Tag: greenwashing

  I met up with a good friend of mine this past weekend at a local dive bar. As the liquor loosened his tongue, he took a moment to complain about the wealthy elites he works for. Or as he put it, “those rich f*cks”.

 My friend works for a non-profit, environmental group. The major contributors, all of the board of directors, and most of his coworkers are all wealthy. His new boss wants to focus on gifts for donations, such as tote bags that you can bring to the grocery store, rather than specific environmental causes.

 This non-profit environmental group is a microcosm of what is wrong with the environmental movement today. Environmentalism is following down the same path to irrelevancy that labor unions traveled when they made the decision that 2% raises mattered and political movements didn’t.

In the wake of the BP disaster, we’ve heard powerful stories from fishermen whose livelihoods may have been destroyed for decades or longer. However long it takes for the Gulf’s fish, oyster and shrimp harvests to recover, those who’ve made their livelihoods harvesting them will need to create a powerful common voice if they’re not going to continue to be made expendable. A powerful model comes from Seattle and Alaska salmon fisherman Pete Knutson, who has spent thirty-five years engaging his community to take environmental responsibility, creating unexpected alliances to broaden the impact of their voice, and in the process defeating massive corporate interests.

“You’d have a hard time spawning, too, if you had a bulldozer in your bedroom,” Pete reminds us, explaining the destruction of once-rich salmon spawning grounds by commercial development and timber industry clearcutting. Pete could have simply accepted this degradation as inevitable, focusing on getting a maximum share of dwindling fish populations. Instead, he’s gradually built an alliance between fishermen, environmentalists, and Native American tribes, persuading them to work collectively to demand that habitat be preserved and restored and to use the example of the salmon runs to highlight larger issues like global climate change.

The cooperation Pete created didn’t come easily: Washington’s fishermen were historically individualistic and politically mistrustful, more inclined, in Pete’s judgment, “to grumble or blame the Indians than to act.” But together, with their new allies, they gradually began to push for cleaner spawning streams, rigorous enforcement of the Endangered Species Act, and an increased flow of water over major regional dams to help boost salmon runs. They framed their arguments as a question of jobs, ones that could be sustained for the indefinite future. But large industrial interests, such as the aluminum companies, feared that these measures would raise their electricity costs or restrict their opportunities for development. So they bankrolled a statewide initiative to regulate fishing nets in a way that would eliminate small family fishing operations.  

Greenwashing is the unjustified appropriation of environmental virtue by a company, an industry, a government, a politician or even a non-government organization to create a pro-environmental image, sell a product or a policy, or to try and rehabilitate their standing with the public and decision makers after being embroiled in controversy.

John McCain’s campaign is going GREEN … and even trying to raise some funds via this greening. As a reach out to Birkenstock wearing eco-terrorists, it seems, the McCain campaign website now had eco-friendly items” for sale.  You too can have your “Bamboo Pique” “Go Green McCain Embroidered Polo Shirt with New Recycle Logo” in stone color, for just $50.  A ladies bamboo T-Shirt will run your $25.  An “unstructured organic cotton canvas” “Go Green McCain Visor” will run you $15. Time to raid your piggy-banks, you eco-terrorists, to help fund the “eco-friendly” McCain campaign.

$15 too much?  Well, there is always the $8 note book with that new recycle logo. “The lined sheets and notebook covers are colored with organic based inks.”

There are some things that fall beyond satire.

Who do they think they’re kidding?  Rebranding McCain as Mr. Enviroment?  Rebranding the Republican Party as the Eco-Friendly choice?  The McCain campaign must have a real disdain for the intellect of the American voting public.