Greenwash spill at the BP-sponsored National Portrait Gallery, London

greenwashguerillas — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 13:24:42 +0000

On 22nd June 2010 at 6.07 PM the London brigade of the Greenwash Guerrillas got a call from a panicked pedestrian outside the National Portrait Gallery. It seemed that the prizegiving ceremony for BP Portrait Award was about to start, and toxic greenwash had begun to gush uncontrollably from the gallery’s front doors.

Arriving on the scene, armed with the latest in greenwash detecting equipment and wearing protective biohazard suits, the Guerrillas immediately identified several sources of the leak. Greenwash levels appeared to be the strongest anywhere a bright green BP logo was to be found: from the massive banners fronting either side of the grand entrance, to the microscopic embroidery on a security guard’s lapel. The Guerrillas were given the run-around by gallery security and the Metropolitan police, who escorted Britain’s cultural establishment into the awards ceremony first at the front, then around the side, then back at the front entrance again.

By 7 PM, everyone had convened at the front entrance, and the Guerrillas set to work to contain the leak, quarantine the area, and warn attendees against entering the building. Many clean-up efforts were tried, from throwing golf balls and old tires at the leak to trying to plug it with mud, but for some reason the spill just kept gushing. Meanwhile, some Guerrillas attempted to arm the attendees – most of whom, inexplicably, were determined to enter the contaminated building – with information about BP, oil industry sponsorship of the arts, and the best way to protect themselves from greenwash.

Despite the best efforts of the Guerrillas, greenwash unfortunately continues to spew forth from the BP-sponsored National Portrait Gallery and countless other oil-sponsored arts institutions across London. But resistance is growing, and this summer might just be remembered as the tipping point in the campaign to free art from oil.

More info:
Rising Tide

Art Not Oil

Press release

What’s the problem?

BP’s sponsorship of the National Portrait Award is greenwash – a way of cleaning up BP’s tattered public image and covering up its shocking environmental and human rights record.

Greenwash is as toxic as oil. With it, BP buys our approval, and hopes we’ll forget about the gusher in the Gulf, the 300 000 lives already lost each year due to climate change, and the fact that the company is poised to enter the Canadian tar sands – the most destructive project on earth.

Every pound the National Portrait Gallery accepts from BP is tainted. In response to changing public opinion, cultural institutions eventually decided that it was no longer in their best interests to take money from the tobacco industry. It’s high time we kicked Big Oil out of our galleries too.

Art Not Oil visits Shell-sponsored Oedipus

greenwashguerillas — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 13:04:52 +0000

On Wednesday 15th October Art Not Oil made it’s first visit to the National Theatre to highlight Shell’s sponsorship of the autumn production of Oedipus. Shell is sponsoring the National Theatre’s new production of ‘Oedipus’, and, unsurprisingly, Art Not Oil is preparing a response on various fronts. We’re asking people if they’re up for making an artwork of some kind as a response This could be an image, song, film or poem to appear on our website, or to be printed on a postcard or something similar. We’re open to ideas. (Unfortunately, we aren’t able to pay for your work, but we have no wish to possess it!) If this is of interest, we’d love to see it as soon as possible, as ‘Oedipus’ runs until January 2009 only.

More information about Art not Oil and Shell’s sponsorship of Oedipus

Greenwash Guerrillas Embarrass E.ON

greenwashguerillas — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:20:25 +0000

This morning, Climate Campers and friends, including Rising Tiders, put a fresh dent in E.ON’s tarnished reputation with a Greenwash Guerrillas demo outside the UK Guardian Climate Change Summit, which E.ON are sponsoring.

Protected by toxic waste hazard suits and brandishing a top-of-the-line range of greenwash detecting devices, the 40 intrepid Greenwash Guerrillas swarmed around the building (the Business Design Centre in Islington, whose marketing managers were not best pleased at their presence and who might think twice about working with a climate criminal like E.ON in future), making sure that every delegate who entered knew about E.ON’s attempt to build the first new coal fired power station in the UK for thirty years at Kingsnorth, in Kent (site of this year’s Camp for Climate Action, which has other plans – like leaving fossil fuels in the ground!).

