This week, General Motors Vice Chairman, Bob Lutz, defended his remark dismissing global warming as a “crock of s**t.”

For a moment, the remark felt like a refreshing glimmer of honesty—a break from the company’s misleading eco-pr and green concept cars. But Lutz took it a step further by insisting that his global warming denial has no bearing on GM’s product development, which he oversees.

Honestly, if a 911 operator told you they thought your heart attack was a crock of s**t, do you think your ambulance would be coming on time?

As gas prices soar and temperatures rise, the last thing we need is a corporate leader stuck in the past; someone who lacks the humanity and the forward thinking to address the real problems associated with global warming. As product development chief of GM, does Lutz expect us to believe he is the best candidate for developing innovative solutions to a problem he doesn’t think is real?

And we wonder why America’s largest car company is unwilling to take the lead in better fuel efficiency and alternative fuel sources?

Last week I told you that RAN supporters shut down interactive features on General Motor’s new greenwashing website, gmnext.com.

We posted pictures of student activists at the Detroit auto show protesting automakers on the site and thousands of RAN supporters flooded GM with comments supporting the students and asking the giant automaker to take real steps, not just greenwashing PR, on climate and green jobs.

Within a matter of hours GM shut down comments on the site.

Then, Christopher Barger, Director of Global Communications Technology for GM, came to our blog and wrote that they turned of the interactive features because “‘dialogue’ does not mean ‘open to demagogues.’” One of his employees–who it seems didn’t realize that her IP address identified her as part of the GM PR machine–going by the name “betty” also commented on our blog and started a lively conversation.

I know, hilarious.

Anyhow, Mr Barger also promised that they “are planning to have an open forum — possibly even a series of them – in the coming weeks where we will address green jobs, the quest for 100 mpg cars and other pressing environmental issues.”

Well, to give him credit, GM has announced the first of those forums.

Mr. Barger left a note on our blog and everyone who left a comment on the site got an email today announcing that:

“GM executive Brent Dewar will be on hand to answer your questions about GM’s environmental policies and initiatives. The chat will take place Wednesday, February 6 from noon to 1 p.m. EST. To access the chat, go to http://www.gmnext.com/LiveChat.aspx and register with your e-mail address. On the day of the chat, click the “Enter Chat” button and join the conversation.”

Great! Let’s ask some questions! I’ll be in the chat and I hope to see lots of RAN supporters there asking GM why they are doing so little about global warming, green jobs and social justice.

Don’t expect a lot of candor or honesty, we are, afterall, dealing with the PR apparatus of one of the biggest corporations in the world. Instead, I expect more of the same–greenwashing slogans and little real action.

According to a new Naomi Klein piece in the Nation, the “smart” money these days is on guns, not green. Private security companies, weapons makers, and disaster-response contractors can expect brisk business in the fast-arriving era of climate chaos.

Anyone tired of lousy news from the markets should talk to Douglas Lloyd, director of Venture Business Research, a company that tracks trends in venture capitalism. “I expect investment activity in this sector to remain buoyant,” he said recently. His bouncy mood was inspired by the money gushing into private security and defense companies. He added, “I also see this as a more attractive sector, as many do, than clean energy.”

Got that? If you are looking for a sure bet in a new growth market, sell solar, buy surveillance; forget wind, buy weapons.

According to Klein, the private war economy ramped up after September 11 is being re-geared to help the wealthy defend themselves from the angry, unwashed masses during the coming crisis. As she points out, it’s a much more reliable way of making money than actually trying to avert disaster in the first place:

Of course, there is still money to be made from going green; but there is much more green–at least in the short term–to be made from selling escape and protection. As Lloyd explains, “The failure rate of security businesses is much lower than clean-tech ones and, as important, the capital investment required to build a successful security business is also much lower.” In other words, solving real problems is hard, but turning a profit from those problems is easy.

In a way, the current administration’s refusal to engage with international efforts to curb global warming could be seen as yet another sweetheart deal for groups like Halliburton and Blackwater–they’re the ones who will benefit from destabilization resulting from climate change. There’s no shortage of perverse incentives, especially while governments allow polluters to externalize the true cost of their activity.

All this goes to show that we should be skeptical of claims that the markets, left to their own devices, will lift us out of this crisis. For many, it might be more profitable not to.

So I’ve been planning this online action targeting Citi for a while now.

I love it because instead of an online petition or a call in day, we’re using the internet to get Citi to call you!

Citi is the leading funder of the coal industry and coal is the single biggest source of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

Anyhow, I just got around to actually talking to someone at Citi. It was so fast, within 30 seconds of entering my number I got a call.

