I’m reprinting a piece from Meg Imholt, an intern at Greenpeace USA and V.P. of American University‘s environmental club, EcoSense. GM continues to fund and pimp fuel cell vehicles aka “The car of the perpetual future” or “The Last Car You Would Ever Buy — Literally.” The key point is Meg’s final one — “green” remains primarily a marketing strategy for GM:
Usually filled with listserv emails, notes from Mom, and reminders from professors, rarely anything stirring appears in my Inbox. However, Saturday brought the urgent subject heading: “PLEASE REPLY–Fuel Cell Car.”
Like any eco-minded undergrad, bringing a fuel cell car to campus is the stuff of my dreams. As a member of American University’s environmental club, EcoSense, this could be the eye-catching, consumer-educating event I’ve always imagined sponsoring.
Then, I read the email.
General Motors was using the campus to run its “gas-friendly to gas-free” greenwashing campaign with “Representatives on hand to give tips on how to achieve better fuel economy, info on GM‘s alternative fuel offerings, and hybrid technology etc.”
GM was looking for student sponsors, in this case: EcoSense’s green stamp of approval.
Hosting a hybrid and fuel cell car show may be the event of a student environmentalist’s dreams, but promoting GM is far from eco-friendly.
As I write this, GM is feverishly lobbying Congress for $25B that it was supposed to get in exchange for fuel economy increases. The company wants the money now, but without the efficiency strings attached. Do a few hybrid and fuel cell cars compensate for such destructive policies? Do they make up for GM‘s opposition to stricter CAFE standards? Or the corporation’s lawsuits against states for limiting car emissions?
Now, GM is asking students to greenwash?
I didn’t take the bait, and neither did the rest of EcoSense. Citing GM‘s culture of corporate irresponsibility, we refused to endorse the auto makers latest greenwashing scheme.
For GM, it seems that “green” is not a movement, but a marketing strategy. If GM wants to profit off a green economy, it needs a green business — one that puts efficient cars in showrooms and endorses, rather than interferes with, greener standards.
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Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
So you are against fuel efficiency tips?
No.
All credible NGOs have to base their activism on science to be worthy of respect. Greenpeace has lost credibility with me because of their anti-scientific stance against GMO agriculture. For example, how can Greenpeace be opposed to Golden Rice-a new way to provide vitamin A precursors to malnourished children? Greenpeace is on the right side of the argument with regard to climate change, but it is dead wrong on GMO agriculture!
And climate pearl harbors-that’s easy-major famine eg failure of the wheat harvest in India or Pakistan-Borlaug’s wheat rust has not been defeated. GMO agriculture could help.
max,
If you’re for science then you ought to oppose Monsanto’s fraud called ‘Golden Rice’ since it could only provide 9.9 micrograms of vitamin A based on a serving of 30 g when it is measured in dry weight. On that basis it would only meet 1.32% of the recommended daily allowance for vitamin A which is 750 micrograms. In fact ‘Golden Rice’ actually exacerbates the problem its maker Monsanto claims to be solving.
There is no information on how much vitamin A that genetically modified rice will produce. To get the daily recommended allowance a person would have to consume 2 kg 272 grams or 6 lbs of rice per day. That’s a lot of rice!
If it is Vitamin A deficiency you want to address there are much better foods to source vitamin A from because in order to absorb vitamin A the fat content has to be high. Here is a list of better sources for vitamin A that are widely available in India or Pakistan.
Source Content (microgram/100g)
Amaranth leaves = 266-1,166
Coriander leaves = 1,166-1,333
Cabbage = 217
Curry leaves =1,333
Drumstick leaves = 283
Fenugreek leaves = 450
Radish leaves = 750
Mint =300
Spinach = 600
Carrot = 217-434
Pumpkin (yellow) =100-120
Mango (ripe) =500
Jackfruit =54
Orange =35
Tomato (ripe) =32
Milk (cow, buffalo) = 50-60
Butter = 720-1,200
Egg (hen) = 300-400
Liver (Goat, sheep) = 6,600 – 10,000
Cod liver oil = 10,000 – 100,000
Golden Rice was only given as one example of the potential benefits of GM agriculture. I am not aware that Greenpeace is supportive of any application of GM technology in agriculture. I am not sure why you call it “Monsanto’s” golden rice-see the golden rice project website-the project is primarily supported by the Gates Foundation. On the golden rice home page you will also see that the level of pro-vitamin A has been increased in subsequent versions of the golden rice. If there are so many sources of pro-vitamin A why are there any children who are deficient?