Some delegates happily took in bottles of (http://www.ev-eon.com) Ev-eon water (carbon capture in a bottle, the latest techno-fix here to save the day!), and ended up taking a little piece of subversion into the belly of the E.ON-sponsored beast. At one point, the word went out that greenwash had reached maximum toxicity levels, and some of the guerrillas temporarily succumbed in a mass die-in. The sounds of the Pedals pedal-powered sound system soon revived them, however, and the guerrillas went back to sucking greenwash out of the building and chatting to largely receptive passers-by and largely sheepish delegates.

One guerrilla was heard to say: “This summit is greenwash of the highest toxicity. E.ON is spending a lot of money trying to paint its dirty deeds as green. Those really concerned about climate change will be confronting their lies, at conferences and offices in London, at the (http://www.climatecamp.org.uk) Camp for Climate Action at Kingsnorth this August, and wherever else E.ON is committing climate crimes”.

After 1000 leaflets had been handed out and the ‘E.ON’s Greenwash Won’t Wash’ and ‘Caution: Toxic Greenwash Hazard’ banners rolled away (to be used another day, should any company ever be crazy enough to accept sponsorship from E.ON again), the guerrillas outmanoeuvred the police to have a debrief and late breakfast in the sunshine at a nearby park. Just as they were preparing to leave, a huge cheer went out: Oxford climate campers had occupied the roof of the London head office of Edelman, E.ON’s recently hired PR company!

Original Post

Join the Greenwash Guerrillas to show that E.ON’S greenwash won’t wash!

Wednesday, 16th July, 8.15 AM, London

Just two weeks before the Camp for Climate Action at Kingsnorth, E.ON are sponsoring a climate summit designed to help industry leaders ‘keep stakeholders engaged’. Just like their plans for ‘clean coal’ at Kingsnorth, this is greenwash of the highest toxicity: a laughable-if-it-weren’t-so-tragic attempt to distract us from the fact that E.ON are planning to build the first coal-fired power station in the UK for over thirty years. And that, in a time of unprecedented climate crisis, is an unacceptable insanity.

This hot-air-fest cannot pass without a visit from… the Greenwash Guerrillas!

Don a white painter’s suit and come on down to the Business Design Centre in Islington to join a crack team of greenwash detectors. We will be cordoning off the area and warning summit delegates about the high levels of toxic greenwash leaking from the building. (We suspect its source to be E.ON Managing Director Bob Taylor, who’s got a top spot on the panel.) To get a sense of what the demo will be like, check out the Greenwash Guerrillas in action.

This should be a fun, subversive demo, with the Camp for Climate Action, Rising Tide, People and Planet, Earth First! and WDM all helping to spread the word. Join us and help show E.ON that our actions won’t be confined to Kingsnorth this August. Climate Campers will go wherever we need to and do whatever it takes to shut down Kingsnorth – permanently.

Where: Business Design Centre, 52 Upper St, London N1 0QH

When: Wednesday, 16th July, meet 8.15AM in front of the Business Design Centre

Bring if you can: a white painter’s/boiler suit and any home-made greenwash detecting devices you can think up (eg. part of an old hoover, a remote control, a hair dryer painted green – get creative!) If you can’t bring these things, not to worry, extras will be on hand.

More info: info@climatecamp.org.uk / 07961 917 535

(Get in touch if you’re coming from out of town and need accommodation the night before)

Leaflets are available to help spread the word about the day – see here for copies

Greenwash Guerrillas Pie Thomas Friedman on Earth Day

greenwashguerillas — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 19:10:18 +0000

New York Times columnist, war-monger, and Greenwasher extraordinaire Thomas Friedman gets pied while speaking at Brown University last week. Read on for the press release!

