Dear All,
How are you?
Please find following the most recent issue of the Gallon Environment
Letter (please see e-mail following:). Is this of interest to you?
With best wishes,
Matthew
(text follows:)
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Matthew Ellis
Administrator (Graduate and Short Programs)
Science, Technology & Environment Division
Royal Roads University
2005 Sooke Road, Victoria, BC
V9B 5Y2
Tel. 250-391-2557, Fax 250-391-2610
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://www.royalroads.ca <http://www.royalroads.ca/>
-----Original Message-----
From: Gary Gallon [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2001 2:18 PM
To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;
Subject: Cold War Replaced by Eco War
THE GALLON ENVIRONMENT LETTER
506 Victoria Ave., Montreal, Quebec H3Y 2R5
Ph. (514) 369-0230, Fax (514) 369-3282
Email [log in to unmask]
<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Vol. 5, No. 21, May 30, 2001
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COLD WAR GIVES WAY TO THE "ECO WAR"
With the collapse of the USSR, the "Cold War" dissipated and a major
threat to national security was removed. Gone is the "Iron Curtain".
Gone is the mass nuclear threat. Gone is Che Guevara. And gone is the
"Domino Theory". Yes there is China as an emerging world power. But it
also has become a new economic partner. Certainly it provides the world
with most of its toys. Except for Bin Laden and his merry band of
mercenaries, not much has jumped up on the Cold War radar. That is until
now. But it is not the Communists. And it is not the "Cold War." Instead
it is the growing demand for environmental protection vs. the growing
resistence (particularly by the oil companies) to environmental
protection (particularly climate change). The growing conflict can be
called the "Eco War." Environmentalists are blocking logging roads and
rushing the barricades in Seattle and Quebec City. Environmentalists are
being shot and killed around the world and being gassed and thrown in
jail at major trade conferences.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
are taking Eco Wars seriously. Each have opened up units to track and
monitor radical environmental conflicts in their own countries and
worldwide. They are beginning to see a new threat to the status quo
emerge from the radical fringe vowing to kick polluters' asses. The
greens are serious and are becoming radical. They have to - - some
industry sectors are tired of paying for cleaning up, other industry
sectors (read fossil fuels) feel, some say, dinosauric and on the verge
of extinction - - they will do anything to stay in business, include
ignoring the warnings of Kyoto. The environmentalists have been
radicalized by the polluters' new leader, U.S. President, George Bush.
If you can't trust the President to protect your national wildlife
reserves, if you can't trust the President to enforce existing national
standards, then vigilantism sets in - - you have to do it yourself. See
the CIA World Fact Book at
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html
<http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html> .
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RAG TAG ARMY OF GREEN WARRIORS
The ecofreaks are a new and growing ragtag army of youths, disillusioned
stock brokers, and the elderly. They are led by the research of
scientists and the warnings of responsible politicians. Their uniforms
are blue jeans, bandanas and gas masks. Their weapons are newsletters,
swear-words, ceramic tree spikes, pipes and stones. They wear gardening
gloves to grab red-hot tear-gas canisters to heave back at police. They
use modern technology and the internet. The greens joined with labour
and the national protection groups. While they decried "free trade" and
"globalization" and the power of corporations, what they really wanted
was to stop the plundering of "Mother Earth". The greens at the gate
have been joined by a new, more violent, "Monkey Wrench Gang" which has
popped up throughout North America. Led by "Earth First" and the "Earth
Liberation Front" (ELF), they have taken to torching luxury homes and
resort developments being constructed on wildlife habitat. They have set
fire to SUV's to protest what they call a vehicle that is the height of
over consumption and a very attack on the environment. Several months
ago they lit up 36 Sport Utility Vehicles at a Chevrolet dealership in
Oregon. The ELF is composed of small disparate groups of radicals that
consider Greenpeace a "wussy" weak-kneed organization. What caused many
of these well-off kids to ooze out of the bland neighbourhoods of
suburbia? Normally, you can't them out of the bars and their university
classes. It is their perception, rightly or wrongly, that governments
and corporations don't give a damn about the environment anymore. Bush
rejects Kyoto. NAFTA's Chapter 11 buries governments that try to protect
the environment. Provinces like Ontario have turned their environment
ministries into eunuchs, powerless to stop stoppable pollution deaths
like those that occurred in Walkerton. Visit the Earth First website
http://www.earthfirst.org/ <http://www.earthfirst.org/> . For more
information contact the Earth Liberation Front website at
http://www.earthliberationfront.com/main.shtml
<http://www.earthliberationfront.com/main.shtml> .
