blood and petrol

beyond petroleum

""Their campaign worked. You can argue on whether they're green, but they've clearly gained brand trust and brand value," said Andrew Winston, co-author of the upcoming book Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage." [The Irish Times]

"As the world approaches a climate collapse that will likely consume millions of lives, this represents the most critical response to BP's latest ruse to appear anywhere in our 'free press'.

In considering the credibility of oil industry greenwash, one might deem relevant its documented history of subordinating human life to profits. One might describe its role in supporting dictatorships, in overthrowing obstructive governments, and in suppressing democratic movements. One might even refer to its tireless, fanatical attempts to deny the reality of climate change. But for the mainstream media every fresh deception should be judged on its own merits, in isolation from economics, politics, history, and simple common sense."

continued... Latest Media Lens Alert

And from an interesting paper on the subject:

"Analysis of a recent BP public relations campaign will attempt to show how its call for action masks an intention to carry on with business as usual. The call to the public to change their behaviours, part of a wider discursive formations, will be related to Fowler’s work on the food poisoning scare of the late 1980’s in the UK, whereby mounting criticism of food production techniques was transformed into a the consumer’s problem, who was showered with advice on what they could do in the home to reduce the risk of food poisoning. (Fowler, 1991). The BP discourse will be positioned as part of a wider discourse employed by business and the state which is designed to ensure solutions to this problem are all embedded within discursive formations which seek to preserve the goal of continued economic growth." [Trust me, I’m an institution: BP and climate change]

"Athan Manuel, who directs lands protection for the Sierra Club and who negotiated with BP officials over drilling in ANWR several years ago, gives BP only a qualified endorsement. "Compared to their colleagues in the oil and gas industry, they're the best," he said.

Manuel added, however: "Being the best of the oil industry is like being the smartest of the Three Stooges. At the end of the day you're Moe, you're still a stooge." [IT]