April 28th, 2008
For Immediate Release:
Contact: Colonel Custard (aka the corporate criminal creamer)
Greenwash Guerillas: contact@GreenwashGuerrillas.org
Footage available: www.GreenwashGuerrillas.org

Greenwash Guerrillas Pie Thomas Friedman at Brown University
YouTube Censors Video; Pie Thrower Faces University Disciplinary Procedures

Providence, RI – New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman was pied by the Greenwash Guerillas while giving an Earth Day Lecture at Brown University. The Greenwash Guerillas targeted Thomas Friedman because of his support for U.S. military intervention in the Middle East, neo-liberal economic policies that harm the world’s poor, and especially for promoting bogus solutions to the global climate crisis.

“We sought to expose the hypocrisy of allowing Friedman, who is known for his influential support of U.S. wars for oil in the Middle East, to call himself an environmentalist,” explained Greenwash Guerrilla Margaree Little. “He has blood on his hands that no amount of ‘green’ can wash away.”

Little, a Brown University student identified as one of the pie throwers, faces University disciplinary hearings, potentially including expulsion. Colonel Custard, the second pie thrower, remains at large.

Little and Custard jumped on stage as Friedman began his talk, entitled “Green is the new Red, White & Blue.” The talk focused on how green technology and corporate environmentalism can restore the United States to its “natural place in the global order.”

They tossed two green-colored cream pies at Friedman and dashed off as leaflets denouncing Friedman were thrown to the crowd. According to the pamphlets, “On behalf of the earth and all true environmentalists – we, the Greenwash Guerillas, declare Thomas Friedman’s ‘Green’ as fake . . . as the cool-whip covering his face.”

The Greenwash Guerillas object to Friedman’s support for nuclear power, coal power, industrial biofuels, and carbon trading markets. “These false solutions are smokescreens, intended to generate massive corporate profits while creating global humanitarian and environmental disasters,” said Colonel Custard.

Video of the pie throwing incident was posted on YouTube, and received close to 70,000 views in 36 hours, making it one of the most popular videos on the site. Without notice, YouTube abruptly censored the video, removing it from the website. Hundreds of news outlets, blogs, and websites had linked to the video. The Greenwash Guerillas have reposted the clip at: www.GreenwashGuerrillas.org

“Given the many other pieings on YouTube(1), the removal of the video can only be understood as an act of political censorship,” said Little. “It’s a sad commentary on how free we are to speak when confronting power.”

“The Greenwash Guerillas chose the harmless and humorous tactic of pie-throwing because our goal was to take this perpetual charlatan off his new green pedestal,” said Colonel Custard. “Friedman’s support for coal and nuclear power is as misguided as his counsel on Iraq.”

This is the second time Friedman has been hit by a pie. In October 2002, he received a banana pie to his face while promoting his writings on free-market globalization in Boston.

Footnote:

(1) e.g., http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/webscout/2008/04/thomas-friedman.html

# # #

Greenwash Guerrillas Target Portland Oregon’s Climate Trust on Fossil Fools Day

greenwashguerillas — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:55:34 +0000

With a bouquet of heart shaped balloons, a group of Portland-area climate activists calling themselves the “Greenwash Guerrillas” presented a highly experimental new business model to passersby in downtown Portland on Tuesday. Drawing their inspiration from so-called carbon neutral companies like Portland’s Climate Trust, the activists claim to be launching a new company called “Cheat Neutral.”

“Have you cheated on your girlfriend recently?” Lynne Tucker of Cheat Neutral asked a passerby, “For $19.95 we can clear up your conscience with an infidelity offset, and fund someone else to be faithful and neutralize the heartache in the world.”

The prank was part of “Fossil Fools Day”, an international day of protest focused on the energy industry and climate change.

North Carolina residents kicked off the day of action in the US at 6:30am by locking themselves to bulldozers to stop the construction of a massive coal-fired power near Charlotte, NC. Police arrived on the scene and arrested 8 people, using pain compliance holds and tazers on those locked down.

Earlier, climate activists in Nottingham, England blockaded the offices of E-on, a company trying to build a new generation of coal-fired power stations in the UK, while another group in Wales halted work at one of the biggest opencast coal mines in Europe. Globally, more than 150 actions are expected on April 1st.

The events were called for by the international Rising Tide network in conjunction with Rainforest Action Network and the student Energy Action Coalition.

