We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Corporate green-washing on Earth Day Apr 22

Click here to access article by Pete Dolack from Systemic Disorder. 

Dolack visits Union Park in NY City for the Earth Day celebration to distribute some anti-trade agreement flyers and discovers the fingerprints of corporations all over the event. His discoveries tell the story of corporate adaptation to environmental concerns. Such concerns stem from what is now a vast accumulation of evidence that the ability of the planet to sustain human and other life forms are now being threatened by the operations of corporations under a system that requires the ongoing transformation of the planet's resources into products for private profit using fossil fuels that are threatening the stability of our climate. 

This contradiction is obviously no problem for the public relations departments of these corporations. Their job is to transform perceptions of concerned citizens into images which portray corporations as working to solve such concerns. Dolack explains how they try to accomplish this feat, but also exposes the fallacies of such attempts.

(Note: the graph he displays in the article makes sense only if one clicks on it to bring one to the original source, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, which transforms it into a very interesting interactive graphic.)