This post comes from a recent email discussion with friends and family about Gunns - Old Growth Forest destroyers and ExxonMobil - the climate change deniers and denier funder.
It started when I forwarded a Wilderness Society email asking us to support the discontinuation of land clearing. Michael my brother in law replied and I replied back. Michael seemed to think that the fans at Live Earth who left all their rubbish were far more destructive than Gunns or ExxonMobil. These companies are two of the biggest offenders in environmental damage and this post is a hope that people will see them for what they are and make moves to bring them down. Gunns rule Tasmania (Australia) and all the people and businesses on that island. They are destroying everything and the politicians are letting them.
Michael Linke wrote:
Ahh Brooke....are you going to have kids? Are your friends, colleagues etc etc, so where are all these extra people going to live, get jobs, wear clothes etc etc. consumerism is here to stay because populations will continue to grow.
The worlds pop will be 9 BILLION by 2020. That’s 9 Billion poos a day! 9 Billion pairs of underpants, 9 Billion people who need to eat, it has to come from somewhere.
The only real solution is ZPG, which the catholic church opposes, so where does the real problem lie!!! Ahh an interesting debate at Christmas time I should think!
We cant continue to blame the “conglomerates”, they are simply meeting demand. A kid today has no idea where a carrot comes from, so he wont grow it, he will buy it!
I agree we all need to do something to reduce our footprint, but that is all we can really do, the blame game needs to stop and we as individuals need to change our lives, and not add to it.
Did you see the rubbish let after the live earth concerts, land fill, human garbage, not the Microsoft's and exxon’s, not the Gunns’, but people like you and me, zero respect, zero real understanding of the issue. That who we need to change.
M
Hi Michael,
Thankyou for this opportunity to talk about two of the destructive companies in the world. This is also an opportunity to provide you with perspective.
I'm casting this discussion a bit wider to include the receivers of the original email. It is important not to be defeated which is what you are sounding. Or perhaps you don't see this as your problem but mine and the group of environmentalists I share the same views with. These viewpoints are not from someone, for example who wants independence for their nation - a big and important topic affecting many people but not everyone. This topic of the environmental damage being caused is everyone's problem and we collectively have to do everything we can to stop it.
You say:
The worlds pop will be 9 BILLION by 2020. That’s 9 Billion poos a day! 9 Billion pairs of underpants, 9 Billion people who need to eat, it has to come from somewhere.
...
Did you see the rubbish let after the live earth concerts, land fill, human garbage, not the Microsoft's and exxon’s, not the Gunns’, but people like you and me, zero respect, zero real understanding of the issue. That who we need to change.
The planet *can* support 9 billion + people but not at the current rates of environmental destruction, and yes the attitudes shown are pretty terrible (it happens at every large public gathering). So yes, it is important to change people's attitudes and that can come from both angles - with the companies changing the way they operate to help set a good example, and from the grass roots up. But in comparing the attendees at Live Earth and the two companies mentioned, please consider the following.
Imagine a hillside of Old Growth forest supporting a rich and varied web of life. Trees that have been there for 400 years or more, native animals everywhere, a diverse range of other trees, plants, lichens, moses ... Now see that completely decimated - loggers move in with large equipment and rip out most of the Old Growth trees. Once that is gone the hillside is burnt to the ground to clean up the leftovers, destroying any homes the animals that lived there may have been able to find. Then a monoculture plantation goes down, row after row. 8020 poison is spread by helicopter or light plane to kill any wildlife that comes into the area to feed on the new seedlings. This is what is done in Tasmania at 40 football fields a day (*). Gunns and the "Public" (Govt) Tasmanian Forestry Industry are responsible for this.
(*) - In an email discussion with Michael on 15/2/2006 I provided him with evidence of "40 football fields a day" since he didn't believe it. This came from a direct quote from John Gay (MD of Gunns). That article is now no longer available (how surprising!). I could trawl through their company reports though I'll leave this an exercise for you.
