Greenwash of the Week: Mattel’s Barbie B-Cause
We’re about a week behind on this one, but there’s more to come.
RAN activists (and polar bear!) take on Bank of America at Greenfest Chicago
RAN took on Bank of America at the Chicago Greenfest this weekend, with the help of some Chicago area activists, and a polar bear.
Perversely inspired by the Bank of America ATMs that seem to be all over Navy Pier in Chicago, and irritated that the only way to get cash involved giving BofA two dollars to use to fund coal funded power plants, we decided to bring a way to spread the message at Greenfest: creative non-violent direct action.
After a RAN-led non-violent direct action training, RAN activists—both ones who had been involved with RAN for years and who some who had discovered us at the Greenfest—decided to take on the global warming crime scenes that dotted Navy Pier. We were joined by a polar bear who was clearly concerned that the Bank of America was funding the coal that was leading to climate change and the destruction of his homeland.
Wear “Coal Kills” signs, the RAN activists paraded through the Greenfest and handed out leaflets to tourists and Greenfest participants. The polar bear, who was also wearing a “Coal Kills” sign on his belly, paused for some pictures with tourists.
The parade stopped at three ATM locations in Navy Pier, each which were promptly identified as global warming crime scenes. Activists put up signs telling the public that the ATMs were temporarily closed until Bank of America divests from dirty coal, and surrounded the area in yellow global warming crime scene tape. The polar bear did his part, putting up “Coal Kills” signs on the ATMS.
Of course, polar bears attract attention, including the attention of some of the Navy Pier authorities. After a brief escort back to the Greenfest, and a telling off, we were free to go. And the word that Bank of America funds coal and kills polar bears was heard loud and clear.
Preliminary Findings: The Supermarket Sleuths Report Back
Ever since TheProblemWithPalmOil.org went live, the supermarket sleuths have been checking out their supermarkets, pantries, and medicine cabinets, all looking for evidence that ADM, Bunge, and Cargill have snuck rainforest destruction into thier products.
So far, our sleuths have found 137 products that contain palm oil. They’ve found everything from Banquet Chicken Fingers Meal to Cocoa Pebbles to O Organic Butter Microwave Popcorn. From mainstream meals to organic snacks, palm oil seems to be found in everything. Not good news for the rainforest.
The Rainforest Agribusiness team will use this information to identify what companies we need to talk to about committing to never use palm oil in the future, and which companies we should begin to consider as major campaign targets. And we still need your help– we need you to head out with your friends, with your family, or just with yourself to check out what products contain palm oil, and what alternatives are out there. It’s incredibly simple– www.TheProblemWithPalmOil.org has all the information.
Interested in getting more involved in targeting the use of rainforest destroying palm oil in food? Want to figure out how this campaign could be morphed to suit your community or campus group? Then you should join our bi-weekly conference call. Everyone is welcome to join.
The first call will be Thursday the 22nd of May at 4:30pm Pacific Time. Here’s the conference call information:
Call this number: 1-800-220-9875
Then enter this passcode: 53705125#
We’ll talk about how you can get more involved in our Rainforest Agribusiness campaign, and take action above and beyond supermarket sleuthing. I look forward to talking with you!
I’ll keep on posting updates on the supermarket sleuthing as it is ongoing. And, of course, congrats to Glenn who currently has identified the most new products. He’s first in line for getting some cool RAN gear!
Canditates Focus on ‘Clean Coal’ while Mountains Fall
As Obama and Clinton stumped for “clean coal” in West Virginia this week something critical was left out—people. Despite the rhetoric around “clean coal’s” environmental benefits, the reality of coal for today’s West Virginians is anything but clean. Today, West Virginians aren’t focused on the potential promise of “clean coal,” they’re fighting the every day practice of mountaintop removal mining—the coal extraction method that has already erased more than a million acres of forest from across Appalachia. So while political candidates can pander to voters with the promise of some future better practice, it is the lived impact of coal extraction today that we must keep at the forefront of this election cycle and beyond.
For a taste of what it’s really like to live in the “Saudi Arabia of coal” check out Andrew Ward’s piece in yesterday’s Financial Times, Contenders Tread Carefully Through Coal Dispute.
When Maria Gunnoe started campaigning against open-cast mining on the mountains above her West Virginia home in 2003, she could not have imagined the ordeal that would follow. Over the past five years, her car brake lights have been vandalised, sand has been poured into her petrol tank and two of her dogs have been shot dead. The intimidation appeared aimed at silencing Ms Gunnoe’s criticism of a controversial form of mining that involves blowing up mountaintops to reach coal….[As Gunnoe says:] “We’re not tree huggers like the industry likes to portray us. We’re citizens fighting for our rights to protect our property and our health.”
Dynegy CEO Admits Uphill Battle on Coal Fired Powerplants
More from today’s Dynegy shareholder’s meeting in Houston today. CEO Bruce Williamson, a finalist for Fossil Fool of the Year, told his company’s shareholders “that only a few of the proposed coal-fired power plants in the United States will be built due to soaring costs and financing hurdles.”
He said that only plants that have “already started construction, have an EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contract or equipment committed to them,”"
Pretty big news. That sounds like we’re winning. Does mean that King Coal is going to pack up and call it a day?
Not bloody likely. Sooner or later they will initiate the backlash.
Keep up the pressure.
Houston RAN and Southern Energy Network Stage Die-In at Dynegy AGM
Environmental activists from six states -Michigan, Nevada, Georgia, Texas, Iowa, and Illinois - converged today to urge the Houston-based Dynegy corporation to halt construction on its six proposed coal plants.
Outside the meeting 100 activists rallied to speak truth to Dynegy’s power.
40 activists from Georgia, Texas and Alabama staged a “die-in” inside the Westin where the meeting was being held. They held space until police and security got them out of the building.
