Yes well... Environmental Defense:
http://www.nonprofitwatch.org/edf/ Crony Environmentalism: Do conflicts of interest taint EDF's Advocacy on climate change? http://www.gregpalast.com/fill-your-lungs-its-only-borrowed-grime/ Fill your lungs it's only borrowed grime January 23, 1999 LONDON OBSERVER Gregory Palast Natural Resources Defense Council: http://www.nonprofitwatch.org/nrdc/ Environmentalism on the Take: Integrity of Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Challenged on Development of the Ballona Wetlands of Los Angeles --NRDC Trustees and Funders Linked to Wetland Developers And so on: >Stauber: ... Big environmental organizations, socially responsible >investment funds, and other groups perpetuate the myth that if we >just write checks to them, they'll heal the environment, reform the >corrupt campaign-finance system, protect our freedom of speech, and >reign in corporate power. This is a dangerous falsehood, because it >implies that we don't have to sweat and struggle to make democracy >work. It's so much easier to write a check for twenty-five or fifty >dollars than it is to integrate our concerns about critical issues >into our daily lives and organize with our neighbors for democracy. > >Many so-called public-interest organizations have become big >businesses, multinational nonprofit corporations. The PR industry >knows this and exploits it well with the type of co-optation >strategies that Duchin recommends. > >Jensen: This seems especially true of big environmental groups. > >Stauber: E. Bruce Harrison, one of the most effective >public-relations practitioners in the business, knows that all too >well. He's made a lucrative career out of helping polluting >companies defeat environmental regulations while simultaneously >giving the companies a "green" public image. In the industry, they >call him the "Dean of Green." As a longtime opponent of the >environmental movement, Harrison has developed some interesting >insights into its failures. He says, "The environmental movement is >dead. It really died in the last fifteen years, from success." I >think he's correct. What he means is that, in the eighties and >nineties, environmentalism became a big business, and organizations >like the Audubon Society, the Wilderness Society, the National >Wildlife Federation, the Environmental Defense Fund, and the Natural >Resources Defense Council became competing multi-million-dollar >bureaucracies. These organizations, Harrison says, seem much more >interested in "the business of greening" than in fighting for >fundamental social change. He points out, for instance, that the >Environmental Defense Fund (whose executive director makes a quarter >of a million dollars a year) sat down and cut a deal with McDonald's >that was probably worth hundreds of millions of dollars in publicity >to the fast-food giant, because it helped to "greenwash" its public >image. > >Jensen: How so? > >Stauber: After years of being hammered by grass-roots >environmentalists for everything from deforestation to inhumane >farming practices to contributing to a throwaway culture, McDonald's >finally relented on something: it did away with its styrofoam >clamshell hamburger containers. But before the company did this, it >entered into a partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund and >gave that group credit for the change. Both sides "won" in the >ensuing PR lovefest. McDonald's took one little step in response to >grass-roots activists, and the Environmental Defense Fund claimed a >major victory. > >Another problem is that big green groups have virtually no >accountability to the many thousands of individuals who provide them >with money. Meanwhile, the grass-roots environmental groups are >starved of the hundreds of millions of dollars that are raised every >year by these massive bureaucracies. Over the past two decades, >they've turned the environmental movement's grass-roots base of >support into little more than a list of donors they hustle for money >via direct-mail appeals and telemarketing. > >It's getting even worse, because now corporations are directly >funding groups like the Audubon Society, the Wilderness Society, and >the National Wildlife Federation. Corporate executives now sit on >the boards of some of these groups. PR executive Leslie Dach, for >instance, of the rabidly anti-environmental Edelman PR firm, is on >the Audubon Society's board of directors. Meanwhile, his PR firm has >helped lead the "wise use" assault on environmental regulation. -- War On Truth -- The Secret Battle for the American Mind, An Interview with John Stauber, published in "The Sun", March 1999. http://www.whale.to/m/stauber.html The greening of the environmental movement 1999 figures, in millions of dollars, for 20 environmental groups with largest contributions http://dwb.sacbee.com/static/archive/news/projects/environment/graphics/greening.pdf Environment, Inc. The Sacramento Bee's Expose: Environmental Organizations Are Now Big-Business http://www.pushback.com/environment/SacBeeExpose.html :-( Best Keith >http://groups.yahoo.com/group/carfree_cities/message/10300 > >NEAL PEIRCE COLUMN >For Release Sunday, June 24, 2007 > >© 2007 Washington Post Writers Group > >ëGREENí WALMART: AN OXYMORON? > >By Neal Peirce > >WalMart has been harvesting kudos for its dramatic ìgreenî promises. Even >Environmental Defense and the Natural Resources Defense Council have gone on >record praising the massive retailerís intentions to reduce >electricity usage in >its stores 20 percent by 2013 and to double the fuel economy of its trucks by >2015. >But author-activist Stacy Mitchell has tossed a firecracker into the >WalMart-environmentalist lovefest. In a Grist magazine article and subsequent >interview, she acknowledges that WalMartís commitments are no mere >ìgreenwashingî -- that they will in fact save substantial electricity, oil and >carbon impact. >But the green moves miss the mega-point, insists Mitchell, author of >the recent >book ìBig-Box Swindle.