It definitely didn't take me long to decide which controversial turn to first take my blog. A significant portion of my eight week coverage of the Big Oil Industry will contain my comparisons of green advertisements and press releases by various industry giants to that of other environmentally conscious organizations.
What is greenwashing? The U.S.-based watchdog group CorpWatch defines greenwashing as "the phenomena of socially and environmentally destructive corporations, attempting to preserve and expand their markets or power by posing as friends of the environment." This definition was shaped by by the group's focus on corporate behaviour and the rise of corporate green advertising. CorpWatch, along with other environmental coalitions (such as saveourenvironment.org and oilwatchdog.org), will be a main source for my research as their primary focus is to educate the public on how corporations actions affect the environment.
http://www.corpwatch.org/
On the Chevron website (http://chevron.com/), the company boasts about it's involvement and financial support for a Texas biodiesel producer. It is my opinion, the company's PR experts wanted to make sure that every energy reporter and much of the public knew about Chevron's dazzling green commitment.
On May 29, Chevron issued a press release about the plant's opening, preening over its commitment: "Chevron's investment is a tangible manifestation of the company's strategy to invest in renewable energy technologies," said Donald Paul, vice president and chief technology officer, Chevron. "Biofuels are playing an increasingly important role in diversifying our nation's energy portfolio. With growing demand, the nation needs all the sources of energy to contribute to supply. Our involvement with BioSelect Galveston will allow us to apply our world-class capabilities in transportation fuel manufacturing and distribution while expanding our knowledge and experience in large-scale biofuels production."
http://www.chevron.com/news/press/Release/?id=2007-05-29b
Only a few short months following this release, Chevron pulled out of the project and cut all funding to the biofuel research. Did the Big Oil company have true interest in the research? Or was the involvement just an excuse to look better as it turned its back? Lawsuits were filed against Chevron accusing the company of "fraud and misrepresenting its financial commitment to the plant". According to the Galveston Daily News ("Texas" Oldest Newspaper'), "Standard Renewable Energy Group and BioSelect Fuels, two members of a partnership that in December filed the lawsuit, stand by their claims that Chevron abandoned the Galveston Bay Biodiesel plant...The partnership accuses Chevron of using its participation in the project to convince shareholders, customers and financial analysts 'it was farsighted enough to invest in alternative fuels.' "
http://www.galvnews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=8833a31c1210163f
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4 comments:
This kind of stuff pisses me off, for 2 reasons:
1- That corporations intend on deceiving the public
2- That the general public allows themselves to be deceived because nobody asks questions - or demands corporations to be responsible for their claims.
Shell Oil is also running ads of how they are heavily researching biofuels, wind and solor power. What a bunch of crap. They have been responsible for conflicts and disasters on both an environmental level and human/political level.
Read this:
http://www.gcmonitor.org/article.php?id=255
btw - this is Judy
Looks like you're off to a great start, Betsy. (I'm Brant's aunt) It will be very interesting to see what you dig up. In case you're interested, our gas prices (in Italy) are working out to equal about $8/gal. Maybe you can discover why the disparity. Good luck!
We vote by how we choose to spend our money. Does demand generate supply? or does supply generate demand?
Webby,
Prices are determined by many factors, most importanly the interaction of supply and demand. In the case of oil, the demand for it is increasing more rapidly than the available supply. The demand is affected by rate of industrialization experienced in the world (i.e. more people can buy cars, more industries requiring oil). The supply is affected by what oil producers are willing to supply and the actual availability of oil. The sticky situation is that oil is a very inelastic good. This means that oil is a necessity item and not a luxury item is most people's budgets. That being said, the oil companies have a good incentive to increase price to maximize profits. Specially since there are no readily available substitutes for oil in the market of automobiles. The question of availability of oil raises even thougher questions: when will oil run out? what will happen to our way of living?
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