If you buy it for me, I'll pay you back...

We better stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down...

Berkeley has always been beating to a different bongo drummer.

It's only fitting that the University responsible for the Manhattan project also function as the original command post for the Free Speech Movement - trading bomb for calm. You can see it everywhere. In People's Park, on the infamous Bloody Thursday of 1969, James Rector died at the hands of a police shotgun. Now, the former site of the anti-war protest is a nerve center for a satellite Food Not Bombs program - a fitting end to its tragic beginning.

The school has always been at the forefront of the progressive movement. And while there are still some programs that might seems a little sketchy, possibly calling in to question their current "independence of direction" --$500 Million donation from BP to develop biofuels, $10 Million donation from DOW for sustainability-- the city/University area of Berkeley is, yet again, still way ahead of the curve.

And I'm jealous...

Berkeley's City Council has a wonderful plan for the city to finance solar panels for its residents. Basically, the homeowners pay for their panels through a 20-year additional assessment on their homes, with said assessment GUARANTEED not to exceed what their electricity would cost from the power company.

Guaranteed cheaper. Definitively cleaner. Undoubtedly accessible. Brilliant.

But will solar be embraced?

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Berkeley going solar - city pays up front, recoups over 20 years
Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, October 26, 2007

Berkeley is set to become the first city in the nation to help thousands of its residents generate solar power without having to put money up front - attempting to surmount one of the biggest hurdles for people who don't have enough cash to go green.

The City Council will vote Nov. 6 on a plan for the city to finance the cost of solar panels for property owners who agree to pay it back with a 20-year assessment on their property. Over two decades, the taxes would be the same or less than what property owners would save on their electric bills, officials say.

"This plan could be our most important contribution to fighting global warming," Mayor Tom Bates said Thursday. "We've already seen interest from all over the U.S. People really think this plan can go."

The idea is sparking interest from city and state leaders who are mindful of California's goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020. Officials in San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Santa Monica and several state agencies have contacted Berkeley about the details of its plan.

"If this works, we'd want to look at this for other cities statewide," said Ken Alex, California deputy attorney general. "We think it's a very creative way to eliminate the barriers to getting solar panels, and it's fantastic that Berkeley's going ahead with this."

Read the rest of the article HERE.

Is it any wonder that they think they're the next Silicone Valley?

That's Ecofantastic!!! Day 3...

This whole week I will be honoring ecofantastic items...

Ecofantastic: A product/method/ideology so absurdly priced/developed/formulated that its irrationality transcends any purposeful usage and/or implementation into the present-day green movement, to the point of almost becoming fantasy.

Ecofantastic: Companies cleansing their bodies with green showers...

I'm sure if you had a chance to travel back in time and talk with Joey Stalin, maybe in a casual face-to-face at a Russian bar or something, if asked, he would probably consider himself to be a "nice guy." Similarly, if you asked two coal executives to produce a video extolling the virtues of their company, it might turn out like this parody ad [via The Sietch]:



The global market's edges are stressed at the welds with marketing manure, to the point that we no longer know what to believe. Picture a dump truck (like Mack's new hyrbid) stacked to the brim with a hay-like substance. In this "hay" you'll need to find some "needles," with said "needles" representing truly green companies (it's a difficult metaphor, so I hope you're able to follow). Basically, to put it lightly, the social atmosphere representing the green movement has been compromised, and among these needles are a bunch of pricks.

The movement has been flooded with media spin, lobbied officials, government cover-ups, corporate manipulation, and faux environmental groups. Heartening, I know.

Let's give some examples...

The press is always the most interesting, with their reporters vulnerable to every aspect of the CEO puppet shows. We are fair and balanced no more. Take Guardian reporter Terry Macalister and his obvious empathy for the sheepishly disguised wolf, Jeroen van der Veer, lead mafioso of Royal Dutch Shell [link]:

There is no stylish new shirt or contrasting tie...just a barely ironed shirt with frayed cuffs and a well-worn tie.

Van der Veer, a cost-conscious Calvinist who cycles to work at weekends "because petrol is expensive", is unwilling to discuss pay in any detail [Ed: $10.4 mil/year], saying only that he is focused on what he can do for the company, not on pay.

Right now I'm picturing Wavy Gravy on a wind-powered yacht saying, "Man, gas is righteously expensive!"

With this picture painted, you'd almost forget that the CEO's are the only swimmers in a sea of immediate change. Simply put: if they pull the plug, the power is out. Without nervous sweat, the kind of sweat reporters are empowered to create, what good does this article do? Why not focus on the big(gest) picture, the controversies surrounding Royal Dutch Shell? [Ed note: can you imagine fudging up so much stuff, that your fudges get their own Wikipedia page?]

Oil companies notwithstanding, take any field rife with pollution and look at what they've done. Most companies have simply washed their websites. Take Michelin's stunning interweb home, A Greener World, that gives conservation tips.

