Understory: the Official Blog of RAN

Hoax Website Spoofs US Greenwashing Gang

Today our friends at Rising Tide and other assorted organizations ; ) have been busy.

This morning, they launched a parodied website of the US Climate Action Partnership (USCAP). The US Climate Action Partnership claims to be “a group of businesses and leading environmental organizations that have come together to call on the federal government to quickly enact strong national legislation to require significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.”

uscrap

But with members like Shell, BP and Duke Energy, how serious can they be about reducing greenhouse gas emissions?

Anyway, a media release went out to media outlets in the US, the UK, Australia and Canada. The media release, and the subsequent press calls from PR firm “Parsons and Fischer” stated that USCAP was committing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2050 and calling for a moratorium on new coal fired power plants.

After dozens of interviews and putting the spoof site into the media and blogosphere, Rising Tide was able to generate articles in the Dallas Morning News (original since removed), UK investor wire Hemscott (also removed) , several blogs and more blogs.

Eventually the long arm of the fossil fuel industry shut the website down, but now before calling attention to their greenwashing antics.

But the post-wave of media has been even more interesting. The NY Times blogged it, the Guardian wrote an article and it’s quickly catching on in the blogosphere as the real USCAP has actually put out a press release.

The timing of this action coincides with the UN climate negotiations going on in Bali. The IPCC has sent dire warnings that we have 7 years to act before catastrophic weather created by global warming takes hold.

UPDATEReuters UK picked up the story.

UPDATE 2Wall St. Journal, Wired, Infoshop and an updated Guardian article.

UPDATE 3–More blogs: EarthTech, Guerilla News Network, gmercu, illiterally, Democracy and Chronicle, Energy Publisher and many more.

UPDATE 4: It’s also been found out that USCAP hired a high-powered PR firm, Powell-Tate, to respond to the action. Powell-Tate is best know for working for Big Tobacco and creating industry front groups to harrass critics.

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