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*
DR. DAVID SCHINDLER HELPS DESCRIBE THE PHENOMENA
The phenomena may be best explained by one of Canada's leading
environmental scientists, Dr. David Schindler from the University of
Alberta. He co-authored a report with Dr. David Tilman of the University
of Minnesota, just published in the journal "Science". It warns of
"massive irreversible environmental impacts by the year 2050". It adds
that, "even the best available technologies, fully deployed, cannot
prevent many of the forecasted problems." Schindler said that ecologists
"know what the inevitable is. They see it happening all around them and
they see very little being done to prevent it." This fundamental concern
by scientists that governments are failing in their public duty to
protect the environment. This has sparked the normally lethargic into
action. This, coupled with the perception that some environmental
problems like global warming have brought out the worst in corporate
behaviour and the weakest in government responses, has sparked a sense
of "vigilantism" in some pockets. They say that, "if the governments
can't or won't - - then we will". Sociologists have shown that when
governments abrogate their duties, the vacuum created by this will be
filled by citizen action - even inappropriate action. Thus you have the
"Eco War". Forget the "Cold War". The new martyr is Chico Mendez, the
Brazilian environmental rubber tapper killed by developers. He has
replaced Che Guevara. The Monkey Wrench Gangs has replaced the guerilla
units. The battle cry is not "Communism Forever". It is, "Stop the
Corporations, Protect the Environment". The leaders are no longer
government totalitarians. They are local folk heros like "the Ragging
Grannies" and "Greenpeace".
You know it is a battle when environmentalists are getting killed - - 10
worldwide in the last year. You know it is a battle when members of the
ELF now rank on the FBI's Top Ten Most Wanted list, ahead of murders and
Mafia bosses. Before Seattle free trade was a boring affair, dealt with
in the corporate boardrooms and government offices. No major protests.
That all changed with the appearance of organized violence that nearly
stopped the WTO meeting in Seattle. It got bigger with the FTAA meeting
in Quebec City. More than 30,000 people drove, bused and flew to Quebec
City to register their concerns. The Eco Wars are here. It is up to us,
the corporations and the governments, to pay attention and to take
measures to defuse the situation. Maintaining the status quo won't work.
Pushing a mantra of uncontrolled free trade controls won't work. In
fact, it is just this dog-eat-dog push for free trade that is
contributing to the advancement of the "Eco War". See Dr. David
Schindler at http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/schindler.hp/schindle.html
<http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/schindler.hp/schindle.html> , and at
http://www.ualberta.ca/ERSC/schindler/dws1.htm
<http://www.ualberta.ca/ERSC/schindler/dws1.htm> .
CANADIAN FOREST INDUSTRY LAUNCHES PR CAMPAIGN
According to Aaron Freeman, a forest researcher, the Canadian forest
industry has begun to spend almost as much public relations about its
environmental record as it is spending on tree planting. If the forestry
industry had put the advertising money in forest renewal, it actually
might be contributing to a better environment, says Freeman. He wrote
that, "Canada's diplomatic corps is fully involved in a worldwide PR war
to defend Canada's forest industry and forestry practices." Forestry
executive David Emerson, speaking at an industry association meeting in
January, noted that forestry companies are losing the fight for
credibility in the world marketplace, and that environmentalists are
"whipping our asses." Aaron reported that, in 1998, forestry companies
and unions asked the federal government to help counter the
environmentalists' campaign. The federal and provincial governments had
already contributed $4.5 million to start up the International Forestry
Partnerships Program, whose mandate was "to communicate Canada's
sustainable forest management policies and practices" abroad. But the
industry said more was needed to counter the new market-based campaign.