By the way, I applaud Meg Imholt.
hey this looks like a great green way to protest.
Come on all climate change activist use your airports in the most effective way…
Protesters swarm Thai airport, takeoffs suspended
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/25/protesters-swarm-thai-air_n_146389.html
You’re right Monsanto doesn’t own it. It was created by Ingo Potrykus. It is currently not available for human consumption.
You can get the full daily allowance for vitamin A today with the foods I listed above and not in some hoped for future. ‘Golden Rice’ has cost around $100 million dollars to produce and will cost as much do develop. Furthermore they are much cheaper than ‘Golden Rice’ such as vegetables and unpolished rice.
But the real problem with these GMOs is the loss of biodiversity and the corporate control of the food supply at the expense of indigenous farmers. Companies like Monsanto promised higher yields from their GMO’s. Farmers used to trade seeds freely with each other because they were considered the property of society.
In the case of Monsanto the GMO’s must be purchased every year along with Roundup, a herbicide. The problem is that yields have actually gone down and Indian farmers have gone into debt. The number of suicides by farmers in India is up because of these corporate controlled GMOs have bankrupted them. This is why there is such mistrust of GMOs
Hello Rick-
I believe Greenpeace is doing some good work but they have been nothing but closed minded and obstructionist when it comes to GM agriculture. As a partial consequence of their and others fear mongering, excessive and expensive regulations have been put in place which make it very difficult to commercialize a GMO product-and then one hears criticisms that the industry is dominated by only a few large companies and that the products cost too much to develop! And that they are not being given away to the poor! Your suggestion that vitamin A rich sources of food are readily available is akin to telling hungry people that they should just eat food.
There was no agrarian utopia-it’s not that GMO agriculture leads to loss of biodiversity-conventional agriculture leads to a loss of biodiversity-are farmers supposed to cultivate weeds? And are all the farmers buying Monsanto’s seeds coerced or deluded?
OK, Joe – please ‘splain to me why we should engage in a blanket condemnation of GM.
Here are a few tidbits about evil GM. The company on whom we should turn out backs …
The Chevy Volt, a PHEV with a 40 miles electricity-only range. A car that would allow us to cut our petroleum consumption by 80%.
GM has spent a lot of money researching fuel cell vehicles. (Most of us thought that was the green route a few years ago.)
GM introduced a hybrid engine for their big rigs. (Yes, some people really do need big rigs with strong motors. My friend who does backhoe work and my neighbor who needs to haul a cattle trailer, for two.)
GM’s full sized pickup gets better gas mileage than does Toyota’s.
And this bit from their web site…
———-
… Chevy offers more models than Toyota or Honda with an EPA estimated 30 MPG highway or better. Select models of Aveo Sedan, Aveo5, Cobalt, HHR and Malibu all fall into the 30 MPG highway or better club.
….
The 2008 North American Car of the Year, Chevy Malibu, offers the best highway fuel economy of any midsize sedan. Cobalt XFE offers best-in-class standard highway fuel economy with an EPA estimated 37 MPG highway. That’s better than Toyota Corolla and Honda Civic.
——
The Chevy Impala gets as good gas mileage as the smaller and lighter Toyota Camry.
Now GM, back in the days of Roger Smith stunk as a company. But lately they’ve been seeking solutions to personal transportation that fit a changing world.
So please tell me why we should ignore their efforts and damn them to eternity. Why should we call there efforts to publicize their efficient products “greenwashing”?
i find the rabid anti-gm (in both instantiations) bias of greenpeace both sad and amusing: amusing because it is so sophomoric…i remember toking up in college & getting worked up about how venal the supporters of the vietnam war were; sad because i see the yoot of america wasting their energy bitching&moaning & contributing nothing of value.