The woman had obviously already dealt with a lot of people today who wanted to talk about coal. She told me that she was supposed to collect my information and forward it to “senior management.”

So I gave her my info and asked when I should expect a call from “senior managment.” She said I probably shouldn’t expect a call. So I asked who at Citi did want to hear my voice. At first she said no one.

How sad.

I then asked if I could just get the email address where she was supposed to send my info and, much to my surprise, she gave it to me along with a fax number for the “executive response team.” I’m still undecided about whether to post the number and address or just try to get more people to sign up for a call from Citi.

So, if you’ve talked to Citi today, post your experience here and let’s compare notes!

A couple of weeks ago the Sierra Club reported that the No Coal movement has collectively stopped or held up 60 coal-fired power plants due to environmental concerns.  Today there are reports of  yet another grassroots victory! Voters in Wiscasset, Maine, on November 6, 2007 defeated a ballot initiative that would have allowed a 700 MW IGCC plant (Twin River Energy Center, proposed by Greenwich, Connecticut base National RE/sources) to move forward. The vote was 868-707. Complete story here.

BP . . . bp . . . bP?

However they capitalize it, BP is the winner of our nearly-weekly “Greenwash of the Week” award.

Why?

1. Because they put a revolting ad in my local paper today explaining that thanks to to BP we can all look forward to solving global warming by using hydrogen.

2. Because their entire brand identity is based on trying to convince people that burning fossil fuels is somehow the best thing we can do for the environment.

No, really, their ad guy says so.

Anyhow, a while back BP partnered with Rio Tinto (a giant mining company which, surprise surprise, has a history , er long history, er very long history of doing terrible things) to form a new company: Hydrogen Energy.

Well, that isn’t so bad? Maybe they just want to get a head start and beat their competition at providing clean renewable energy for everyone and a super low cost.

Um, maybe.

But if you even ever-so-gently scratch the surface of their marketing campaign you’ll see they’re just up to the same old same old: burning fossil fuels, causing global warming, abusing human rights, and making us all pay for it.

More »

“If you think those who have long challenged the mainstream scientific findings about global warming recognize that the game is over, think again…”

Great cover story in the current issue of Newsweek examining the decades-long battle to undermine the scientific consensus on global warming waged by Big Coal, Big Oil and industry-funded front groups such as the Global Climate Coalition and the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

While this isn’t exactly a breaking news story (Mother Jones, Rolling Stone, Al Gore, and our friends at Expose Exxon have long been on the trail of these efforts by skeptics to reposition global warming as theory rather than fact for years), it’s encouraging to see Newsweek climb a bit deeper in their examination and reach a broader audience.

And with global warming finally getting the front page attention it deserves in prominent national magazines such as TIME, Vanity Fair, and even Sports Illustrated, one can only hope that the skeptics are one step closer to running out of quarters in their never-ending game to mislead the American public.

Check out this Jewish Weekly article about the awesome youth who took downtown San Francisco by storm with their “Clean Up Citi” carnival last week. These inspiring and creative youth activists brought so much to RAN while they were here. It was really exciting to see young people from around the country learning about global warming and then taking really positive action to help stop it by calling Citi out for funding dirty energy like coal. Watch for more amazing actions organized by young people this year as our youth program, RYSE really takes off.

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of representing RAN at the Animal Rights 2007 conference in Los Angeles. RAN was the only non-AR environmental organization represented at the conference, which is a real shame, because there’s so much overlap between our movements in terms of our goals, strategies, and the issues we deal with. More »

OK - we know that forests trap carbon which helps reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. We know that planting trees and restoring forests increases the depth of this carbon trap. We know that transportation and power generation are great emitters of greenhouse gases. But have a look at this article from Daniel Howden, via The Independent, where he pulls information from research done by the Oxford-based Global Canopy Program and others to show that by preserving forests we are not only reducing atmospheric carbon, but that we are preventing the greatest CO2 emissions possible.

Deforestation: The hidden cause of global warming
In the next 24 hours, deforestation will release as much CO2 into the atmosphere as 8 million people flying from London to New York. Stopping the loggers is the fastest and cheapest solution to climate change. So why are global leaders turning a blind eye to this crisis?
By Daniel Howden - Published: 14 May 2007

Online article here

The accelerating destruction of the rainforests that form a precious cooling band around the Earth’s equator, is now being recognised as one of the main causes of climate change. Carbon emissions from deforestation far outstrip damage caused by planes and automobiles and factories.

Worth a read.