î WalMart along with such chains as Target and Home >Depot divert customers from close-in neighborhood or town shopping >to the outer >fringes of metro areas. >In fact the big retail boxes have displaced tens of thousands of neighborhood >and downtown businesses and focused the necessities of life into huge stores >that draw car-borne shoppers from large areas. Longer and longer drives are >necessary to buy milk or bread, pick up a container of paint or a lawnmower >part. >A principal result: shopping-related driving grew by a stunning 40 percent, >three times as fast as driving for all purposes, from 1990 to 2001 (the last >reported period). By 2001, Americans were logging over 330 billion miles going >to and from the store. A conservative estimate puts the current figure at 365 >billion miles, producing 154 million metric tons of CO2 annually. >Mitchell estimates that since WalMart accounts for 10 percent of all U.S. >retail sales, its share of the driving-caused emissions is 15.4 million metric >tons -- and likely more because the chain leads the way in auto-oriented store >formats and locations. And that figure is in addition to the 15.3 million >metric ton figure the company itself reports as the ìcarbon footprintî for its >U.S. stores and trucksí power needs. >ìBy embracing WalMart,î Mitchell insists, ìgroups like NRDC and Environmental >Defense are not only absolving the company of the consequences of its business >model, but implying that this method of retailing goods can, with adjustments, >be made sustainable.î >NRDCís Jon Coifman agrees this countryís current sprawling development form is >ìextremelyî detrimental environmentally, pushing oil consumption and carbon >emissions up significantly. But itís ìnot a useful or viable option,î he >suggests, ìto wish the big-box genie back into the bottle.î NRDC has never >issued a press release on the counsel that it is giving WalMart on >technical CO2 >issues. But it believes, says Coifman, that if the goal is lowering carbon >impact wherever possible, ìyou canít not deal with the largest single business >enterprise on the planet.î >The dilemma the enviros face is that the big-box companiesí intend to keep on >sprawling out to new store locations. Despite some recent slowdown, WalMart >plans to keep expanding by a rate of several dozen super-stores a >month. If its >goals are fulfilled, Mitchell estimates, the company by 2015 will >have expanded >its domestic footprint by 20,000 more acres. The new land will largely consist >of CO2-absorbing fields and forests, turned by the construction of the stores >and their parking lots into generators of surface oil and other petrochemicals >that get swept into nearby lakes and streams during heavy rains. >The same amount of retail space, notes Mitchell, could be absorbed in an >existing city or town fabric for about a fifth of WalMartís typical land >consumption. Auto trips would be shorter, many more errands done on foot or by >bike. >Which raises the question: how much new retailing do we need? The American >landscape is already littered with thousands of dead malls and vacant strip >shopping centers. As Jonathan Miller writes in PriceWaterhouseCoopersí yearly >advisory to investors, ìThe most over-retailed country in the world >hardly needs >more shopping outlets of any kind.î >When I caught up with Stacy Mitchell last week, she was in Augusta, Maine, >ecstatic about just-approved state legislation to slow down >big-store expansion. >Before approving any store 75,000 square feet or larger, Maine towns will be >obliged to commission an independent economic study of the impact on jobs, >public services, and the communityís downtown, followed by a public hearing. >The pathbreaking Maine bill was pushed by the Institute for Local >Self-Reliance, with which Mitchellís affiliated, helped by a coalition of 180 >small business owners. Not surprisingly, it was opposed by the Maine Merchants >Assn. (including WalMart and Target) and Maine Chamber of Commerce. >So hereís the intriguing future issue: How will major environmental groups >choose sides as grassroots constituencies mobilize state by state to actually >halt the march of WalMart and its sister big boxes across the American >landscape? > > >----- ### ----- >J.H. Crawford Carfree Cities ><http://groups.yahoo.com/group/carfree_cities/post?postID=St8kXb-yXwe >EgOOuWWfbUBGB3zlwuoYYDVdez0oofKFmw5QvzV0KsGLhL1bm9tmuWkBLuzzns53HNXsg0 >w>[EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://www.carfree.com/>http://www.carfree.com _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
