Earth Day, INC.

[Guest guest]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/22/opinion/22JOHN.html?ex=1083636314 & ei=1 & en=

b82f18508c327d56

 

It's been bought and sold now.

 

Marking Earth Day Inc.

By GEOFFREY JOHNSON

 

Published: April 22, 2004

 

BOSTON

 

Welcome to Earth Day 2004, brought to you by petroleum powers, big-box

developers, old-growth loggers and chemically dependent coffee companies

trying to paint their public image green.

 

Let's start with Sierra Pacific, a benefactor of northern Nevada's

celebration of Earth Day. The timber company is involved in a lawsuit

aimed at weakening the Sierra Nevada Framework, which protects the region'

s forests. Marathon Oil is Earth Day's sponsor down in Houston. Behind

closed doors in Texas, Marathon worked on voluntary emissions regulations

that have helped give Houston some of the worst air quality in the country.

 

The Earth Day cleanup and restoration program held by the California State

Parks Foundation is financed by corporations with poor environmental

records in the state: ChevronTexaco, which recently agreed to a $275

million settlement over air pollution from five of its California

refineries; Wal-Mart, which lobbied unsuccessfully for a ballot initiative

in Inglewood to exempt a proposed supercenter from environmental

restrictions; and Pacific Gas and Electric, whose illegal dumping of

carcinogenic chemicals near the town of Hinkley was memorialized in the

movie " Erin Brockovich. "

 

In New York City and other areas, Starbucks has its own events, centered

around its latest slogan, " More than our logo is green. " Yet the company

will neither label nor remove genetically modified ingredients in its

products. And while it promotes its " origins " line of coffees as a symbol

of its commitment to sustainable coffee farming, the origins varieties

account for just a sliver of the coffee that Starbucks sells.

 

Some might argue that there is nothing wrong with corporations acting as a

friend of Earth Day, no matter how unfriendly their everyday operations

may be. Perhaps they are just showing solidarity with the millions of

Americans who support Earth Day each year to combat the necessary

environmental evils of their year-round lifestyles. But the reality is

that sponsorship is often intended not as atonement for misdeeds against

nature, but as a distraction from them.

 

Through concerted marketing and public relations campaigns, these

" greenwashers " attract eco-conscious consumers and push the notion that

they don't need environmental regulations because they are already

environmentally responsible. Greenwashing appears in misleading product

labels like " all natural " and " eco-friendly " ; in television commercials

showing S.U.V.'s rolling peacefully through the wilderness; and in the

co-opting of environmental buzzwords like " sound science " and

" sustainability " — which corporate executives render meaningless through

relentless repetition.

 

Earth Day events are select venues for greenwashers, allowing them to

communicate with their target audience of green consumers. They also

amount to a public relations bargain. BP spent $200 million rebranding

itself from British Petroleum to " beyond petroleum. " Major corporations

pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for environmentally themed

advertisements in high-circulation magazines like National Geographic and

Time. In contrast, at most Earth Day festivities, a few hundred to a few

thousand dollars will get a company marquee exhibition space and a

prominent place for its logo on publicity materials.

 

It would be a shame to let the high-flying banners of greenwashers

distract Earth Day participants from the environmental advocates,

community associations and government agencies that work to protect the

environment throughout the year. But it is also incumbent upon those same

groups — many of which are in the position of choosing who sponsors these

events — to adopt a strict screening process to separate the genuinely

green businesses from the greenwashers. Finally, let's not forget the most

charitable patron of all. Earth Day, like every day, is brought to us by

the generosity of none other than the planet itself.

 

Geoffrey Johnson is program coordinator of the Green Life, a nonprofit

environmental group.

 

 

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" These are dangerous times, speak your mind

and you dig your own grave. "

--Sinead O'Connor

 

 

 

 

" Neither charm nor patience nor endurance

has ever wrested power from those who hold it. "

-- Frederick Douglass