According to access to information documents obtained by The Hill Times,
the federal government responded with an extensive public relations
campaign promoting the BC forestry industry. While some of the
initiatives the government undertook are not unlike assistance given to
other Canadian industries at trade missions abroad, the scale of the
effort was unprecedented, amounting to a comprehensive, taxpayer-funded
PR campaign that would have cost the companies millions of dollars if
they had to pay for it themselves. Visit the Canadian Pulp and Paper
Industry website at http://www.cppa.org/english/wood/index.htm/
<http://www.cppa.org/english/wood/index.htm/> . http://www.cofi.org/
<http://www.cofi.org/>
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DFAIT USING ITS OFFICES TO PROMOTE FOREST INDUSTRY AND
COUNTERACT CANADIAN ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS
Through the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
(DFAIT), the government used its global network of consulates and
embassies to make the forestry companies' case. In the spring of 1998,
U.S. environmental groups took out an ad in the New York Times listing
27 Fortune 500 companies that had pledged not to purchase wood cut from
endangered forest areas. The ad also listed several companies that
refused to make this pledge, an attempt to shame them into changing
their buying practices. Immediately following publication of the ad, the
Canadian foreign service PR machine went into high gear. Consular staff
were alerted in at least 10 U.S. cities. Staff called dozens of
companies named in the ad, including Hewlett Packard, Levi Strauss,
Mitsubishi, 3M and Hallmark. They compiled reports on the companies'
social and environmental policies, how each was approached by
Greenpeace, and who the relevant contact people were at the company,
recommending ways to make "future contact with these companies [and] to
inform decision makers of the Canadian viewpoint on sustainable
forestry." The government often responded to industry criticism by
hosting tours of BC forestry sites for foreign government, corporate and
media representatives. One such promotional tour for U.S. officials in
1997 cost Canadian taxpayers $80,000. The foreign service wrote letters
to major news outlets to counter pro-environmentalist media coverage.
When letters from concerned foreign timber buyers were received by
consular staff, they were sometimes circulated to forestry company
officials to obtain their input. When the Los Angeles City Council was
considering a resolution that would have required the city to purchase
only wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council - the standard
approved of by most Canadian and international environmental groups -
the Canadian consulate was quick to fire off a letter from Deputy Consul
General Dwayne Wright. Wright suggested that such a resolution would be
in violation of international trade rules, arguing that preference for
FSC-certified wood would result in "unfair discrimination against other
recognized certification systems," a dubious interpretation of
international trade rules.
Foreign missions regularly exchanged strategies on how to deal with
Greenpeace. In October 1998, when Greenpeace organized a visit by school
children carrying anti-clearcutting banners to the embassy in
Washington, DC, the embassy was briefed by staff at the Bonn embassy,
which dealt with a similar incident earlier that year. The Bonn embassy
was particularly engaged, hosting a three-city tour of "public and
private sector experts" in May 1998 to promote Canada's forestry
practices for business audiences. The embassy translated backgrounders
for the audience, and conducted an invitation-only lunch media briefing
at a hotel near the embassy. An email from the embassy noted that "More
active Embassy/Consulate involvement is of symbolic importance to many
it seems." Bonn also repeatedly urged Ottawa to pursue "civil legal
remedies" against Greenpeace. As part of their duties, foreign service
officers regularly contacted journalists to try to change the spin on
stories about Canadian forestry. In London, the High Commission worked
with a forestry industry PR firm, Pielle Communications, trying to
convince producers of a BBC "Newsnight" feature in May 1998 to provide a
more pro-industry slant. The staff also recommended arranging a
follow-up interview with BBC and a BC forestry executive.
According to a DFAIT spokesperson, "It's the role of the Canadian
government to promote products and commercial actions that create
Canadian jobs." He estimates that approximately 20 staff in the United
States, 15 in Europe and 10 in Japan all work part-time on "advocacy and
public relations" on forestry issues. Here in Canada, staff have taken
an "advocacy training session on forestry-related issues." He says
DFAIT's efforts are "complimentary to industry public relations," but
says the department "has to act at arms length; otherwise it has no
credibility." Forestry executives have modest praise for the federal
effort. Bill Dumont, the chief forester for Western Forest Products,
says his industry has had "excellent assistance from Foreign Affairs,"
but he points out that "for the magnitude of the sector in Canada, they
could be doing a lot more." Last year, multi-year funding was renewed
for the International Forestry Partnerships Program. The $1
million-a-year budget of the organization is split between the federal
and provincial governments. The BC provincial government also recently
announced that it will set aside one percent of all government revenues
from the forestry industry for a promotional campaign to buy BC wood.
The industry is calling on the federal government to match this $24
million-a-year effort. Aaron Freeman is an Ottawa-based writer.
Source,"Federal Forestry Flakking", by Aaron Freeman He can be reached
at [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> . Visit the
Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) site on
forests and the environment at
http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/sustain/EnvironIssu/forest/forest-e.asp
<http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/sustain/EnvironIssu/forest/forest-e.asp>
.
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Copyright (c) 2001
Canadian Institute for Business and the
Environment, Montreal & Toronto
All rights reserved.
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