See you at the climate march... 02 December 05

I’ll be there!

I’ve seen a lot of publicity from Chevron recently about what to do with Energy and the Environment recently. They have launched this site.

I’d be interested what others think about this. Is it a genuine effort to address the problems we have – or more of a PR exercise?

http://www.willyoujoinus.com/discussion/

More and more it seems that the oil industry are moving in the right direction. According to Leggett in his new book “Half Gone”, the really dangerous ones are in the coal industry!

Peter

Yes I’ll be there too. I’m really looking forward to this one! But Mark – “Contraction and Convergence Now” – it’s not the snappiest slogan or demand and doesn’t easily lend itself to the “What do we want … chant. Shrink and Share?

Some work to be done on this I think and it is a serious point as Chris Rose in his latest newsletter points out that the UK government has clearly framed nuclear as a solution to GW/CC. More at http://www.campaignstrategy.org/newsletters/campaignstrategy_newsletter_20.doc We need to be able to grab the initiative and frame for the benefit of future generations.

First BP and now Chevron. This is interesting and definately needs monitoring – well done Peter. The Chevron site is more energy security, end of oil oriented with (I think) no use of the term global warming. I’m all in favour of talking about the end of oil in the same breath as GW/CC as I’ve argued below.

The Chevron campaign as with the huge BP campaign it is a serious consciousness raiser. The sooner a “carbon consciouness” becomes mainstream the better. But then of course we need concerted action to follow.

I’ll try to find bloggers tomorrow and say hallo. I’m the one with the Scottish accent.

Douglas Coker

I am glad I went to the demonstration with my Polish friend, Jerzy, and my wife and baby were there – in spirit.

But I do have one abiding memory. I thought there was a good number of people on the march (was it around 10,000??) and I thought it was a good show. Then I walked back through Leicester Square and Covent Garden back to my bike and I could hardly move with people – i.e. it was easier to get around inside the demonstration than outside it. Consumerism still seems to be the big draw!

Peter

You can find some information about Chevron on www.corpwatch.org/ . There seem to be a lot of similarities with Shell: Both companies have tried to put pressure on politicians to impose strict GHG targets and to create a framework to make all companies reduce emissions (eg through a carbon tax). At the same time, they continue to profit from and cause terrible environmental destruction – I think Chevron still do gas flaring in Nigeria (I haven’t had the time to check this just now, but they were one of the companies involved). Mind you, Jared Diamond has on several occasions quoted Chevron as a positive example of a responsible business.

Like Lord Oxborough suggested when he was CEO of Shell – they support a framework to reduce emissions, but without a framework, they won’t do much good. If they have to compete with the likes of Exxon Mobil in an economy where the most polluting company can make the biggest profits, then they will do just that.

Almuth