From their press release:
“Coal is a ticking time bomb for investors and the climate. From the destruction of Appalachian mountaintops to the millions of tons of carbon dioxide, mercury and other toxic pollutants emitted from power plants, coal plants are the country’s top source of global warming and mercury pollution. Yet Houston-based Dynegy plans to build six new coal-fired plants—more than any other company in the country.”
Lieberman-Warner Bill: Dirty energy in the name of climate protection
(This is a guest essay from our ally Cascadia Brian with Rising Tide North America)
On the surface, broad-based solutions to global warming appear to be emerging in Congress. But with even a meager scrubbing of the surface, Senators Lieberman and Warner’s “Climate Security Act” (S. 2191) - which is scheduled to be debated on the Senate floor in June - turns out to be perhaps the greatest greenwash of our generation.
Everyone who cares about the climate and a just energy future would do well to take a cold, hard look at the Lieberman-Warner (L-W) bill. It will frame the climate debate in the US for our generation.
If we don’t stop L-W in it’s tracks and go back to the drawing board for real solutions, we risk our bold local efforts for climate protection being trumped and even overturned by deeply misguided and corrupt federal policies. Sadly, most of the national environmental groups are taking a pass on L-W, not publicly taking a strong stand against the bill despite misgivings. At the moment only Friends of the Earth and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service are taking strong stands against the bill. [some weak-willed environmental groups are even supporting this insane bill!]
The youth climate movement cannot afford to remain neutral and silent on this rapidly moving train. The time for demanding “action” on climate is over, we must define and demand “real action” and speak out against these deadly dangerous distractions.
A few highlights from the bill:
- Besides the inherent problems of carbon trading, the bill gives tradeable carbon permits valued at one trillion dollars to the fossil fuel industry for free.
- The revenue from portion of carbon permits that are auction is directed straight back to back to polluters through hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies to the coal, oil and automobile industries, and nuclear power.
- According to an aide to Senator Lieberman, the bill “would be the most historic incentive for nuclear in the history of the US“. It is estimated that throughout various incentives in the bill $500 billion could go to nuclear power.
- Carbon permits are given first - before all other auctions - to NEW coal facilities, giving incentive to new coal construction before other forms of energy.
- The bills targets are well below what the UN recommends, especially the short term goals: virtually no national reductions in emissions would occur before 2020.
Friends of the Earth provided one of the first analyses of the bill and kept examining the legislation as it changed. Read the updated analysis of the bill.
Here’s a chart showing who benefits from the bill:
Worse, a number of Nuclear amendments have been discussed on Capitol Hill may include some, or even all, of the following:
- more money for taxpayer loan guarantees for new reactors
- more money for “risk” insurance if reactors are delayed because of interventions or other licensing problems
- establishment of “interim” storage sites for high-level radioactive waste
- speed-up of Yucca Mountain licensing
- further restrictions on public participation in reactor licensing
- money for training nuclear engineers
- money for training skilled workers (like welders)
- money for security guards and improvements
- money for Hardened On-Site Storage
- money to build new factories to manufacture large reactor components
- money for new transmission lines
- money for transformers
Take a stand - contact Friends of the Earth or the Nuclear Information and Resource Service for more information.
Weyerhaeuser Gives RAN a Webcam!
Weyerhaeuser, by way of its iLevel brand, has been broadcasting the construction of a new house in Reedley, CA live over the Web.
Quick background: In northwestern Ontario’s stretch of boreal forest, Weyerhaeuser owns and operates a major mill which obtains wood from the traditional territory of the Grassy Narrows First Nation. The community has not consented to logging on their territory and has backed a moratorium but lacks the ability to enforce it.
So we sent two our finest out to Weyerhaeuser’s construction site to use a bit of their own technology against them. Annie and Adrian found the site yesterday and deployed a large banner reading “Wake up Weyerhaeuser; American Dream Home, Native Nightmare” directly in front of the company’s auotmated webcam.
Ten minutes later, the image made it to Weyerhaeuser’s site.
But why stop there?
Back at home base, we noticed a great feature of the site, an archive:
But it’s password protected:
Luckily, our folks are a bit smarter than their folks:
Mobilize This! CEOs get an earful at shareholder meetings!
Talk about “direct action at the point of decision.” Mini-mobilizations and actions around the 2008 shareholder season has been quite lively. Especially around the issues of coal and climate.
Three weeks ago, Citi and Bank of America’s CEOs got earfuls about their investments in the coal industry inside and outside their meetings in New York and Charlotte. Last week, Duke’s CEO Jim Rogers got more of the same about the company’s Cliffside plant in North Carolina.
On Wednesday, the Clean Up Dynegy Coalition (I heard carloads are going from Georgia to raise some hell over the Long Leaf plant) will be holding Dynegy to account inside and outside their shareholder’s meeting in Houston.
Over the years, I’ve done my fair share of inside and outside actions at the shareholder meetings of Exxon, Halliburton and Wells Fargo. It’s an exciting set of tactics that have reminded me of the mass mobilizations that occurred at the beginning of this decade around corporate globalization (ex: Battle in Seattle).
These “mini-mobilizations” have the potential to not only send a message to corporate and media decision-makers about a company’s wrongdoing, but also help build a grassroots movement and direct action community that make a living revolution possible.
I am glad the climate movement is on it!
RAN on the Radio
Ever heard of Corporate Watchdog Radio? It’s a weekly radio show and audio/video podcast on issues that you most likely care about (since you read the Understory).
Last week the Business Ethics Network offered RAN a Commentaries spot on the Corporate Watchdog Radio show. I recorded a short piece on biofuels - a timely week for it in light of the global food crisis and riots in many countries. Listen here.