dow Chemical Company, Duke Energy, DuPont, El Paso Corporation, Exelon, Southern Company, FPL Group, Intel, International Paper Company, NRG Energy, National Grid, PG&E Corporation, PNM Resources, Rio Tinto

Sorry, folks, the Supreme Court must have been wrong about CO2 being an air pollutant.  I stumbled upon the Truth in the form of this half-page ad in Monday’s Washington Post:

Not only is there no scientific evidence that CO2 is a pollutant, higher CO2 concentrations actually help ecosystems support more plant and animal life… Higher levels of CO2 result in more plant growth as well as less water being required for plants to grow faster and larger.  In fact, we all exhale CO2 and enjoy it in our carbonated beverages.

This blows my mind.  I don’t even know how to categorize this latest piece of big-oil-funded misdirection. Junk science? Botany for third graders? Blatant untruthiness? 

CO2isgreen, Inc., the non-profit “with questionable parentage” that funded the ad, has already been called out twice in the blogosphere - once by Grist.org and again by Scienceblogs.com.  Miles Grant correctly points out H. Leighton Steward’s position as an honorary director at the American Petroleum Institute, recently in the news for staging astroturf campaigns, as well as his connection to numerous big oil companies:

He’s also a director at EOG Resources, an oil and gas company, a position in which he earned a whopping $617,151 last year. Steward is formerly head of Burlington Resources, now a part of ConocoPhillips) and former Chairman of the U.S. Oil and Gas Association and the Natural Gas Supply Association. Not a word about any of that in his bio on the site.

The one connection that Grant missed is that Steward is currently Chairman of the Board of The Institute for the Study of Earth and Man at SMU, which has received $76,500 since 1998 from everybody’s favorite greenhouse gangster, ExxonMobil.

James Hrynyshyn paints a softer picture of Steward after talking to him on the phone, describing him as “earnest,” and insisting:

…he's not a dupe of Big Oil trying to pull the wool over our eyes. At least, not consciously… He simply doesn’t doesn't accept the mountains of evidence that carbon dioxide is a significant greenhouse gas, and that small changes in its atmospheric concentration can have a big impact on climate.

Forgive my cynicism, but if it looks like big oil, works for big oil and gets paid by big oil, then it must be an earnest Joe with a penchant for taking out half-page ads in major news publications.

If we are going to base our science on experiments carried out by 8-year-olds, let us discuss these carbonated beverages that we so much enjoy.  It has long been known that carbonated beverages rot your teeth, due primarily to the carbonic acid, which forms when CO2 is dissolved in water. More CO2 in the air means more CO2 in the water.  The resulting acidification is rotting our oceans:

Almost half of all the carbon dioxide emitted since industrialization has been absorbed by the ocean. [Acidification] deprives animals like hard corals and certain mollusks and plankton of the raw material for their calcium carbonate shells and skeletons. This may ultimately cause the world’s oceans to become corrosive to such animals, and coral reefs to dissolve.

The science of our carbon burden is clear.  What is unclear is whether world leaders gathered in New York for a UN summit on climate change can be convinced to act in the interest of the many and the future rather than the few and the now.

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'

 

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

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.

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.

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

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