While we wait for our fellow activists to be released, the campaign to hold ExxonMobil accountable rolls on.
Tomorrow will see actions in Japan and France, aimed at getting ExxonMobil to face up to their role in sabotaging global efforts to slow climate change. With these continued actions we hope to keep this issue in the public eye.
There are other groups working on getting the world's dirtiest oil company to clean up their act. They are using a variety of different methods to persuade the company to stop trashing the planet.
One of these groups is from right here in Texas, based in Austin. Campaign ExxonMobil are pointing out to the company's shareholders that ExxonMobil is the only oil company to ignore the problems associated with global warming, and the only major oil company without a strategy of renewable energy development. This denial of obvious risks to their business, they argue, could make ExxonMobil a poor investment in the future. Perhaps the people who run ExxonMobil will pay more attention when they include themselves in the list of people who will lose out if we don't take climate change seriously.
what they are doing is amazing! if i had the money i would be there now. please wish them all my support for ever and ever (when u see/ hear from them)
haha burn exxon! (or maybe just destroy it in a very enviro friendly way.....)
When we all combine our efforts, large faceless corporations eventually have to answere to the public.
ExxonMobile have yet to learne this, they still continue to put their profits before the future of OUR planet.
Global warming effects millions of people around the world.
ExxonMobile, YOU have to listen.
Posted by: Jon Beresford (UK) at May 28, 2003 04:08 AMGo Greenpeace.
It's times like this I remember what I read one time - 'America calls it Globalisation. The rest of the world calls it Americanisation'. I wonder if there is a link here???
It seem to me that they and many other large corporations (mostly Americans) who pollute our already overpolluted world
I am an X spouse of the giant Exxon/Mobil orgie. In the next few days I will give you information of what I witnessed while standing amoung the employees and other companies that traded with them such as Enron. I also want you to remember that untill we all demand changes in the rapid distruction of this planet that it also comes down to personal responsibilty. Its time to change.
Posted by: F. J. Thompson at May 28, 2003 07:39 AM
Misleading Statements in the Greenpeace Anti PVC List from March 2000
First Statement
A first check of the anti PVC list published by Greenpeace International in March 2000 ("PVC free future: a review of restrictions and PVC free policies worldwide") reveals that once again Greenpeace doesn’t stick exactly to the truth when dealing with PVC.
Greenpeace, which has presumably become known all over the world by wearing yellow PVC-jackets, tries to give the impression that the tried and tested plastic PVC has no future. First announced in the beginning of the nineties in Germany this assertion hasn’t become true by repetition. Due to growing consumers’ demand PVC production and processing has increased in Germany, Europe and word-wide. In Germany the consumers’ decisions for example granted PVC windows a market share of 55 % and tapestries a share of more than 50 %.
The anti PVC list can be regarded as a Greenpeace victims’ list. It contains public authorities and companies who have at sometime - often because of pressure exercised by Greenpeace - declared that they are willing to restrict the procurement of PVC in one way or another. Our experience is, however, that the actual conduct very often deviates from those declarations, something which has not been examined by Greenpeace.
Of course, it is not very difficult to give a declaration that only the smallest amounts of PVC, steel, paper, carton or other things are used, because this is a normal way to reduce costs. Also, you get Greenpeace off your heels and remain free to make individual decisions on whether to use PVC for special applications or not.
At least for the German local authorities and companies named on that list it is true that some former declarations are quoted but their later rescinding is not mentioned. For example the Environment Protection Agency (Umweltbundesamt) revised their former negative attitude towards PVC in their study from June 1999 ( Areas of Action and Criteria for a Preventive Sustainable Substance Control Policy using PVC as an Example) stating that a substitution of unplasticised PVC would not lead - provided that certain regulations are observed - "to an essential reduction of environmental risks". Concerning soft PVC it recommends careful examination in the long version of the study, in the summary, however, they recommend a substitution of soft PVC.
In the Länder Hessia, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Thuringia, Lower-Saxony and Berlin former restrictions in the procurement of PVC or its use in publicly supported building projects have been taken back wholly or in part. In the German Bundestag and in the conference of environment ministers attempts to ban PVC were rejected. The Enquete Commission appointed by the German Bundestag ( and not as Greenpeace claimed by the Federal Government) jointly stated: "without economic or ecological reasons the Enquete Commission cannot recommend the substition of PVC by other materials. Such a replacement holds the danger of shifting the problem if not even of an aggravation of the current situation." It is remarkable that Greenpeace does not quote this statement, but only the recommendation of the dissenting vote to avoid products made of PVC/wood composites.
As inadequate are also other statements on PVC restrictions in Germany (p. 18 f.) The restriction on petrol additives has nothing at all to do with PVC. The assertion that according to German waste directives disposing of PVC in land-fill is prohibited from 2005 is based on the directive of the Technical Regulations on Municipal Waste (TA-Siedlungsabfall) which says that all organic waste (this means that wood, paper, victuals and other plastics are included) can only be disposed of after initial thermal treatment.
A number of municipalities are enumerated in the Greenpeace list, that have allegedly given written declarations about avoiding or restricting PVC products in public procurement. Several former lists have been distributed by Greenpeace and have proven to be false. A poll carried out by the city of Viersen revealed for example that a list of cities drawn up by Greenpeace was partly wrong and misleading: many of the listed local authorities (35.9 %) have never passed a resolution to ban PVC, the majority (48.8 %) only called for avoiding PVC under certain conditions, e.g. if sensible alternatives were available. Furthermore, the 274 listed municipalities represent 2 % of approx. 16,500 in Germany. On another occasion Greenpeace had even declared that 800 municipalities had banned PVC products in public procurement.
The Greenpeace list on public procurement can also be interpreted thus: at least 98 % of the German local authorities purchase PVC products without restrictions.
Of more than 5,000 German companies with a turn-over of more than 100 million DM not even 40 are named, who allegedly have declared in letters to Greenpeace or some other way that they avoid PVC.
If they really do so, everyone can see for himself in examining the products of those companies: the underbody sealants, cables and dashboards of cars, products and packaging from building products stores, producers of electrical appliances and so on.
Conclusion: In spite of the pressure by Greenpeace the PVC industry is prospering. It has invested in recycling facilities and other ecological measures in Germany and in Europe. It is the measures for protecting the environment and for saving energy that contribute to the economic growth of the industry. Accordingly a big part of the sewage networks in Germany consists of PVC pipes and more than 50 % of energy saving windows sold today in Germany are made of this reliable plastic and help to reduce CO2 emissions.
Posted by: PVC...its a good thing at May 28, 2003 10:52 AMAs a postgraduate student currently in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney, I think what you activists are doing is laudable. I particularly liked 'Tigers, tigers, everywhere' and the following commentary - so dry, but the the first paragraph is a gem. The art of elegant writing has not been lost yet.
Posted by: at May 28, 2003 11:41 AM