Posted by christian -
24 March 2010 at 1:30pm -
Comments
A week on from launching our Nestlé Palm Oil campaign, it's time to take it to the next level. Nestlé's response has been weak - they're trying to greenwash their way out of trouble. We need to put them on the spot.
Unfortunately, they've also been busy trying to prevent as much criticism as possible reaching their HQ. They've deleted Facebook pages, deleted people's comments, got our video pulled off Youtube for a couple of days, and finally blocked your emails to their CEO Paul Bulcke, telling him to sort it out.
So it's time to be a little more direct. We'd like you to call up the company's customer service line, and tell them that using unsustainable palm oil from areas of destroyed rainforest is simply unacceptable, that they need to cut all ties to the company Sinar Mas - including through intermediaries like Cargill - and that they need to do it now.
But it looks like they're actively blocking reasonable, informed criticism of their unsustainable business
practices.
Since Wednesday, we've been asking our supporters to
email Paul Bulcke, the CEO of the company, politely asking him to clean up
Nestle's business practices and stop using unsustainable palm oil that's contributing to the destruction of Indonesia's rainforests.
But from what we can tell, Nestle have been blocking the IP
address of our mail delivery software since Werdnesday afternoon. Rather than
engage with people's concerns, they decided to try and censor them. Just like
they did with comments on their facebook page - just like they tried to do with
our Kitkat subvert.
Posted by christian -
17 March 2010 at 6:31pm -
Comments
Oops! Pulled from youtube after a 'copyright' complaint from Nestle.
Update: Want to put your own copy of our video on your favourite video sharing site? Download the file now and be our guest! The more copies out there, the more interesting it will be for Nestle.
Dear Nestle's PR department,
Hey! How are you doing? I know that when we highlight the damaging effect your business is having on the Indonesian rainforests, it must be a bit annoying. I hope you understand that we're only trying to get your attention because using unsustainable palm oil in your products is such a very bad thing. You see, we just can't afford to let the Indonesian rainforests go up in smoke to provide land for palm oil plantations.
For one thing, although you said that you'd no longer buy direct from Sinar Mas - the suppliers of unsustainable palm oil from deforested areas of Indonesian rainforest - you made no such promises about buying from people like Cargill who buy palm oil from the same company. Really, if you're buying the same stuff, but via an intermediary, and you're not able to rule out supplies from APP, that’s not enough progress is it?
I started to wonder if you really cared about this issue in the way that you claim to.
But I guess what made me really wonder about whether you really cared was when you had our video pulled off youtube, citing ‘copyright infringement'. Now, I'm not a lawyer, but I reckon that maybe the terms ‘fair use' and ‘parody' might be relevant here.
Hmm, actually now that I think about it for a moment, I don't think you really care about copyright at all. I think you just wanted to stop people seeing the video! That's pretty lame. Seriously, censorship is just so... last century.
I might also point out that we've already been flooded with offers to host the video elsewhere, and that your move has generated even more interest in the issue on the blogosphere and on twitter.
To me, trying to censor our criticism doesn't seem like such a smart PR move. But then, what do I know!
Posted by christian -
15 March 2010 at 12:53pm -
Comments
You probably won't be too shocked to hear that BP
and Shell are developing even dirtier ways to profit from oil extraction.
What you might not know is that our pension money is being invested in the companies that are developing 'tar sands' - the dirtiest oil available. But that's the surprising heads-up from top ethical investment campaigners FairPensions.
Oil is rubbish. I mean, obviously it's been great - you
know, they way that it underpins what we call 'advanced industrial civilisation'
- that we can make it into petrol, plastic, pharmaceuticals, fertiliser. That's
obviously brilliant, because in my opinion all that stuff has (by and large)
been great. But now that we've got better, cleaner and smarter ways to power our
cities, run our cars and heat our homes forgive me if I find the black stuff a
bit... last century.
Posted by christian -
1 March 2010 at 10:04am -
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A new report from Friends of the Earth and oil finance experts Platform places a clear financial analysis of the Canadian tar sands alongside testimonies of those affected by the race to extract oil from the Albertan wilderness.
I was struck by the argument it makes that the Canadian tar sands are the 'test case' for an oil industry that wants to move into extracting dirtier unconventional oil in other parts of the world. The report points out other areas of tar sands around the world which are being eyed up by the big oil companies. As the authors point out:
Canada is the international oil industry’s test site – if it becomes acceptable to finance the tar sands of Alberta, then the global finance sector will have ‘normalised’ a disastrously high-carbon development path.
... As investment in technology in
Alberta brings down the price of producing synthetic crude
and as oil prices fluctuate in higher ranges, companies are
re-assessing the potential of operations in other countries. If extraction can be undertaken on the scale envisaged in
Alberta then it opens the floodgates for unconventional oil
extraction around the world.
In other words, if we allow ourselves to be persuaded that the environmental destruction and soaring carbon emissions that come with the tar sands in Canada is acceptable, we're basically saying that trashing the planet is just business as usual.
Posted by christian -
26 February 2010 at 5:15pm -
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An emissions performance standard would mean no more unabated power stations.
We almost did it. Thousands of you
emailed your MP via our website, WWF's, and with online campaigners 38 degrees.
And they listened, and turned out to vote, and we almost secured an emissions
performance standard - a legal limit to pollution which would have stopped dead
any future plans to build dirty, unabated coal power stations.
Posted by christian -
23 February 2010 at 8:09pm -
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UPDATE: Thursday - Day 3
The third and final day in the high
court turned out to be the best one so far.
The government's barristers
continued to try to defend the statistics that the Department for Transport had
used to support the case for a third runway, and it turned out to be a bit of a
minefield for them. (Perhaps because the statistics were basically pretty
shoddy.)
Posted by christian -
22 February 2010 at 4:23pm -
Comments
This time we're making arguments in court, rather than on top of a plane.
Just over a year ago, at the start of 2009, transport secretary Geoff Hoon gave the government's approval for a third runway at Heathrow airport. It would be accompanied, he said, by "the toughest climate change regime for aviation of any country in the world".
Cleaner planes, tougher regulation, green slots for takeoff and landing - the secretary of state was keen to broadcast the runway's green credentials. But it didn't make a lot of sense to me then - and it still doesn't.
Anyway, I'll get to spend a whole lot more time thinking about it this week, because tomorrow I'm off to court to report on a legal challenge to the controversial third runway decision.
Greenpeace is part of a coalition mounting a legal challenge to the government's Heathrow decision. Twelve other groups are also backing the challenge, including local councils, other NGOs, residents' groups - altogether, millions of people are represented.
In front of Lord Justice Carnwath, our lawyers will claim that the consultation the government held over the plans for Heathrow expansion was fundamentally flawed. They'll argue that the decision to expand Heathrow is at odds with the UK's overall climate change targets, and they'll also contend that the government hasn't made good enough plans to ensure there's enough public transport to serve an expanded airport.
It's a trio of challenges to the way the decision was made - and if the ruling goes in our favour on any one of the three points, the government's decision to proceed with the runway will be overturned, which is obviously going to lead to a pretty major rethink in transport policy.
We'll see what happens, but it's sure to be a comprehensive thrashing-through for the issues around the third runway, and I'm lucky enough to get to sit through the whole thing, in order to report back to you all.
Wish me luck... (And look out for updates from the court, or just outside the court, through the week.)