Portland’s action took place a half block away from The Climate Trust, which claims to “neutralize” businesses’ and individuals’ global warming impact. The activists say that this practice is akin to the Catholic Church selling “indulgences” during the 16th century. It is believed Portland’s protest was the first at a carbon offset company in the United States.

“Just like taking a faithful couple out to dinner doesn’t make cheating on your partner ok, paying money to forest parks and carpooling services does not “counteract” pollution from your car,” said Sakura Saunders of the Greenwash Guerillas. “We aren’t going to prevent a climate meltdown by asking people to plant a tree for every time they fill their car with oil. We need to revolutionize public transportation so there is no need to fill cars with oil in the first place.”

The activists point out that many offset projects of questionable integrity, relying on rough estimations and generalizations. Forest protection offsets in particular, which are a sizeable chunk of Climate Trust’s portfolio, have been exposed in the media as being scientifically dubious. Most of the carbon temporarily absorbed by the trees gets released into the atmosphere when the tree decomposes or burns, while fossil fuel carbon is inert unless it is extracted and burned. As such a tree can’t neutralize a smokestack.

“By selling the idea that climate change is something you can only address if you can pay for it, offset companies distract from these real changes that are needed to stop a climate catastrophe,” said Anthony Villagomez of Cascadia Rising Tide. “There is no way to negate our pollution; the solution to climate change is to stop burning fossil fuels.”

Contact:

Brian Sloan, Rising Tide (General Contact)
971-533-7483 / falsesolutions@risingtidenorthamerica.org
Sakura Saunders, Rising Tide (On site contact 10:30am – 2 pm only)
510-271-8080

Online: www.fossilfoolsday.org and www.cheatneutral.com

Greenwash Guerrillas tackle major greenwash leakage at Shell HQ

greenwashguerillas — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 21:30:36 +0000

On 3rd January 2008, at about lunch time, the London Rising Tide Greenwash Guerrillas discovered a major source of greenwash at Shell HQ in Waterloo, London. The Guerrillas entered the lobby for an inspection but were so repelled by the Greenwash that they had to leave (the security assisting their escape).

The police helpfully showed up to show the Guerrillas where the public pavement started and the infected area began and helped out by making the scene look more official and scary. The public were very receptive to warnings of contamination and seemed quite concerned. A lot of flyers were given out and people seemed interested to know what was going on, with a few people running away after heeding warnings of contamination.

After an hour of exposure, the Guerrillas retreated for the sake of their health; but a healthy dose of skepticism and honesty soon sorted them out.

Leaflet handed out on the day:

International Hoax Targets US Business Consortium Amidst Bali Climate Negotiations

greenwashguerillas — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 21:20:47 +0000

Climate activists with the international Rising Tide network embarrassed the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a lobby group composed of 33 prominent businesses and organizations, by distributing a spoof press release declaring that the consortium’s members had committed to a 90 percent reduction in their greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. In addition, the spoof release called for an immediate moratorium on the construction of all new coal-fired power plants.

“To stabilize our climate, reductions need to be based on science, not on creating windfall profits for the world’s largest polluters,” said Matt Leonard. “Leading scientists say decisive action must happen now to reduce our emissions. However, corporate interests have stymied substantive action and are derailing genuine efforts of civil society to adequately address climate change.”

The fake press release was picked up by several media outlets, including the Dallas Morning News, UK Hemscott and several blogs before journalists realized that USCAP members would never agree to such progressive reductions in carbon emissions or a moratorium on coal plants.

Furthermore, Rising Tide activists have done dozens of interviews with media and even received calls from real USCAP member companies about the website and press release.

Rising Tide used the phony website www.climateactionpartnership.org to distribute the release, which mimicked USCAP’s site, www.us-cap.org. USCAP’s members include many of the largest US corporations, including Alcoa, BP, Caterpillar, ConocoPhillips, Dow, DuPont, Ford, General Electric, General Motors Corp., Johnson & Johnson, PepsiCo, PG&E, Shell and Xerox.

The hoax was timed to coincide with the opening of a major United Nations climate summit in Bali in an effort to expose the disproportionate influence of large corporations on the climate negotiations and the lack of initiative from corporations on reducing fossil fuel use. Rising Tide said that they will now transition the site into an archive of environmental misdeeds and human rights abuses of USCAP’s members.

