15 December 2009

The controversial biotech company, Monsanto has won the Angry Mermaid Award 2009.

At a press conference this morning at the UN climate talks, the award-winning writer and journalist Naomi Klein anounced the biotech giant had won with 37% of the total vote.
 
Oil giant Shell took second place (18%) in the Award for lobbying to sabotage effective action on climate change, followed by the American Petroleum Institute (14%).

 Ten thousand people voted in the Angry Mermaid Award, named after the iconic Copenhagen mermaid who is angry about corporate lobbying on climate change.

Riding the crest of the wave is the ex-British Chancellor Nigel Lawson, who is rapidly re-inventing himself as a climate sceptic cause célèbre.

The timing of the leaked emails this week could not have come at a better time for Lawson, who launched his new policy think tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation yesterday in the House of Lords.

Lawson calls the new think tank an “all-party and non-party think tank” and has registered it as an educational charity.

This will please the corporate lobbyists no end.  The longer they can delay action on climate the better.

But now Copenhagen’s iconic mermaid is striking back. She is pissed off with climate change and the lobbyists.

So a group of NGOs, including SpinWatch, has launched an award  – called the Angry Mermaid – to highlight how corporate lobbyists are sabotaging action on climate, whether it be at Copenhagen or domestically in the US.

Practically every politician of every persuasion may have it in for the banks, but not our Boris. The heavy-weights of London’s financial services industry have been schmoozing the London Mayor to assist them in their fight against EU regulation of the industry.

Particularly in the lobbyists’ sights is the EU’s AIFM Directive which intends to tighten up regulation on hedge funds and private equity, both of whose antics are seen to have contributed to the financial crisis.

Simon Walker the CEO of the BVCA – or British Venture Capital Association – that represents 95 per cent of all UK-based venture capital firms, has been working to butter up Boris nicely to help them make their case.

 31st March 2008

Industry lobbyists are dominating parts of the European law-making process, according to a new report launched this month by Alter-EU that analysed the membership of a number of Commission Expert Groups.

The report "Secrecy and corporate dominance - a study on the composition and transparency of European Commission Expert Groups" reveals that industry representatives have a disproportionate influence on a number of the Commission's most controversial Expert Groups, including advisory groups on issues such as biotechnology, clean coal and car emissions.

Expert Groups are established by the Commission to provide advice on the development of new laws and policies, giving group members considerable power over EU legislation, the report says.

The report author Yiorgos Vassalos of Corporate Europe Observatory said: "Expert Groups are responsible for shaping policies on some of the most controversial issues being dealt with by the European Commission. Information about who has access in this crucial initial stage of decision making is not made public, but our research shows that industry representatives are playing an important role. These groups should act in the public interest, but it appears that some are being allowed to further their own commercial interests."

17 March, 2008

If the scientists are right climate change is the biggest threat facing humanity. Hardly a day goes by without a dire warning of rising temperatures, increased drought, more violent weather, and melting ice-caps.

One of the criticisms of the mainstream media is that, when it comes to ecological issues, they might preach others to change their ways, but are unable to do so themselves. Editorially they may take a progressive stance on climate change, but their paper is still filled with offers for cheap flights and planes.

Sometimes the irony is just too much: Take the front page of Sunday’s Observer . The paper ran the headline “Glaciers melt ‘at fastest rate in past 5,000 years”. To accompany the news piece there was a link to the feature article “Lost glaciers start countdown to climate chaos”. Underneath was an advert for Ryanair offering: “1 million free seats: No Taxes, fees or charges”.

The Observer warns us about climate chaos, but continues to take advertising from companies that are directly responsible for the coming chaos.

Twice over the last month we have received emails from people who say they just happened to be surfing the web searching their name and found something that we had written that they disagree with.

 Now I don’t know if this is a new phenomenon where there are millions of people at work and home happily “googling” their name to see what happens. If this is true I hope your name is not something like “John Smith”, otherwise you are going to get repetitive strain injury. 

Anyway one of the emails was from Richard D North who, in an “idle egocentric moment,” had been trawling on line and found a letter I had written to the Evening Standard concerning one of his articles. 

Now for those of you who do not know Richard, he has become something of a bete noir of the British environmental movement, a bit like the Canadian corporate lackey, Patrick Moore. Patrick Moore still labels himself a founder of Greenpeace, as he sells his services to various polluting industries, over twenty years after he left the organisation.

North may not be able to claim such kudos on his CV, but does rake up being an ex-environmental correspondent for the Independent to beef up his credentials. But that was a long time ago too and he is now a fellow at two right-wing think tanks the Social Affairs Unit, and Institute of Economic Affairs.

Just over two years ago, I gave a talk on climate skeptics and included in passing the fact that the organization, the Science Media Centre, networked with known skeptics, including those from the LM crowd.

In the audience at the Royal Society of Chemistry event was science writer, Vivienne Parry, who is on the board of the SMC. Parry asked me to justify my comments and said, in an email “if you have any material which you think demonstrates bias, political/corporate pressure or whatever in relation to the SMC - send it to me, and we will discuss it at the next SMC board meeting.”

I sent the SMC a dossier of material on various aspects including the issue of bias, especially in relation to its work on climate and genetic engineering. My concerns were dismissed by the SMC’s board. In an email Alan Winter Chairman of the SMC board wrote “Whilst we note your concerns, we are reassured by the overwhelmingly positive feedback we have had about the Director and her team from the hundreds of leading scientists, press officers and journalists who make regular use of the Centre.”

Sadly for the SMC the ugly head of bias has surfaced again, but this time on nuclear power. Earlier this month, the British government gave the go ahead to a new generation of nuclear power plants. In response the SMC issued a press release, entitled “Major energy and engineering institutions support new nuclear build”. This was picked up by the Nuclear Industry Association which ran the same headline on its website.

 10 January 2008

As the British Government announces the go-ahead for a new generation of nuclear power plants in the UK, Nuclear Spin reveals the pro-nuclear covert campaign underway in British schools.

For example, in 2006, the national curriculum was changed so that it became compulsory for schools to teach all 14-16 year olds about nuclear power. The move was largely sparked by a report for the Department for Trade and Industry written by the Nuclear Skills Group, made up of Government officials and a panel of six ‘independent members’.

In the report only one, Paul Thomas, was said to be working for BNFL. But NuclearSpin has discovered that two more members were also working for BNFL.

One of the nuclear industry’s largest education projects is called Energy Foresight, run by Young Foresight, which in turn has been paid hundreds of thousands of pounds by nuclear organisations to develop a set of teaching materials “that present radioactivity and related issues in personal and social contexts.” Energy Foresight’s material’s have been criticized by independent nuclear consultant John Large as “a blatant piece of propaganda… it misleads”.

For more on this go here