Unfortunately, 99.8% of those tips have abosultely nothing to do with the tire industry. While they do take a small portion of time and devote it to a newly developed "eco-tire," they don't even bother to quantify its purported environmental impact. Nevertheless the voluptuous white tire character is quite adorable, though. He makes me want to hug something.

And no, green-washing doesn't need to be complicated. It can be basic, well below the realm and reach of corporate behemoths. Take smaller companies like Chipotle (small in the sense that McDonald's divested their interest). They're odd marketing campaign, ripely brave in the face of American eating stigmas, distributes pictures of farm-raised animals to prove to you that the animals cooked up are, in fact, vegetarian fed and small farmed.

While research shows that this campaign does contain some green merit, only 50% of their beef is vegetarian fed. Additionally, only 66% of their chicken is naturally raised and only 25% of their beans are organic (don't worry, the sour cream is good). Keep in mind that vegetarian fed is not the same as naturally raised, with the former referring to a corn-only diet, a diet unnatural to cows.

So in all earnestness, if Chipotle wants to distribute pictures such as these, their pictures should also include A) 50% of the beef being injected and slaughtered in inhumane conditions B) 33% of the chickens pictured should be sucked up through vacuum tubes on their way to the kill foloor, and C) 75% of the bean fields need to be photographed next to acidic soil caused by inorganic fertilizers.

Let's just get the ball rolling. Here are some prime examples of major corporate green washing/showering/bathing/anointing:

Conoco's plans to buy carbon offsets so they can go ahead with a $600 million expansion project in the Bay Area. That project alone is expected to increase carbon dioxide emissions by 500,000 metric tons EACH year. Their offsets include spending $10 million to fund a $7-million offset program under the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, a $2.8-million reforestation effort and a $200,000 wetlands restoration project. (In addition to their Maryland town hall meetings)

The Blue Planet Run by Dow, an ironic $10 million sponsorship, considering they could have spent the money cleaning up its human rights violations in Bhopal, India, where one of its Union Carbide companies leaked poisonous gases 22 years ago, claiming tens of thousands of lives. Oddly enough, the run is for cleaner water.


BP's Whiting Turner Refinery's glorious environmental Fact Sheet in relation to their earlier plans to dump an average of 1,584 pounds of ammonia and 4,925 pounds of sludge mixed with 21 million gallons of contaminated wastewater into Lake Michigan.

The Bush Administration's silencing of critics, including leading government climate scientists who warn of consequences from global warming.

Exxon Mobil and their cues from the tobacco companies. Oil is good for you!

So if you wanted to really break it down, who are the notorious violators? How do you judge?

Officially, (according to corpwatch.org), you follow the UN Global Compact, a partnership that asks businesses to adhere to nine principles derived from key UN agreements. It's about time we start defining and analyzing what is and isn't proper practice.

But what I really want to know: how does all of this begin?

How do corporations known decades prior as polluters wiggle their way back into our good graces?

How are we now numb to their marketing spells?

Global Issues has simplified the process as follows, and states that the process also works when applied to both green washers and lobby climate change discussions (see: Kyoto). The movement flows as follows:

Step 1: Deny it
With this step, we saw a lot of skepticism initially coming from US-based scientists, many accused of reporting for big business interests, such as oil and automobile industries.

Step 2: Fight it
With step 2, and with climate change, WRI notes that step 2 has become “blame someone else for it”, referring to Bush’s attempts to criticize the Protocol for not imposing reductions on developing countries.

Step 3: Dilute it
With step 3, it is interesting to note that the climate change negotiations that led to the Kyoto Protocol involved extremely heavy concessions on steps and measures to take, in order to get the United States in on the agreement. To criticize later the Kyoto Protocol for being a political document (see below) is a cruel irony.

Step 4: Delay it
With step 4, many have criticized the US and others of delaying effective action or in other ways attempting to derail effective action.

Steps 5 and 6: Do it and Market it
Steps 5 and 6 still have to unfold for the climate change issue. At the same time, while the Bush Administration has at least admitted it is not against action on climate change (just that it opposes the Kyoto Protocol), it is spending money on research and technology.

Yet, combined with delay tactics, this may be a way to ensure the US doesn’t lose its position of power by implementing climate change measures. If its companies can find ways to be more efficient and clean, then it can gain clout and prestige and recognition of help save the world.

By going its own way, it is ignoring international issues and concerns, and so this can be seen as a political move to ensure economic and geopolitical success on this major environmental issue without consideration of the rest of the world. Unfortunately it is often this “go it alone” approach that also creates a lot of resentment against the US in the eyes of many around the world.

I don't really know how to end this post. Part of me feels dead to the world, part of me is overwhelmed with corporate critisisms and criticism's corporate, part of me wants to continue the post, part of me can't tackle the (mis)information, and part of me just wants some lunch.

I'm off to Chipotle.