“USCAP says it is serious about stopping climate change, but these companies have not put their money where their mouth is,” said Brian Sloan of Rising Tide North America. “It’s time to base our policies on science and the safety of our communities, not on someone’s bottom-line.”

Rising Tide is an international network of all volunteer grassroots activists who target corporations responsible both for climate change and for blocking efforts to find solutions to it. Activists in Australia, the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom and Indonesia participated in the hoax.

###

SPOOF PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release
December 3, 2007

Contacts:
Joan Adams, Parsons & Fischer, 202-684-8097, jadams@parsonsfischer.com
Jack Escobar, Parsons & Fischer, 202-683-8451, jescobar@parsonsfischer.com

Information at www.climateactionpartnership.org

MAJOR US BUSINESSES ANNOUNCE COMMITMENT TO REDUCE GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS BY 90%

Washington, D.C., Dec. 3, 2007 – The U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a consortium of 33 prominent businesses and organizations, announced today a commitment amongst its members to a 90% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The announcement was timed to coincide with the opening of a major United Nations climate summit in Bali.

“In an effort to encourage decisive action in Bali this week, USCAP’s members have committed to a 90% reduction in their greenhouse gas emissions by 2050,” said Matt Leopard, a spokesperson for the consortium. “This commitment should send a strong message to the assembled countries and businesses about the type of reductions needed to stop global warming.”

USCAP’s members include many US market leaders such as Alcoa, BP, Caterpillar, ConocoPhillips, Dow, DuPont, Ford, General Electric, General Motors Corp., Johnson & Johnson, PepsiCo, PG&E, Shell and Xerox. USCAP’s goal is to further public policy that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect the climate.

The announcement from USCAP’s members also includes a mid-term commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 45% from 1990 levels by 2020. Following the leads of NASA’s top climate scientist James Hansen, as well as bi-partisan political leaders, USCAP is also calling for an immediate moratorium on the construction of new coal-fired power plants.

Toward this end, USCAP is urging the US and other industrialized nations to enact a policy framework for mandatory reductions of greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors of the economy. USCAP has produced a comprehensive set of principles and recommendations for scientifically effective, socially responsible climate policy. This document, titled A Call to Action1, has been released by USCAP to underscore the urgent need for a comprehensive policy shift on energy and climate.

USCAP is the first consortium of major businesses to make such a commitment in hopes that it will yield to policy decisions to accelerate the deployment of zero-emission technologies and energy efficiency. In particular, USCAP is promoting landmark legislation for a government funded “Sustainable Job Corps.” This politically popular program would create 5 million jobs building a new public utility grid based on renewable technologies, with a goal of producing 50% of the US energy supply by 2020.

“USCAP has offered a plan for the US to lead by example in efforts to protect the climate,” said Matt Leopard. “The world governments assembled in Bali this week should begin a rapid transition to zero-emission energy sources and commit to a 90% reduction from 1990 levels by 2050″.2

USCAP’s website is www.climateactionpartnership.org.

###

In the news…

Greenwash Guerrillas Disrupt Carbon Traitors (ahem, Carbon Traders) Conference

greenwashguerillas — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 21:25:18 +0000

Rising Tide North America’s “Greenwash Guerrillas” paid a surprise Halloween visit to the Carbon Market Insights conference in New York City today. Posing as delegates, two protesters took the stage at the exclusive event and presented the 700 attendees with a “Deed to the Sky,” denouncing Carbon Trading as a sham approach to the fossil fuels crisis. The action was the first in the US to target the growing Carbon Trading industry.

“Carbon trading puts the most crucial decisions about the future of life on this planet in the hands of fossil fuel industry,” said protester Jessica Starr “the very industry that got us into this mess in the first place.”

READ ON FOR MORE INFORMATION, VIDEOS, AND PHOTOS!