See the following:
http://www.sprol.com/?s=pulping+tasmania
http://www.wilderness.org.au/campaigns/corporate/gunns/whatisgunn/
http://forestrytasmania.com/ - sounds of the forest dying
http://www.wilderness.org.au/campaigns/forests/tasmania/taxpayers_prop/ - taxpayers prop up old growth logging (IT DOESN'T EVEN MAKE ANY MONEY!)
http://www.wilderness.org.au/campaigns/forests/ - TWS Forests campaign
http://www.discover-tasmania.com/financial_review.html - has the following quotes which should make you feel pretty sick:
I didn't mean to kill all of them. But that's what I was doing. We had been feeding the animals, mostly wallabies, wombats and possums, the good carrots for two weeks. Then, on the third week, the boss covered the carrots in 1080 and told us to make sure everything was dead when we finished. Everything was dead, all right."
...
It is the only state that has made its corporatised forestry department, Forestry Tasmania, exempt from the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, the Threatened Species Act, the Freedom of Information Act, and the state's own Resource Management and Planning System. And, bizarrely, Tasmania is the only state that sets out to poison its native animals.
Deforestation relates heavily to climate change, the biggest threat to our modern civilisation.
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/070323/kyodo/d8o23ef80.html - cost in greenhouse gases of deforestation in indonesia
http://news.mongabay.com/2005/1210-fao.html - deforestation causes 25% of greenhouse gases (GHG)
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/eye/deforestation/effect.html - National Geographic - 80% of earth's forests have been destroyed
http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/society/deforestation.htm - why trees matter
We've put man on the moon, we can get around the need for the causes of deforestation. It just takes political will, which will be led by the people. The companies responsible have to stop immediately. We will all die if this doesn't change. This is not independance for a nation, this is what keeps us alive.
Now onto ExxonMobil, one company most people who have any knowledge about what they have done would like to put in a vat of boiling oil. One of the biggest reasons why the world has not so readily accepted the climate change science is due to the denial that went along with the science. Denial that presented junk science to try to debunk the true science of climate change (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science to understand the difference). Most, if not all denial, was funded by ExxonMobil. Each day that our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are not reduced below the sustainable level has made it that much harder to reach the target. We should have been making changes 10 years ago when the Kyoto protocol was drawn up. It is companies such as ExxonMobil and governments such as the Bush and Howard governments (I'll send information out on this soon) that may have changed life in the future more than it ever would have had to have been. Specifically looking at Exxon-Mobil:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/sep/19/ethicalliving.g2 - The denial industry
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/sep/20/oilandpetrol.business - Royal Society tells Exxon: stop funding climate change denial
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/exxon_report.pdf - Union Of Concerned Scientists report on the ExxonMobil tactics in its denial
Gunns and ExxonMobil are only two companies on this planet that should be made to cease and decist. Read around and you'll learn of many others.
To round off your list, you mentioned Microsoft. Despite their bad and possibly society damaging behaviours that we are all accustomed to hearing about, they are nowhere near on my radar compared to the practices of such companies as the ones described above.
People may want to be happy and may think I'm a bit of a downer. No doubt true though we have to face the facts and someone has to say it. Everyone has to do everything they can to change the trends that are driving the world. Things you can do:
- Reduce the amount of fossil fuels you use - drive less (catch public transport, ride a bike or just walk) and reduce your energy consumption. Don't buy it if you don't need it, and turn it off if you don't need it on.
- Reduce the amount of paper you use. Use recycled paper if you have to. See the http://www.summitrecycling.org/html/prere.html (precycling) message.
- The number one thing is to vote for a political party who are dealing with the
environmental problems realistically. The coalition government has to date not only denied global warming but has sought to undermine any efforts world wide to make changes. I will send more information about this out soon. They do not understand the problems we face. They haven't even set a true policy - they have not provided targets that we need to meet. They won't do this "until after the federal election". Basically they want to continue doing nothing. Infact, Howard is teaming up with Bush to try to continue to deny the problem and keep doing business as usual. War was not enough for Howard (Bonsai - Little Bush). If you need to see Australia take action about climate change then do not vote for the coalition. This election issue is bigger than industrial relations, interest rates or issues that have been important in the past. No party is so wrong on these things. But the coalitions attitude to the environmental problems which faces us IS WRONG.
All feedback and comments welcome.
Cheers,
Brooke
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