Though heavily criticized by environmental and human rights organizations world-wide, Carbon Trading is the primary mechanism for reducing greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol, as well as in Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner’s (R-Va.) “America’s Climate Security Act of 2007.” The Carbon Market Insights conference brings together the leaders of the US financial, non-profit, and “eco securities” industries backing a domestic US Carbon Trading market.

READ ON FOR MORE INFORMATION, VIDEOS, AND PHOTOS

Lieberman and Warner’s bill, S. 2191, is expected to clear the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee in November. If enacted, it would create a system of tradable permits in greenhouse gas emissions, which would be gifted to status quo polluters through 2036.As these permits may be bought and sold for enormous profits on the marketplace, the environmental group Friends of the Earth has stated that the “Lieberman climate bill may contain the biggest corporate giveaways in American history”, valued at 1.5 trillion dollars. The European Emissions Trading System established under the Kyoto protocol has generated hundreds of billions of dollars of additional profits for the fossil fuel industry, yet most countries are failing to meet their greenhouse gas emissions reductions.”Gifting free, tradable property rights to the worst polluters does little to ensure reduction of greenhouse gas emissions,” said David Lee, another of the Greenwash Guerillas “Carbon Trading and the Lieberman bill are a subsidy for big polluters disguised as a climate protection measure.”

The Liebermen Bill allows the largest greenhouse gas emitters to “offset” or nullify their emissions by financing carbon reductions projects that take place in other locations, stalling implementations of technologies that will reduce greenhouse gases here. These projects, frequently initiated in developing countries, shift investment away from emission-reducing technologies domestically, and have also been criticized for not always delivering promised reductions. These projects have led to the displacement of low-carbon use communities in favor of large scale “clean development” projects including hydroelectric dams and genetically modified tree plantations. In Uganda, villagers have been arrested and even killed after being ousted from their land for tree plantations which they dared to cut down.

“Carbon offsets do little more than the selling of indulgences by Catholic churches in the 16th century,” said David Lee “it’s time to get serious about stopping climate change and shut these false solutions down.”

PRESS PACKET FOR THIS ACTION

Greenwash detected at British Museum

greenwashguerillas — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 21:43:03 +0000

The Greenwish Guerrillas struck again yesterday at the opening of the BP-sponsored ‘Michelangelo Drawings – Closer to the Master’ exhibition.As the doors of the British Museum opened on the first day of the record-ticket-selling Michelangelo exhibition, the Greenwash Guerrillas outfoxed security guards at the outer gates and unfurled a banner reading ‘BP sponsors climate chaos’ across the front steps of the building’s entrance. After a quick game of chase-the-Guerrillas, they set up camp outside the main gates, informing the public of the greenwash threat posed by BP’s hyper-slick sponsorship machine.

‘Enjoy your visit!’ said a security guard to everyone entering the museum.
‘Enjoy your visit and ask critical questions!’ said a Greenwash Guerilla.
One woman was heard to say, as she entered the museum refusing to accept a leaflet, ‘You can’t get us – we’re from the USA!’

This is what the poster for the exhibition became after it had spent a few hurried moments in the hands of the Greenwash Guerillas’ (very) ad hoc design department:

The police duly arrived, and proceeded to reassure us that they had just been bemoaning the perils of globalisation when they got the call to investigate our intervention.

The campaign against oil sponsorship of arts and culture continues. Look out for Art Not Oil 2006, opening in London on June 10th, location to be revealed…

The other side of the leaflet given out on the opening morning of the exhibition went like this:

BP is the sponsor of The British Museum’s ‘Michelangelo Drawings’ Exhibition, but what lies beneath the logo?

* 15 workers were killed and over 170 injured in an explosion at BP’s texas city refinery on march 23rd 2005. (Please remember the 15 today on the 1st anniversary of their deaths)

* ‘Oil gushes into Arctic ocean from BP pipeline’, IND 21.3.06

* ‘BP and Shell have discussed with the government the prospect of claiming a stake in Iraq’s oil reserves in the aftermath of war.’ Financial Times, 11.3.03

* BP has bankrolled Colombian paramilitary death squads in exchange for the ‘protection’ of its oilfields

* fossil fuel-induced climate chaos (or ‘global warming’) hit Europe in August 2003, killing tens of thousands of mostly older people in record-breaking temperatures

* ‘Exposed: BP, its pipeline, and an environmental timebomb’ Independent on BP’s Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil & gas pipelines, 26.6.04, which will be a human rights disaster & produce over 150M tonnes of CO2 each year for 40 years, causing untold damage to the world’s climate. (baku.org.uk)

* BP invests less than 3% of its annual budget on solar & other renewable energy sources, much less than it ploughs into advertising and public relations BP’s oil & gas operations throughout the world, eg. in Colombia (colombiasolidarity.org.uk/), West Papua (jatam.org), Russia, Angola, Alaska (time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1174706,00.html), and even here in the UK, continue to cause destitution and ecological devastation, as do all> oil companies.

But don’t be depressed – it’s still not too late to DO SOMETHING about all this injustice and climatic meltdown. How about…don’t fly/challenge corporations and those that let them peddle the illusion of their greenness/get a bike/send art to Art Not Oil/grow your own food/cut your emissions/ spread hope/start building a fossil fuel-free future NOW!

And on the issue of sponsorship, how about telling BM boss Neil MacGregor what you think:
directorate@thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

Info: www.artnotoil.org.uk &
www.londonrisingtide.org.uk
e: london@risingtide.org.uk
c/o 62 Fieldgate Street, London E1 1ES

You can find some more images attached, and here: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/03/336603.html

Greenwash Guerrillas not welcomed at ‘Ethical Corporation’ conference

greenwashguerillas — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 21:34:53 +0000

On Wednesday February 23rd 2005, the Greenwash Guerrillas (GGs) visited the second day of the ‘Ethical Corporation Business/NGO Partnerships and Engagement London 2005 Conference’, happily subtitled “How to make sure everyone gets what they want”.

The GGs, donning protective clothing and greenwash detection equipment from a safe distance, (and thus attracting the interest of local bored constabulary), timed their entry into the Swiss Cottage Marriott Hotel to coincide with a co-presentation by BP and Flora & Fauna International (FFI). Energetic hotel security and said police soon had the GGs out on their ears though, not being happy at the thought of the cosy chowdown between NGOs and corporations being interrupted by the likes of us, down-at-heel superheroes and superheroines that we are.

Unsafely out of harm’s way on the pavement outside, we were soon met by two employees of conference-organising ‘Ethical Corporation’ magazine, agitated in particular by the arrival in a blaze of sirens of an unmarked police car containing several plainclothes cops. It was dangerous I know, but I did engage in some dialogue with these employees, explaining my view that the conference represented a new and sophisticated form of colonialism, ie. the north trampling on the poor and oppressed of the global south under the gentle guise of corporate social responsibility. To the argument that economic growth is finite and killing the planet, they said we had to live and work in the real world, which is code for engaging with MegaCorp and refusing to entertain the possibility of a different, more compassionate system than capitalism.

They gave off an aura of parental exasperation at the antics of their silly, idealistic kids, and that our presence might burst the phony ‘we’re doing this to help people and planet’ bubble they had manufactured inside the conference, back to which they soon scuttled.

The BP/FFI workshop was titled ‘Multi-nationals and biodiversity. An unlikely match’. But in fact BP and FFI have quite an intimate relationship: BP boss Lord Browne sits on the FFI board, and his company has funnelled cash into it since around 1985, (www.fauna-flora.org/partners/corporate.html) Another interesting fact, which reveals neatly the way top London cultural institutions play their part in keeping the status quo ticking over profitably, is that until recently, both Browne and FFI Vice-President David Attenborough sat on the board of the heavily BP-sponsored British Museum. I thought you would also be chilled to hear that Annelisa Grigg, who represented FFI at the conference, once worked at top world-saver and carbon trader KPMG, and recently wrote a paper entitled ‘Mainstreaming Biodiversity into Business’.

This workshop was one of many shocking possibilities for us to focus on, but we chose it since we’ve been taking direct action against BP’s Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, its art sponsorship and its very right to exist for quite a while now and we like to keep the pressure on if we can. Last year the conference was targeted by people who had Coca Cola in their sights, which maybe partly why the police kept trying to get us to cross the road and have even less impact on the conference than we were already having. Which we refused to do, I’m happy to add.

Anyway, back to the mean streets of Swiss Cottage. We stayed another hour, braving the snow, talking to and posing for the Ham & High (local newspaper), laughing at the ridiculous sight of 8 or so policemen guarding 4 GGs, and occasionally persuading a returning delegate to smuggle leaflets into the building. Then we headed off, with inevitable plainclothes police escort as far as the nearest caff.

What did we achieve? Put a little pressure on NGOs, whose employees are often far from comfortable at the increasing sell-out to big business, let the world know that there is resistance in the north and the south to the grinding down of every natural and human ‘resource’ into profit…and gave the bemused citizens of Swiss Cottage a bit of a laugh on a frozen Wednesday afternoon. Until the next time…
————————–

Leaflet text:

(side A) CAUTION: TOXIC GREENWASH HAZARD!
YOU HAVE ENTERED A RESTRICTED AREA. YOU MAY NEED TO BE QUARANTINED DUE TO GREENWASH INFECTION. DO NOT PANIC.

INSTRUCTIONS;
1. IMMERSE YOURSELF IN THE FACTS
2. TAKE A HEALTHY DOES OF SCEPTICISM
3. ASK PLENTY OF HONEST QUESTIONS
4. TO MINIMISE TRANSMISSION OF THE VIRUS, DO NOT REPEAT WHAT YOU HAVE HEARD
5. DO NOT SHARE PLATFORMS WITH USERS OF GREENWASH.

THIS IS A PUBLIC HEALTH WARNING FROM THE GREENWASH GUERRILLAS

(side B) WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?

WARNING! – you are within choking distance of a serious spillage of ultra-powerful super-sophisticated extra-toxic corporate greenwash; (greenwash = profit-seeking environmental whitewash.) Today at the ‘Ethical Corporation’ conference, leading corporate polluters, such as Rio Tinto, BP and Shell – to name just a few – will use this networking event to hide their environmentally devastating activities behind a phony environmental and social façade.

Climate chaos threatens to devastate the planet unless we stop burning fossil fuels. But the solution is simple: LPG (Leave Petroleum in the Ground). This conference, as well as the myth of ‘corporate social responsibility’, represents the selling out of much potential opposition to industry and government-peddled fossil fuel madness, and the betrayal of communities fighting for their lives in the global south. You can’t put a price on the atmosphere, and market environmentalism will not prevent market-driven catastrophes.

EXAMPLES OF TOP DOLLAR GREENWASH:
* Shell – 2005 is the 10th anniversary of the Shell-sanctioned murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa; ‘Shell’s commitment to corporate social responsibility looks shallow in the light of the sustained misery of the people of the Niger Delta.’ And despite an expensive series of adverts telling us of Shell’s commitment to renewable energy, Shell actually spends a miniscule 0.6% of its annual budget on renewables. In true greenwash fashion, Shell’s actions do not match its words.
* BP – the world’s second largest oil company and one of the world’s largest corporations, BP advertised its new identity as a leader in moving the world ‘Beyond Petroleum’. At the time, it touted its $45 million purchase of the largest Solarex solar energy corporation. But BP will spend $5 billion over five years for oil exploration in Alaska alone. See also www.baku.org.uk
* Rio Tinto – renowned for its environmental and human rights abuses, Rio Tinto has in the last few years tried to clean up its image. The company promises that its mining operations will have a minimal impact. Yet at its Kelian goldmine in Indonesia, environmental abuses are affecting the health of the surrounding community. The mine produces over 14 tons of gold per year using the cyanide heap-leaching process, which produces contaminated water.

The NGOs here today, eg. Flora & Fauna Int’l, Greenpeace & WWF, are legitimising this corporate spin, and compromising themselves into the bargain.
How can we prevent further spills of greenwash? Send us your thoughts and theories…

london@risingtide.org.uk c/o 62 Fieldgate Street, London E1 1ES
Tel: 07708 794665 londonrisingtide.org.uk See also risingtide.org.uk